This week, our Star Wars Character Spotlight will take a look at Black Krrsantan, the deadly Wookiee bounty hunter from the comics who made the jump to live action in The Book of Boba Fett. Black Krrsantan, also referred to as “Santy”, “BK” and “Black K” by Doctor Aphra, and “Santo” by Boba Fett, worked as a bounty hunter both during the reign of the Empire and during the New Republic era.
Like most Wookiees, Krrsantan used a bowcaster and hated the Trandoshans who hunted his people, but unlike Chewbacca, he did not seem to care too much about other Wookiees. It seems his own self-preservation was more important to him than helping his species.
Black Krrsantan is one of the few characters to make the jump to live action after being first introduced in another medium like comics or animation.
Leaving Kashyyyk and becoming a bounty hunter
We don’t know exactly how old Black Krrsantan is, or how long he lived on Kashyyyk before he decided to leave, but it appears he made that the decision either in the Republic’s twilight years or the early days of the Empire. Krrsantan had a desire to battle in the fighting pits owned by the Xonti Brothers — something about life on Kashyyyk no longer appealed to him — and he knew that they used slavers to recruit fighters.
He hunted down many Trandoshan slavers, killing them upon discovering that they didn’t work for the Xonti Brothers, until he eventually found the ones he was looking for and had them deliver him to the fighting pits as a slave. He won a few rounds and sparked the interest of the brothers, who had the cyborg surgeon Cylo fill his knuckles with metal, giving him permanent knuckle dusters. He used these to defeat a strong Dowutin in his next battle with a single punch.
It seems it was during his time in the fighting pits that he adopted the moniker “Black Krrsantan”, referring to himself as such during an auction where he killed the two prospective buyers. He eventually became heavyweight champion in the fighting pits, before leaving to pursue a career in bounty hunting and vowing that he would one day kill the Xonti Brothers.
Bounty hunter
By 7-8 BBY, Black Krrsantan was in the employ of Jabba The Hutt on Tatooine. In #20 in the 2015 run of the main Star Wars comic, we see him track down Obi-Wan Kenobi after he blocked Jabba’s men from collecting a water tax on the Lars moisture farm. Krrsantan travelled to the moisture farm and held Owen Lars hostage, waiting for his guardian to arrive.
Obi-Wan soon did arrive and the two fought, with Owen Lars doing his best to help the hermit Jedi. Krrsantan tossed him off the side of a cliff and Obi-Wan used the Force to prevent him from falling. Eventually, Obi-Wan scarred the bounty hunter across the face with his lightsaber and Krrsantan fell off the cliff edge. He fled Tatooine after, afraid at what punishment Jabba would have in store for his failure.
Black Krrsantan next appears in #4 of Han Solo & Chewbacca, where he is hired by the CEO of the Corellian Engineering Corporation to guard the urn of one of his deceased rivals, after learning that Jabba was planning to steal it. The CEO had already traded the urn to a Sava (scholar) named Madelin Sun, and Krrsantan arrived at the shop to find Han Solo and an older man in the process of stealing the urn. He knocked out Han and stunned his human companion before fighting Chewbacca. He found his fellow Wookiee difficult to handle, but he managed to capture Han and drag him aboard his ship.
Thankfully, Chewie had placed a tracking beacon on his hull and pursued him to Mollo Tanka, where Han was being questioned by the CEO to discover where he had hidden the urn. He interrupted the interrogation and fought Black Krrsantan again, briefly incapacitating him with a thermal detonator. Krrsantan chased after them and held them at gunpoint with the CEO’s guards, but they were rescued by bounty hunter Khel Tanna who ambushed them in her ship, allowing Han and Chewie to escape.
Working for Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra
Black Krrsantan next appears in the first issue of the Darth Vader 2015 comic run, which is when the character was first created. It appears he was able to smooth things over enough with Jabba to resume working for him again shortly after the events of A New Hope. Vader arrived at Jabba’s Palace and requested that Boba Fett and Black Krrsantan work for him on a personal task while he negotiated a supply deal between the Hutts and the Empire.
Vader tasked Black Krrsantan with tracking down a mysterious agent of the Emperor to find out what his business was with his master. Krrsantan successfully captured the target, who turned out to be a later iteration of the cyborg who had given him his grafted knuckles, Cylo-IV. He brought him to Vader, but failed to uncover the intel that Vader had asked for.
Later in the comic run, Krrsantan was summoned to a cantina on Son-Tuul along with bounty hunters Bossk, IG-90 and Beebox by Doctor Aphra. Before Aphra arrived, he passed the time by strangling another Wookiee to get access to the fighting pits, winning the contest. After that, Aphra briefed them all on a heist to steal the defeated Son-Tuul Pride gang’s fortune from the Empire, which was being transported off-world.
The heist went smoothly. He and Aphra collected their share and went off to meet Vader for a new job on Vrogas Vas; to capture Luke Skywalker.
Above Vrogas Vas, Black Krrsantan attacked the Millennium Falcon and forced it to land on the planet. While Aphra kept Han busy, the Wookiee focused on Luke. His efforts to capture Skywalker were impeded by Chewbacca. The two fought but Krrsantan got the better of him, shocking him unconscious with his electro-knuckle dusters. He may have found Luke, had he not been accidentally electrocuted after C-3PO touched his knuckles.
