Profiles Of Villainy: Commander Zahra
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Ellian Zahra, better known by the rank she was introduced to fans with, Commander, was the main villain of the 2020 Star Wars comic run by Marvel, written by Charles Soule. A ruthless, once-forgotten protégé of Grand Moff Tarkin, she was assigned the task of hunting down and destroying the remnants of the Rebel Alliance in the aftermath of The Empire Strikes Back. Well trained by her mentor, Zahra’s obsession with revenge against Leia Organa in particular led her to make poor choices that led to her defeat. But, she had one last savage hurrah, and recently appeared in A New Legacy #1. Hopefully, future storytelling in the latter half of the Reign of the Empire period continues to see her appear alongside Tarkin as a ruthless military leader.
Background
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Zahra suffered a great tragedy early into her life, when a terrorist attack she claims was a Rebel operation took the lives of her parents. Intensely devoted to ensuring such an event never happened again, she joined the Imperial Military and rose through its structure. She was ultimately chosen by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin alongside two others as candidates for the role of protégé. All three were sent out into the Carrion Spike of Eriadu to hunt an albino veermok, but only Zahra returned, having killed her two competitors in addition to the creature, to Tarkin’s approval.
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Over the coming years, he instructed her in his methods and ideology, particularly the concept that life, and war, was a hunt. She rose through the ranks incredibly quickly, and was with Tarkin for many high profile meetings involving Vader and the Death Star. Despite all of her training and hard work, she eventually slipped up. Tarkin sent Zahra to kill a criminal using symbolism and trappings of the Nihil from the High Republic, ordering her to bring him the man’s head. Interpreting this metaphorically and working from a distance through probe droids and the pilots of Tarkin’s ship, the Carrion Spike, Zahra thought she completed her task. But she had actually failed, one of the criminal’s body doubles had died in the attack instead and he then used the assassination effort to great propagandizing effect.
Zahra was demoted by Tarkin, but while attempting to prove herself to her mentor, by taking initiative through stealing a shuttle and planning on hunting down her quarry, she inadvertently saved her own life. At that exact moment, the Death Star was under attack in orbit around Yavin, and as she left the shuttle bay, the station exploded, sending her craft spinning but keeping her alive while her mentor perished.
However, Tarkin’s demotion was still on the books, and in the chaos that followed the destruction of the Death Star, Zahra languished in obscurity. Interestingly, some of this was engineered by other Imperials as in the immediate aftermath of the battlestation’s destruction, figures like Grand General Cassio Tagge rose to fill the vacuum. A protégé of Tarkin would have threatened such power plays, and so she was kept off the board despite her incredible skill.
It took three years, but in the wake of Hoth, Vader remembered Zahra after Palpatine mused about how once, he would have sent Tarkin or Thrawn out to destroy the now scattered Rebel Alliance. Vader tracked her down, to a backwater posting on the planet Kessel, and gave her a chance to redeem herself in the vein of Tarkin’s own methods of instruction. Promoted to Commander, Zahra was tasked with immediately hunting down and destroying the remnants of the Rebel Navy which had scattered after Hoth. She took to this with aplomb, aided by the Rebel’s communication codes having been cracked by the Empire. So, the hunt was on, and Zahra intended to use some very unique tactics to take down this great enemy.
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Unfortunately for her, Zahra ultimately failed to destroy the Rebel Alliance’s navy. While she scored solid victories, her obsession with hunting down and breaking Leia Organa led her to make choices that were more psychologically damaging than materially significant, such as boarding a Rebel ship Leia was on and luring her into a confrontation just to scare her. Soon after the return of Crimson Dawn though, the Crimson Dawn-allied assassin Deathstick informed the Empire of the location of a Rebel group on the planet Panisia as part of a mission she was undertaking. Having recently captured a Rebel pilot (Shara Bey, Poe Dameon’s mother), Zahra plunged into action alone aboard her Star Destroyer, Tarkin’s Will. However, Qi’ra then informed Leia of the situation, allowing for the gathering Rebel Fleet to jump into the solar system and greatly outnumber Tarkin’s Will.
Zahra fought as best she could, but when Kes Dameron infiltrated the ship during the battle to rescue his wife, he also sabotaged the vessel, allowing the Rebel Alliance to freely fire on the ISD. Plummeting to the surface of Panisia, Zahra escaped and was tracked down to a cave system where she became trapped in sticky webbing spun by a creature native to the planet. Then, face to face with Leia, the Alderaanian left the commander for dead as the native wildlife closed in.
