Jaxxon

Only the strongest, most legendary of characters had a hope of bridging the space between Canon and Legends. Grand Admiral Thrawn, for example. More recently, Durge from Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars survived the purge and made his Canon debut in Marvel’s War of the Bounty Hunters. 

Ultimately, it takes tremendous staying power for a character to make such a comeback. And a creator who truly believes. Such is the case with Jaxxon the rabbit Lepi.

Perhaps the most memorable and yet divisive original character in the original Marvel Star Wars comics, Jaxxon made his debut in issue #8, “Eight for Aduba-3,” a comical tribute to Kirosawa’s Seven Samurai. 

Originally conceived of by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, the creation of the pilot of the Rabbit’s Foot was one of the very first original Expanded Universe characters to originate outside of the films themselves! Perhaps he was too similar to a certain wascally wabbit of Warner Brothers’ fame. 

Even his homeworld, Coachelle Prime, is a nod to a 1953 Buggs Bunny story!  But for much of the Expanded Universe’s history, Jaxxon was simply the stuff of legends. 

He never reappeared in Legends continuity after 1994, and even then his last Legends appearance was in an article in Gamer Magazine. But that was far from the end of the story for our lovable, long-eared Lepi.

When Star Wars comics made their return to Marvel at long last in 2015, Jaxxon received a head-nod in the form of not one but two variant covers for Star Wars #1 from artists John Tyler Christopher and Phil Noto, what seemed like certainly nothing more than Easter Eggs at the time. . . or were they? 

The wannabe scoundrel even made his journey from a joke to the three-dimensional world, receiving his own Hasbro Black Series action figure, coming soon to the shelves near you! 

But he didn’t get shelvable status all on his own—far from it, in fact. Star Wars Adventures writer Cavan Scott (lauded winner of  Youtini’s Social Butterfly award in 2020) started spotlighting the smuggler in 2018, starting with Star Wars Adventures Annual’s backup story! “The Lost Eggs of Livorno” at first appeared to be a joke—with Lucasfilm Publishing’s Creative Director debuting the news on April Fool’s Day! 

With Jaxxon, the legend looms large; perhaps even derided by George Lucas himself.

From his original reintegration into Canon with the Adventures Annual, the IDW annual has become since made it a yearly tradition to feature a Jaxxon tale—“The Lost Eggs of Livorno” was followed by “Hare Brained Heist” in 2019 and “Rabbit Hunt” in 2020. 

In true Easter fashion, Jaxxon made his return to the land of the living in an animated short as part of an episode of Jedi Temple Challenge, even though his corpse can be seen in the aftermath of a crashed cruiser in the 2012 The Clone Wars episode "A Sunny Day in the Void.” 

With Jaxxon, one thing’s for sure: although his past is dicey, his future looms large! Recently receiving his most substantial story yet, with Cavan’s Scott’s story, “Fake it Till You Make It,” in From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back. 

Scott has gone on record with our very own podcast, The Living Force, in saying that with Jaxxon, the metanarrative is part of the appeal—he’s a beacon of the unlovable, neglected characters struggling to find their place in the galaxy. 

What’s next, you might ask? While he says Jaxxon is about 200+ years too young  to appear in the High Republic, Scott says he’d love to write “Old Man Jaxxon,” in which a crusty, weathered friend of Lando’s helps out Rey, Poe, and Finn. We agree! In the meantime, here’s an eclectic assortment of Jaxxon-centric stories to tide you over, starting all the way back in 1977.