I recently played through Star Wars: Bounty Hunter again and I was inspired to write a piece on the main antagonist of the game and the bounty Jango Fett desired, Komari Vosa. The character seemed like a strong threat and a character I remember clearly when playing the game in my youth.
For this analysis, I used the video game, Star Wars Bounty Hunter, the novels Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schrieber, and Darth Plagueis by James Luceno, I also used Jango Fett: Open Seasons by Dark Horse and the guides, the Essential Chronology, Jedi Vs Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force, and the Scum and Villainy sourcebook by Wizards of the Coast.
As a young force sensitive, Komari Vosa was very quickly recruited by the Jedi Order and brought to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. After completing her initial training, Vosa was taken on by the Jedi Master, Dooku in 50 BBY. She proved to be quite a talented and valuable apprentice. Dooku began to build much respect for her as they continued their time together.
In 44 BBY the Jedi Council ordered a Jedi strike force to the planet Galidraan to destroy the True Mandalorians. Vosa and Dooku were a part of the strike force and virtually annihilated all the Mandalorian warriors. Vosa herself, destroyed about twenty of them by herself. The Jedi Council, in retrospect regretted the raid but Dooku was very impressed with his apprentice’s skill with the lightsaber and her natural abilities. Based on all this, he truly believed that she would become one of the most powerful and important Jedi in the order as time progressed.
Dooku and Vosa fighting the True Mandalorians
Dooku however, did not allow her to participate in the Jedi trials. He believed that she was not quite ready yet and he and the rest of the council had deduced that she had become infatuated with her master. This and her often aggressive tendencies, helped prompt the council’s decision to expel Vosa from the Jedi Order. Vosa was furious and saw her expulsion as a betrayal from Dooku.
Angry and determined, Vosa fled the temple and joined a Jedi strike force on a mission to Baltizaar, a planet in the mid rim, to stop the organization known as the Bando Gora. The mission was a failure and a retreat was ordered. Many Jedi were killed and captured. Vosa was one of the captured.
The Jedi Order believed that Vosa was dead, but Vosa was held captive on Kohlma, a moon orbiting Bogden, and was tortured by the Bando Gora. The pain was enough to draw Vosa to the dark side of the Force. Using the powers of the dark side, Vosa killed her captors and was able to become the new leader of the Bando Gora.
From Kohlma, Vosa would make the Bando Gora into a memorable and terrifying organization. To expand the Bando Gora’s power and reputation, Vosa implanted brain washing substances into death sticks. The poisonous substances, mind-altering neurotoxins, were developed and conditioned to suppress individuality and free will, thus enabling Vosa to use her Force abilities to turn drug-addicts into mindless spies and assassins. This form of slavery gradually built her a small army of warriors that Vosa deployed on the enemies of her cult.
The secrecy of the Bando Gora's operation necessitated the use of assets who retained their free will, leading Vosa to recruit criminals such as Gardulla the Hutt, the dug Sebolto, and Groff Haugg; the extent of her influence even infiltrated the ranks of the Galactic Senate, causing the corrupt Senator Connus Trell to serve Vosa as an agent of the Bando Gora. Vosa’s plan involved shipping the neurotoxic agents to Gardulla on Tatooine to cover her trail. The contraband cargo was then sent to Malastare, where Sebolto processed the poison into the death sticks before delivering the dangerously modified narcotics to Coruscant's underworld leaders, including Haugg, for smuggling.
Vosa would eventually put her blue-bladed weapon away and built two identical, curved hilt, red-bladed lightsabers. The curve was reflective of Dooku’s own weapon. A lethally efficient wielder of the Jar'Kai combat form, Vosa was also talented in Soresu. Due to her lightsabers being curved, she may have also been knowledgeable in the Makashi from, which was well known to be associated with that style of hilt.
In 33 BBY Vosa and the Bando Gora were involved in an assassination attempt on Hego Damask, who was secretly the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Plagueis. Although, this was not known and those who wanted him dead wanted him so due to their own personal reasons. Plagueis's Sith apprentice Darth Sidious, tried to manipulate events such that the plot would succeed. To enable the conspirators, he sent his own apprentice, Darth Maul, to the prison space station Cog Hive Seven, with the mission to contact arms dealer Iram Radique and deliver a nuclear device to the Bando Gora. Maul summoned Vosa to the station using a code provided by former Bando Gora member Artagan Truax.
Vosa and her followers arrived on the station as it was being destroyed due to a combination of Maul's actions and a separate attack by Jabba the Hutt. She encountered a freshly wounded Maul, but she did not know of his intention to aid her, so she attacked him. Maul would easily best her as she did not realize that he was a Sith and was a lot stronger than her. The two would end up aiding each other in taking possession of the nuclear device. The two would escape Cog Hive Seven’s destruction.
