The Marvel Star Wars Link to Skeleton Crew’s Big Reveal

The third episode of Skeleton Crew slowly begins diving into something we’ve been thinking about since the very opening moments of the show: just who is Jod Na Nawood, anyway? We’re starting to get a little bit of an idea about him, but in doing so, we’re also getting to see a fun connection to Star Wars‘ roguish comic book history.

Episode three reveals to us that yes, Jod Na Nawood isn’t exactly Jod Na Nawood. Well, he is currently: he’s just gone by a few names in the past. One is Silvo, former captain of the pirates who imprisoned him at Port Borgo. Another is the owl-like Kh’ymm mentions when Jod and the kids roll up to ask about how to get back to At Attin that seemingly built up a significant part of his former life of crime, Crimson Jack.

While him being Silvo is no surprise if you were paying attention back in episode one (the masked mystery pirate not only sounded extremely like Law, but Law was even credited in the episode, despite Jod not appearing), the Crimson Jack identity is, as Law previously teased to io9 ahead of the series’ premiere, a fun nod back to a particular time of Star Wars‘ history at Marvel Comics.

Who Was Crimson Jack in Marvel’s Star Wars Comics?

Crimson Jack is one of the earliest original Star Wars characters Marvel created as part of its 1977 ongoing series, making his debut in “New Planets, New Perils!” the first original story to appear in the comic’s seventh issue after it concluded adapting the events of A New Hope. In fact, Crimson Jack becomes the reason why Han couldn’t pay off his debts to Jabba the Hutt after the events of the film. Jack—a broad, muscular, and bushily haired redhead who runs around scantily clad in tight Spandex yelling things like “I’m sure Mr. Solo has some cargo of considerably more value to us than his misspent life!”—and his crew corner Han en route from Yavin IV to Tatooine to pay off Jabba with the money given to him by the Rebel Alliance for rescuing Leia, forcing the smuggler to hand the cash over to Jack instead.

Jack becomes a recurring figure in this early era of the Star Wars ongoing, having a brief but fun rivalry with Han. Shortly after their first encounter Jack manages to successfully capture Han and Leia in an attempt to ransom them off to the Rebel Alliance for even more money, but the two manage to trick Jack into believing they know the location of a secret rebel treasury. Double crossing Jack, the Falcon and Jack’s own ship, a retrofitted former Imperial cruiser, are left in a standoff that sees Han and Jack duel out in the vacuum of space, and the latter ultimately shot dead by Han in Star Wars #15 after his own first mate, Jolli, turns on her former crew in retaliation to being left to die by Jack.

Crimson Jack Has Already Re-Entered Star Wars Canon

But while Jod might have taken his name in the past, the very different man that Crimson Jack is has already been re-introduced into Star Wars continuity. In fact, in a fun twist of fate, he’s almost a contemporary to Jod—the 2022 Galactic Starcruiser tie-in comic series, Halcyon Legacy, revived the classic iteration of Crimson Jack as a pirate haranguing the Halcyon in the era of the sequel trilogy. Throughout the book—which told tales of famous and infamous visitors to the starcruiser across its centuries of operation—Jack is presented as threatening the Halcyon after intercepting a transmission for the Resistance sent from onboard, hoping to cash in on a First Order bounty by turning the operative over. Of course, Jack was foiled, and has yet to been since… until now, technically?

What Does Crimson Jack Mean for Jod?

In all likeliness, the prior existence of a canonical version of Crimson Jack based on his appearance and persona from the classic comics and Jod having previously taken the moniker as his own doesn’t mean anything more than the fact that these are both fun nods back to a wild and weird period of Star Wars history—a time when everyone was still figuring out what Star Wars is, and could be, in the moments after the original movie changed pop culture forever. Just as cute as it was for the comics to bring the character back the best part of half a century later, it’s cute that Skeleton Crew, already playing in this space of pirates and smuggling, also wanted to evoke its own nod to that history.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the Crimson Jack and Jod are one and the same person. Perhaps Jod stole the persona just for the sheer cheek of it for a while, before ditching it for Silvo, or someone else. Maybe it was the other way around: Skeleton Crew takes place around the events of The Mandalorian in approximately 9ABY, five years after Return of the Jedi, and the canonical Crimson Jack in Halcyon Legacy is operating the height of the First Order-Resistance War 25 years layer. Could “Jod” have inspired such infamous legacy as Crimson Jack—one long enough to gain a level of notoriety that made him known to the New Republic, or even the rebellion before it—that inspired a new Crimson Jack to rise up all those years later?

Maybe. Probably not. In Star Wars, a reference is sometimes just a reference. Especially when it’s a name as fun as Crimson Jack.

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