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In Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #19, a squadron of obsolete TIE fighters completed a deadly mission for Darth Vader, proving their unrecognized value.
Warning: The following contains spoilers from Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #19, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
There are all kinds of awesome ships in the Star Wars universe, and every new project introduces something better than the last. From the classic Millennium Falcon to The Mandalorian’s Razor Crest, spacecraft have become a crucial part of the franchise. Unfortunately, that one of the best ships in the Empire never got it’s due. However, Star Wars: Bounty Hunters #19 (by Ethan Sacks, Ramõn F. Bachs, Bryan Valenza and VC’s Travis Lanham) finally showed how deadly the TIE Defender can be.
Ever since the “War of the Bounty Hunters”, Beilert Valance has been the focus of the Star Wars: Bounty Hunters series. Darth Vader took a heavily damaged Valance, rebuilt the bounty hunter, and gave him a new mission. Under threat to his family, Vader made Valance the leader of the newly-formed Dark Squadron and outfitted the squad with hard-to-find, practically obsolete TIE Defender starfighters.
Designed by Grand Admiral Thrawn, the TIE Defenders were some of the best starfighters in the galaxy. Unlike a normal TIE fighter, the Defenders were outfitted with hyperdrives and deflector shields. The Defenders were also considered fighter-bombers because of the six heavy cannons and concussion missiles included in their arsenals. On top of that, the Defenders were simply faster and more maneuverable than the standard TIE fighters.
In issue #19, Vader sent the elite Dark Squadron to assassinate the Imperial Admiral Sokoli in an attempt to ensure order. Sokoli was Valance’s hero back in the day, but since then, the admiral had become openly dissatisfied with the Empire. Therefore, Vader wanted him dead, and as a former hero of Valance’s, the assassination order provided the Sith Lord with the perfect way to test Valance’s resolve and ability to follow orders.
The mission was a success, and Valance was able to eliminate his target, but the point was that it was the TIE Defenders that made everything possible. Because of the superiority of the craft, the squad of five defeated an entire wing of TIE fighters and disabled the admiral’s Star Destroyer. Then Valance crashed landed his shielded Defender onto the Star Destroyer’s bridge (something that not many fighters could have done), survived and proceeded to assassinate his target.
If the TIE Defenders were so deadly, it naturally raises the question of why the Empire didn’t use them, and there’s actually a very good answer. Thrawn designed the fighters, and had the backing of multiple big-name Imperials, including Tarkin and Vader. However, Hera Syndulla and her rebels on Lothal saw the Defender’s prototypes and prioritized harassing the factory that produced them in an effort stem the flow of the deadly fighters.
The Rebels were succeeding at a mild rate, until one of the Imperials finished their job for them. In an attempt to kill Jedi Kanan Jarrus, Governor Arihnda Pryce blew up Lothal’s fuel depot. That indefinitely halted all production of the TIE Defenders. Ultimately, the funding for Thrawn’s fighters was reassigned to Project Stardust, and in hindsight, that ended up being a bad decision. It’s probable that the TIE Defenders would have made a huge difference in the Empire’s fight against the Rebels, but to its detriment, the Empire maintained the “quantity over quality” mantra with its TIE fighters
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