The Black Sun and Bando Gora conspirators deployed the newly acquired nuclear device on the moon of Sojourn, targeting Damask's fortress-residence and life-extension laboratories there. However, Jabba, through his spy network, had learned of the attack and was able to warn Damask, helping him to escape by personal rescue in the Hutt's space yacht Star Jewel. While Plagueis planned vengeance on all the conspiratorial parties, including King Veruna, Black Sun, and Gardulla, Plagueis decided not to exact revenge on Vosa and the Bando Gora immediately yet. Plagueis would never get the chance as his apprentice Darth Sidious murdered him in his sleep a short time later.
Sidious, who was also the newly elected Chancellor Palpatine, decided that Vosa must be destroyed. After the Naboo Crisis in 32 BBY, it was decided that she would get in the way of his grand plan. Dooku, after learning of his former apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn, was killed during the Naboo Crisis, made the decision to leave the Jedi Order, an action, that was a long time coming. Dooku would eventually become Sidious’ new apprentice, Darth Tyranus. Dooku also learned that Vosa was still alive. Her group could pose a threat to the Republic and despite initial hesitation to kill his former apprentice, Dooku eventually complied. In addition to Vosa’s destruction, Dooku was also tasked by his master to find a host to clone to create a grand army of the Republic. Dooku decided to complete both tasks with one rock. He placed a five million bounty on Vosa and hired many of the galaxy’s best bounty hunters including the former Mandalorians Montross and Jango Fett.
Groff Haugg and Senator Trell were both killed when Fett and Montross, who were working in competition against one another, tracked Vosa's low-level operatives to Coruscant. Her spies relayed the setbacks to their operations on the Republic capital, but the Dark Jedi dismissed the lost assets as irrelevant, insisting that gangsters and corrupt politicians were easily replaceable. She was also unconcerned about the hunters who were tracking her, given that the location of her citadel remained unknown to all but a select few contacts. However, she did vow to have Fett and Montross killed if either of them made any more progress in their search for her.
Fett's actions on Malastare and Tatooine resulted in the loss of Sebolto and Gardulla, thus disrupting the Bando Gora's operations even further, much to the annoyance of Vosa. With most of her underworld contacts dead and the cult's criminal network in disarray, Vosa admitted that she had underestimated Fett and Montross. She then issued an order for the deaths of both mercenaries, turning the hunters into prey for the Bando Gora.
Fett arrived on Kohlma and ended up fighting Montross. Fett won, and left Montross to be eaten alive by Bando Gora in revenge for the death of Fett’s ally Roz, a toydarian who acted as friend and source of information. Upon entering Vosa’s fortress he was quickly overwhelmed and captured. Vosa tortured the bounty hunter giving Jango Fett the scars he most notably wore when he would meet Obi-Wan Kenobi 10 years later. Vosa demanded that Fett reveal who hired him, but Jango remained quiet.
Fett was freed by Zam Wessel, another bounty hunter he had met on Oovo IV, The Asteroid Prison. She had followed him in hoping to collect the five million credits for herself. Vosa then wounded Zam with her lightsabers and quickly was chased by Fett.
The former Jedi Padawan and the Mandalorian bounty hunter confronted each other in Vosa's throne room. Outmatched by Vosa's lightsaber skills and Force powers, Fett relied on his JT-12 jetpack and the advanced weaponry of his armor to stand a fighting chance against an opponent who was trained in the Jedi arts.
He eventually defeated Vosa but chose to spare her life as the reward was the same whether she was dead or alive. At that moment, Vosa felt her old master’s presence in the Force. “He’s here…” she said.
She then struggled for a few moments against his telekinetic grasp on her throat but was ultimately strangled to death by Darth Tyranus. Tyranus offered to pay Jango the bounty and more if he came with him to Kamino to be cloned. Fett eventually accepted the offer, though hesitant at first, accepted on the condition that the first clone would be given to him, unaltered. The deal was struck and so began the creation of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Tyranus and Fett cement their deal over Vosa’s dead body.
Vosa’s lightsabers would be taken by Dooku and would be given to Dooku’s dark assassin Asajj Ventress at the beginning of the Clone Wars. Sidious would not forget the actions of Vosa and during the war when the Jedi was looking for the last whereabouts of Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas. Sidious would force the Count to cover his tracks and reminded of the first time he had messed up. It is fair to say that Dooku’s fondness for Komari Vosa had almost stopped and ruined his master’s plan and could have created a much different outcome for the galaxy.
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