Obscure Characters: Wrenga Jixton

We all know Vader means business. Whether its hunting down surviving Jedi, or facing off against criminal masterminds, Vader always sees his tasks through. He sometimes receives assistance though, typically in the forms of bounty hunters, elite Stormtroopers, or cunning Imperial officers. However, there is another kind of ally Vader has at his disposal, a type of private hunter, that hunter is the ruthless Wrenga Jixton!

Wrenga Jixton’s story starts sometime after the Battle of Yavin, where on the planet Aridus he would nearly kill Darth Vader himself. Vader would see the potential in the assassin and make a deal with him for whenever he had use of his services. Later, while Jixton (Jix for short) was working on Coruscant, Imperial Stormtroopers attempted to capture him, but Jix proved to be the superior fighter and escaped the soldiers. Jix knew it was Vader who sent the troops and broke into the Imperial Palace to meet him. Vader was furious with his intrusion, but gave him his task, nonetheless. The job was simple: kill the Imperial Governor Torlock before he could defect to the Rebellion, and make it appear that the rebels were behind the assassination. Upon arriving on Corulag, Jix set his masterful plan in motion, first by reporting a fake rebel attack on a spaceport, then ensuring that he was the one to take out the real rebels trying to kill the Torlock. When Jix stepped up to the governor’s vehicle to make the kill, all he found was a holoprojector of the man, and a woman named Frija, who claimed to be his daughter.

Jix would locate the governor and break into an Imperial prison on the planet to find him. It was all a trap though, orchestrated by Imperial General Droon working with Frija, who now claimed she didn’t know the assassin. Not only that, but the Governor Torlock Jix found in the prison was not the real man, but a droid decoy. The two of them would be dropped down into the caves below the jail, where they faced off against a Dragon Slug. After they escaped, the droid Torlock revealed that the real governor had made replica droids of him and his daughter, to which the real Frija knew nothing about. Jix would also learn that Torlock was not planning to join the Rebellion at all but had been framed of doing so by Droon who wanted his position. Jix would capture the corrupt general and bring him before Vader back on Coruscant, revealing the truth. Afterwards, Jix would send the Human Replica Droids of Torlock and Frija away to live their own lives among the stars.

In the months following the Battle of Hoth, Darth Vader and Prince Xizor would begin their rivalry, and wanting to ensure Luke remained alive, Vader dispatched Jix to infiltrate Jabba’s Swoop Bike gang. Jix would be challenged by the gang leader Gizman and would earn his place in the gang. After Jabba the Hutt was ordered by Xizor to kill Luke, the Swoop Gang would be sent out to Ben Kenobi’s old home, and during the ambush Jix would secretly keep Luke from being killed and proceeded to knock him unconscious to keep him alive.

Jix was later seen creeping around Jabba’s Palace during the rescue of Han Solo in 4 ABY. Wrenga Jixton is a fascinating character, as he first appeared as an unnamed background character in Return of the Jedi. His story was later expanded upon in the Shadows of the Empire multimedia project and was even made the catalyst for some character’s stories in the Newspaper Strip comic Iceworld. Jix has his own spin off comic, a one-off titled Shadow Stalker and made appearances in the Shadows of the Empire comic adaptation.