Abilities/Skills
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Ellin Zahra was a highly gifted individual who unfortunately used her skills in service to the Empire. First and foremost, she had incredible skills in tactics and strategy, able to outthink her opponents and initiation battle plans that gave her the best chance at winning. She even devised her own cunning strategies, such as an interlocked screen of turbolaser fire that herded the Rebel Alliance’s Fourth Fleet Division against a star, and destroyed numerous craft before the arrival of the Millennium Falcon helped the remains of the Division escape. Her skills in this area gave her the high marks noted by Tarkin in the first place, and put her on the shortlist to be his protégé.
But she wasn’t alone on that list. The next pair of major skills Zahra possessed was her hunting ability and her combat ability. Physically skilled, she was capable of killing an apex creature of the Carrion Spike, as well as her two competitors, and surviving relatively intact. We later also see a wall of trophies, with at least half a dozen animals or beings stuffed and mounted as a testament to her combat ability. She had a custom suit of armor she wore for battle engagements, as well as several bladed weapons, all allowing her to get up close and personal with her prey. Her skills were such that she even surprised Luke Skywalker, and escaped him when he purposely tried to prevent her from doing so. She learned the lesson Tarkin wanted her to understand after her failure, and led from the front, dedicated to personally seeing her missions through.
That last point is also a nod to her final major trait, her leadership ability. Despite her own deep obsession about her mission to hunt down the Rebels and Princess Leia, she made a point to also find people as dedicated as her. Her flagship, the ISD Tarkin’s Will, had once gone under another name, and had suffered damage along the front when the Death Star exploded, with the debris scarring the hull and cutting deep into the vessel. Left to be mothballed, and then dismantled, Zahra prevented that, renamed the ship and then staffed it with people who had lost at least one person close to them in the destruction of the Death Star. Such a crew was fearsomely devoted to Zahra for giving them this chance at revenge, and so fought tooth and nail for her despite all of the odds. Unfortunately, that obsession with revenge ultimately blinded even her and led to her defeat.
Acts of Villainy
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As the protégé of Wilhuff Tarkin, at a base level, Zahra was already a participant in a great many evil acts performed in the name of the Empire’s stability. While her origin story has tragedy, the victim of a terrible event, her devotion to the Empire would see her supporting a system that did a whole lot worse to many more billions of people despite claiming her actions prevented events like the one she had suffered.
Following her rise to Commander, Zahra made many more moves of deliberate cruelty and brutality to ensure that the remnants of the Rebel Fleet would die, and die suffering. She had her personal battlegroup led by Tarkin’s Will cordon off one of the Rebellion’s, and slowly include loss after loss, closing a net around her prey and even personally taking a moment to shoot down a single fleeing X-Wing mere moments from safety. Later, when she invaded the Rebel ship Princess Leia was on, Zahra and her team slaughtered their way to the engines, the commander personally killing many Rebel fighters with her chosen weapons. But her final crimes, the worst ones yet for how they inflicted suffering and losses on a people already weakened and in hiding, were a true testament to her malicious character and are detailed below.
Final Act
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Never leave a job unfinished. Months later, the convoy that held the Alderaanian survivors (a group established by Leia and Evaan Verlaine in 2015’s Princess Leia) ceased communications, with Luke, Leia and Evaan seeking to learn what had happened to them. Zahra had happened to them. While the full fleet was not destroyed, several ships had been lost, and at least one notable leader had been killed and left as bait on a captured ship for Organa, which succeeded. Now scarred, with a cybernetic hand, and working alongside a band of raiders who supported her mission, Zahra captured Leia and planned to trade her to the Empire to regain her position and cripple the Rebellion.
However, a timely intervention by Luke decimated the raiders, and allowed Evaan Verlaine to return with support. In a last, desperate effort to kill Leia, Zahra lept aboard a starfighter, and feigned retreat before turning back and charging the hanger bay that held Leia. Before her ship could get close though, Leia authorized its destruction, and the vessel was shot down, likely killing Zahra in the process. Her last moments were narrowing in on her chosen prey, completely oblivious to the wider jungle of threats that immediately surrounded her as she tried getting her revenge, an end fitting for such a rabid hunter.
Notable Appearances
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Below is a list of some of the notable stories in which Commander Zahra has appeared. We encourage people to check them out if they have any interest in this devoted servant of the Empire!
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