This week’s Star Wars Character Spotlight focuses on Embo, the deadly Kyuzo bounty hunter who is rumored to make an appearance in The Mandalorian and Grogu. He made a name for himself during the Clone Wars, wearing a Kyuzo war shield as a hat and was always accompanied by Marrok (his pet Anooba, not the undead Inquisitor from Ahsoka).
Though Embo debuted in The Clone Wars animated series, his story continues beyond that war and into the next, as he pops up in the Battle of Jakku and in the New Republic era. He most recently appeared in The Mandalorian and Grogu, marking his debut in live action. Needless to say, this contains spoilers for The Mandalorian and Grogu.
The Clone Wars
Embo appeared sporadically throughout the Clone Wars, both as an ally and enemy to the Jedi. He mainly worked with fellow bounty hunter Sugi, which is how we meet him in Season 2 of The Clone Wars. He and his crew had been hired to protect a group of villagers on Felucia from Hondo Ohnaka’s pirate gang, who were intent on stealing the healing herb that the farmers harvested.
When Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano crash landed on the planet, they reluctantly helped the bounty hunters protect the villagers. The Jedi trained the locals to fight before the pirates’ next attack, while Embo simply watched in amusement.
Embo took out a pirate scout, snapping his neck with his hands, but he did not fare as well in the main attack. A tank piloted by Hondo shot at him, and Embo’s right arm was wounded in the blast. He was unable to continue fighting and had to take shelter while the other bounty hunters and Jedi repelled the pirates.
Once the battle was over, he and his crew accompanied the Jedi to the nearest Republic outpost.
Embo doesn’t appear again until Season 4, where he appears to be working for Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine. He has a silent appearance when the Pantoran senator Papanoida arrives looking for the location of his daughters.
Later in Season 4, Embo appears in “The Box”, when a disguised Obi-Wan has to compete with a slew of other bounty hunters to be selected for a mission to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine. Embo (sans Marrok) was one of the few to complete all the challenges and was selected for the mission. In the following episode, Embo succeeded in acquiring Palpatine but was unable to escape. He was quickly arrested by Anakin and Mace Windu.
He clearly didn’t stay in prison for long though, as later that season he can be spotted in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine when Asajj Ventress starts her bounty hunting career.
Embo pops up again in Season 5 working as a bodyguard for the Grand Hutt Council along with Sugi, Dengar and Latts Razzi. They attended a meeting with Darth Maul, Savage Opress and Pre Viszla and fought the trio when they tried to kill the Hutts. Embo went up against Savage Opress specifically, but found himself outmatched in terms of pure strength.
When they realized they couldn’t defeat the Zabraks, the bounty hunters all retreated and abandoned the Hutts.
Embo’s next chronological appearance is in The Bad Batch: Ghost Agents comic, where he competes against the clone squad to retrieve a list of Republic spies currently held by Asajj Ventress, though he had no idea that it was Ventress he was pursuing or what the list contained. After a couple of confrontations, Embo agreed to work with the clones to retrieve the list in exchange for payment from the Republic. In a climactic battle against Ventress and Aurra Sing, the clone Hunter saved Embo’s life by shooting Ventress’ lightsaber out of her hand.
The Kyuzo bounty hunter’s final appearance in The Clone Wars is in the show’s sixth season. At this point, he was hired by Darth Sidious to attack Rush Clovis and Padmé Amidala and drive them away from Scipio, the homeworld of the Intergalactic Banking Clan. He was to make it look like the Separatists wanted to assassinate him without actually doing so, allowing Clovis to secretly work for Count Dooku while gaining Padmé’s trust.
In his opening attack, he killed Padmé’s aide and disabled their ship, though his job was made more difficult by the presence of Anakin Skywalker. The three of them attempted to flee from Embo and he pursued them, with his pet Marrok forcing their speeder to fly down the steep incline of a mountain. Embo pursued by using his huge hat as a sled, taking potshots at their speeder with his bowcaster.
The three of them promptly left Scipio after surviving the encounter, and Embo reported to Sidious on a successful mission.
Dark Disciple
Embo was supposed to appear in at least one more story in the animated series, but Dark Disciple was turned into a novel after The Clone Wars‘ temporary cancellation. In the book, Embo is hired by Asajj Ventress along with Boba Fett and his bounty hunting team Krayt’s Claw. At this point, Embo was a regular part of the team, and Asajj hired them to rescue her lover Quinlan Vos from Count Dooku’s captivity on Serenno.
The bounty hunters ultimately failed to recover Quinlan Vos, but Embo could at least claim that he survived an encounter with Sith Lord Count Dooku.
