Punch it! The second best starship in all of Star Wars — the Outrider — is blasting it’s way into Star Wars: Rebels. Or, at the very least, this is a ship that looks exactly like Dash Rendar’s Outrider.
This Saturday’s episode of Rebels — called “Iron Squadron” — finds Sabine, Zeb, Ezra, and the rest of Phoenix Squadron headed to protect a freighter that looks very much like the Outrider. But, this ship doesn’t seem to need their help and its cocky (and still unseen) pilot takes out an Imperial ship with a bunch of cargo containers. Could it be Dash Rendar?
As a refresher, Dash Rendar was an Expanded Universe Star Wars character, conceived for the Shadows of the Empire video game, novel, and comic book series back in 1996. He was a Han Solo-style smuggler who effectively served as the smart-mouthed badass archetype while Han was asleep, frozen in carbonite following the events of The Empire Strikes Back. But, relevantly, Dash Rendar also fought for the Rebellion in the Battle of Hoth as a snowspeeder pilot.
Dash in the 'Shadows of the Empire' video game.
These days, all of that cool N64 and comic book Dash Rendar backstory isn’t canon anymore, meaning if that is the Outrider on Rebels, we could be seeing an all-new Dash, in the same way the show has also retconned fan-favorite Grand Admiral Thrawn. Prior to this, the only other maybe in-canon appearance of the Outrider was in the special edition of Star Wars: A New Hope. There, we saw what looked like theOutrider flying around above the Mos Eisley spaceport.
If this is the Outsider, and Dash is at the controls, we could experience a whole new version of one of the most beloved Star Wars EU characters and also, the return of one of the coolest ships in the galaxy.
The Outrider of Mos Eisley
Star Wars: Rebels airs Saturday on Disney XD. Check out the new clip (featuring the ship in question) below.