Shortly after this, Black Krrsantan was hired by Vader again to hunt down Doctor Aphra, who had recently betrayed the Sith Lord. Accompanied by Vader’s torture droids Triple Zero and BT-1, he made short work of Aphra and brought her to the Executor. However, when it became clear that Aphra was about to be killed, he defended her because she apparently owed him money. When she was jettisoned out an airlock, he picked her up in his ship, saving her life.
Black Krrsantan briefly appears in Doctor Aphra #13, having served as part of her crew for a while, but he left her to hunt down the Xonti Brothers. He rejoined her in #34, having killed his old masters. He then helped Aphra take down a plot to assassinate Emperor Palpatine. He doesn’t appear again until the first issue of Doctor Aphra‘s 2020 run set after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, where he’s seen working with her once again.
Five issues later, he took a bounty on Aphra from the Tagge family worth 20,000 credits. Despite all the times they’d worked together, he happily betrayed her to take the money. Krrsantan had her beaten until he was stunned by another bounty hunter looking to collect, and Aphra escaped in the commotion.
New Republic and jumping to live action
Black Krrsantan next appears in a single issue of the Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent series, where he is hired by a young prince to extract him from a world that he does not wish to rule. Aphra and Chewbacca are hired by the prince’s advisors to protect the boy, not knowing that he had hired the bounty hunter himself. This inevitably brought them into conflict with Krrsantan. However, when Aphra discovered the truth, she let the prince leave with Krrsantan peacefully.
Next is his jump to live action, as he appears in The Book of Boba Fett. In 9 ABY, Black Krrsantan was working as a guard for the Twins, relatives of Jabba The Hutt. When the Twins learned that Boba Fett had taken Jabba’s Palace from Bib Fortuna, they had the Wookiee accompany them to the palace as muscle.
The Twins stated their intention to reclaim Jabba’s territory, but were met with a firm rejection by Fett. They announced that they would postpone their conflict until later, and Black Krrsantan gave Fett a long glare as they left. However, the Twins secretly ordered Krrsantan to assassinate Fett in his sleep.
The Wookiee had no problem infiltrating the palace at night, but Fett fought back before his loyal followers Fennec Shand and others attacked. Black Krrsantan held his own until Shand activated a trap door beneath him, sending him down to the old Rancor pit.
Fett offered Krrsantan back to the Twins as a gesture of good faith, but the Hutts had discovered at this point that the Mos Espa mayor had already offered his territory to the Pykes, and they had no wish to fight over it with other syndicates. They gifted Fett an adolescent Rancor to make good with him once and for all, as well as allowing Black Krrsantan to remain with Fett.
Fett freed him immediately, advising him never to work with Hutts again. The Wookiee soon left for Mos Espa.
Working for Boba Fett
Black Krrsantan next appeared in Garsa Fwip’s Sanctuary cantina, where he was drinking while observing some Trandoshans. He quickly got riled up watching and attacked them just before Boba Fett arrived. Fwip got him to calm down, pointing out that he had accrued an expensive bar tab. Considering her words, he pulled an arm off one of the Trandoshans before paying and leaving.
Fett approached him as he left, offering him a job to act as muscle during Fett’s turbulent period as Tatooine’s new Daimyo. Krrsantan accepted and attended a meeting between Mos Espa’s ruling families at Fett’s palace. After that, he worked with Fett and his other associates to prepare for the coming war against the Pyke Syndicate.
When the war was ignited after the Pykes bombed Sanctuary, Black Krrsantan was ordered to patrol the streets around the Mos Espa City Hall. It wasn’t long until he was attacked by nine Trandoshans. Though he killed two of them, he was soon overwhelmed by the remaining seven who outnumbered him and was forced to flee.
Krrsantan made his way to Fett’s position outside Sanctuary. He managed to kill multiple Pykes on his way there but by the time he reached Fett and Din Djarin, he was badly wounded and unable to stand. They were pinned down by droid fire and the Wookiee retreated with the people of Freetown to the Worker’s District to find shelter, though he nearly succeeded in piercing one of the droid’s shields by pushing his hand through it.
Eventually, Fett returned to the battle with his young Rancor, only to be thrown from it by Cad Bane. While Fett and Bane fought, Black Krrsantan and others tried unsuccessfully to calm the Rancor down as it threw a speeder at the Wookiee. Eventually, Fett’s forces won the battle and Krrsantan recovered from his wounds in a bacta tank. He was last seen eating a meiloorun fruit offered to him by Boba and roaring at an ally who jokingly asked him to share it.
What next?
We haven’t seen Black Krrsantan in any story set after The Book of Boba Fett, but his Wookiee lifespan means he can appear in anything set as far as the sequel trilogy and beyond. Rey names him as one of the great bounty hunters in a Star Wars Adventures comic, so there must be plenty of stories left to tell with him and his bounty hunting adventures.
In the near future, hopefully he can pop up again in a Mandoverse story, but there’s no reason he couldn’t appear in the same era as the Starfighter movie or future films set after that.
Thanks to Wookieepedia, which does a great job summing up Black Krrsantan’s origin story.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.