New Republic and Battle of Jakku
The next story properly featuring him comes in the comic Star Wars Adventures #16, which tells the story of the time that Embo attempted to collect a bounty on Lando Calrissian shortly after the Battle of Endor.
Embo snuck aboard the Millennium Falcon and sabotaged the ship, keeping it from taking off. He cornered Lando with his bowcaster but Lando managed to stall long enough to take advantage of a pipe bursting behind Embo, knocking the bounty hunter into a wall and incapacitating him. Lando took the bounty hunter outside and left, crediting L3-37 for protecting him.
Embo next appears in the Aftermath trilogy, which covers the Battle of Jakku. We find out that by this point his pet Marrok had passed away. In 5 ABY, he is part of a team including Dengar that is hired by fellow bounty hunter Mercurial Swift to capture Jas Emari, the niece of his former comrade Sugi.
The team headed to a Hutt stronghold to pick up their target, only for her to break free. Emari raced to the nearest shuttle, which was being guarded by Embo and Dengar. Embo let her pass out of respect for her aunt, while noting that Marrok had always liked Emari. She flew away on the shuttle, despite Dengar’s best attempts to stop her.
In the trilogy’s final book Empire’s End, Jas Emari had teamed up with New Republic agent Norra Wexley to infiltrate the Imperial base on Jakku to bring an end to the Empire once and for all. Embo and the rest of the team cornered them, but Emari stayed behind to allow Wexley to escape.
She started to negotiate with the bounty hunters, offering them full pardons from the Republic if they turned against Swift and helped her escape Jakku instead. Embo and the other bounty hunters accepted her proposal. Once Swift was disposed of, they picked up Norra Wexley and her husband and left the planet.
Jas Emari was good on her word and after the Battle of Jakku, Embo received a full pardon and payment from the New Republic for his efforts during the battle.
The Mandalorian and Grogu
Bounty Hunter in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. © 2026 Lucasfilm Ltd™. All Rights Reserved.
Embo’s made his live action debut in The Mandalorian and Grogu, where he was hired by The Twins to kidnap Din Djarin after he failed to honor his contract and deliver Rotta The Hutt to them. Embo headed to Nevarro and waited for Din to arrive. The night after he returned to his homestead, Din spotted Embo heading his way and had Grogu hide. Embo climbed onto the roof of Din’s house, and though Din collapsed the roof with a sticky grenade on the ceiling, Embo was prepared and used his hat as a shield from Din’s blaster bolts before using some kind of flashbang to disrupt his optical gadgets.
Rather than fight the Mandalorian head on, Embo fled the house and laid a trap for Din. It worked perfectly, as Din ran outside after him and stepped on his shock mine, incapacitating him. Embo loaded Din onto his ship and delivered him to Nal Hutta, shocking him unconscious during the flight after Din attempted to reason with him.
Later in the film, after Din Djarin managed to escape the Hutts, they hired Embo to track him down in Nal Hutta’s jungles. Though Embo and his new pet Anooba nearly discovered Grogu at a local’s fishing shack, they ultimately failed to find Din. When the Mandalorian eventually recovered from his poisoning and attacked the Hutt Palace once more, Embo dueled him one-on-one.
Din Djarin won this round and fled the palace before the New Republic began its bombing run on the structure. The Twins fell into a Dragon Snake pit and ordered Embo to rescue them, but the Kyuzo bounty hunter decided to cut his losses and abandon them. He survived the New Republic attack.
Retirement
Sometime after the events of The Mandalorian and Grogu, Embo had spent all the money he got from the New Republic and decided to retire from bounty hunting. He decided to head to Felucia and become a farmer, a nice callback his Clone Wars debut.
In 34 ABY, we see him living as a farmer in Star Wars Adventures #16 when he is visited by the mercenary Bazine Netal who was searching for the Millennium Falcon. Embo did not react well to her arrival and cornered her following a short chase. Once he understood the purpose of her visit, Embo told Netal the story of the time he boarded the Falcon looking for Lando Calrissian.
He gave Netal the latest information he had on the ship’s location and she left him alone. As far as we’re aware, Embo continued to live out his days as a peaceful farmer.
What next?
It’s not clear where Embo will turn up next. Perhaps future Clone Wars-era stories can include him, or future Mandoverse stories. It would certainly be fun to see in pop up again in a theoretical new season of The Mandalorian, should the series return to Disney Plus.
Thanks to Wookieepedia, without whom I’d never have known what Embo was up to in the New Republic era.
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.