The Star Wars Expanded Universe is full of many delightful things. Some of them are perhaps delightful because they’re compelling drama, or raise fascinating questions about Star Wars. Others are perhaps delightful because they are absolutely unhinged. “What if a horse piloted an X-Wing?” is one of those things that is perhaps all three.
That particular horse—that particular Thakwaash, to be specific—in question is Hohass “Runt” Ekwesh. A member of Wraith Squadron, the starfighter squadron/covert ops commando unit established by Wedge Antilles as a new tactical approach for the New Republic’s conflicts with the myriad Imperial Remnants in the wake of the Battle of Endor, Runt (nicknamed for being relatively small for his species, but still multiple times the size of an average human) was a particularly skilled, but brash pilot in Wraith Squadron’s founding roster. Thakwaash develop multiple personalities for specialized functions that, with age and experience, they learn to better control and switch between. Runt’s pilot mind, while exceptionally talented, had a very aggressive personality that clouded his judgement and ability to follow orders in the heat of battle, something he eventually began to manage and overcome with the help of his wingman and close friend, Kell Tainer.
Did we mention he looks like a horse in an X-Wing pilot flight suit? Yeah.
Presenting the covers of the next batch of Essential Legends paperbacks with original cover art, hitting shelves this fall!
Art by: @seanpphillips, @Doaly, and Juan Esteban Rodríguez pic.twitter.com/ZbJXiNoFB5
— Star Wars Books (@StarWarsByRHW) July 11, 2024
We’re all being reminded of this wonderful Star Wars character—sincerely, he has a great arc in Aaron Allston’s Wraith Squadron books—because Runt is on the newly revealed cover for Solo Command‘s arrival in the Star Wars “Essential Legends” collection of EU novel reprints. Solo Command will release in the latest wave of paperbacks due out this fall, alongside The Han Solo Adventures by Bryan Daley (with cover art by Sean Phillips), and the Force Unleashed novel by Sean Williams (with cover art by Juan Esteban Rodriguez).
Illustrated by Doaly, who has provided covers for all the X-Wing books re-released in the collection so far, it’s a vivid image, with bold colors and also, we cannot stress this enough, a horse in an X-Wing pilot flight suit on the cover. For what it’s worth, although the Thakwaash were always described as being equine in appearances, depictions of just how horse-y they are have varied across the years. Some interpretations have pivoted Runt into a more alien appearance, almost akin to the Bothans’ depiction in the EU, while others, as Doaly’s work here does, have skewed more closely to “Literally A Horse.”
Solo Command‘s artwork is also part of a cool continuing trend Doaly has taken with the “Essential” reprints of the Wraith Squadron books so far, pairing a human member of the squad with one of their alien partners: Wedge Antilles stood alongside Jesmin Ackbar (Admiral Ackbar’s niece) on the cover of Wraith Squadron, Tyria Sarkin was paired with the Gamorrean Voort “Piggy” saBinring on Iron Fist, and now Runt stands with Shalla Nelprin on Solo Command. Few of these characters have transitioned from the Expanded Universe and into current Star Wars continuity, so getting brand-new artwork of them all these years later is a treat, and especially art that willing to highlight the diverse mix of pilots that were part of these squadrons.
But it also just speaks to some of the wonderful contrasts of the old Expanded Universe, and Star Wars at large. The Wraith books were gritty military combat thrillers, all about the details of fighting covert battles, spycraft and subterfuge alongside starfighter scraps in equal measure—so few characters felt safe, and like they could perish at any moment. They remain, alongside the wider X-Wing novel series Allston worked on with writer Michael A. Stackpole, some of the best storytelling the EU had to offer. And yet, here we are: saying that while proffering a book with a horse in an X-Wing pilot flight suit on the cover.
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