Posted at May 4, 2020
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The 10 Weirdest Things from the Star Wars Expanded Universe

When Disney took over Star Wars, one of their first major decisions was to declare the entire Expanded Universe non-canon.  While that was controversial for some fans, it’s understandable considering what a convoluted mess the EU had become. To show you what I mean, here are ten of the strangest things the old Star Wars Expanded Universe had to offer.

#10: Indi meets Han

Fanfiction has a proud tradition of making two characters from different stories meet. Usually, they end up either fighting, making out, or both, but “Into the Great Unknown” is an officially licensed comic, so things turned out a little differently.

So, how do Indiana Jones and Han Solo meet? Well, it’s more like Indi finds Han’s body. In the comic, the Millennium Falcon crash lands in the Pacific North West and Han Solo is subsequently killed by Native Americans. 126 years later, Indiana Jones finds Han’s skeleton while look for bigfoot, who turns out to be Chewbacca.

This would have placed higher in the list, but since the comic was never meant to be treated as canon, I’m inclined to go easy on it.

#9: Jedi Master Soon Bayts

Master Bayts. This sounds like a joke. A dirty joke that a 13-yer old came up with, but no, he’s real. Here’s his page on the Star Wars fan wiki. There is no way this was an accident. Am I really supposed to believe that no one said his name out loud before approving it?

I really don’t know what else to say about this other than that yes, Master Soon Bayts is the actual name of an actual character in an officially licensed Star Wars comic.

#8: The Sun Crusher

Star Wars is no stranger to the occasional superweapon. From the Deaths Star to the other Death Star, to the planet that was basically a bigger Death Star, the Sith really seem to like blowing up planets. But no of them can even come close to matching the devastation of the most overpowered weapon in Star Wars history: The Sun Crusher.

This small, single-person craft had the power to destroy entire solar systems by making their sun go supernova. If that wasn’t overpowered enough, the Sun Crusher also had the power of being almost invincible and could only be destroyed by flinging it into a black hole.

#7 Zombies

Zombie media is a bit like zombies themselves; it starts with one, and before you know it, they’re everywhere. You might have thought Star Wars was immune to zombie infection, but it turns out that the walking dead are a recurring problem in the galaxy far, far away.

For example, there’s the time Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker had to fight their way through a horde of zombie Gungans, the species Jar Jar Binks comes from. But if that’s not your speed, there always the army of undead stormtroopers that made an appearance in the mobile strategy game “Star Wars: Commander.”

#6: The Epicanthix

Welcome back to “Is This Racist? Star Wars Edition.”

The Epicanthix are a race of human-like aliens from the planet Panatha. They are a proud warrior race with a long history of inter-clan warfare, but they still respect the finer points of art and culture. Oh, and their name is a reference to having epicanthic folds. That’s the anatomical term for the little folds of skin around on East Asian and some Native American people’s eyes.

So yeah, I’m not surprised this particular bit of trivia is no longer canon.

#5 Beldorian the Hut

You remember Huts, right? The giant slugs with arms? Java is the most famous, but a few more have popped up in the Expanded Universe over the years. Among them, one stands head and implied shoulders above the rest; Beldorian the Hut, the only Hut Jedi. He ends up fighting and being killed by Princess Leia in the 1995 novel “Star Wars: Planet of Twilight.”

It a good thing this particular lightsaber duel only happens in the books because there is no way that it wouldn’t look ridiculous in motion.

#4: Leia’s Bank Loan

As a rule, Star Wars generally prefers to skip over the logistical side of things. We didn’t come to watch Princess Leia and Admiral Ackbar bicker over whether they should be spending their budget on X-Wings or blaster rifles.

Whoever came up with “The Third Law” never got that memo. The comic centers around Leia’s attempt to secure a loan for the rebellion. She travels to a banking planet to make the deal but is interrupted when Darth Vader shows up and steals the jewels she had intended to use as collateral.

Weirdly, the comic suggests that Vader was more interested in getting the jewels than stopping the Rebels from getting the money. I can’t say I ever pictured Darth Vader as a jewel thief, but there you go.

#3 Skippy the Droid

Hey, remember that droid Uncle Owen almost bought instead of R2D2? You know, the one that shorted out seconds later? Well, his name is Skippy, and he was the galaxy’s only robot Jedi. You see, he didn’t explode by accident. His force powers told him that the fate of the universe depended on Luke meeting R2D2, so Skippy activated his self-destruct system, sacrificing himself for the greater good.

I feel the need to emphasize that I’m not making this up.

#2 Jaxxon the Space Rabbit

Back in the 1970s, Marvel won the right to produce a series of Star Wars spin-off comics. While they had to follow strict guidelines when adapting existing events and characters, they were free to explore the wider Star Wars universe as they saw fit. Somehow, I don’t think green Bugs Bunny was what Lucas Film had in mind when they agreed to that deal.

First introduced in 1977, Jaxxon is a green humanoid, kickboxing, rabbit mercenary, which is not a sentence I thought I would ever have to write. The captain of the Lucky Foot, he and Han Solo went on to form a ragtag band of space adventurers known as the Star-Hoppers.

#1 Mount Sorrow

A name like Mount Sorrow should bring a pretty clear image to mind. Saying the words conjures a vision of barren icy crags reaching menacingly toward the sky. Naturally, the Ewoks had to go and ruin everything.

Mount Sorrow appeared in the “Ewoks” comic in 1989 and is a sentient crying mountain. Not only that, but it’s tears have mystical healing properties, making them quite in demand.

Now, I’m not saying that was the exact moment Star Wars became a parody of itself but it’s definitely a contender. Personally, I feel confident in my decision to name Mount Sorrow as the number one weirdest thing in the Star Wars Expanded universe.

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