The fate of the Bad Batch, a misfit squad of elite clones, was one of many loose ends left by Star Wars: The Clone Wars when it finally concluded (for the third time) earlier this year. These unique commandos certainly would not fit the Imperial ideal of conformity, so what happened to them? Fortunately, our questions will be answered when Star Wars: The Bad Batch comes exclusively to Disney+ next year, as announced at the beginning of the week.
But the ultimate destiny of Clone Force 99 is far from the only question that remained from the Emmy-winning animated series. With the series having died and returned more frequently than Darth Maul (that score is two points to the show and one to the half-a-Sith…we do our math here at Holonet Marauders), plenty of stories have filled in the gaps of its lesser-known heroes and villains. While most fans know that Star Wars Rebels continued the stories of Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, and Hondo Ohnaka, these other tales filled in the blanks on some of their friends and foes.
Cut Lawquane
In Season Two, Captain Rex’s entire view of what a clone trooper can be is rocked when he meets Cut Lawquane. Cut is a clone deserter who has taken up farming with his wife and adopted children on the planet of Saleucami. Although the war has come to his doorstep and he takes up a blaster in defense of his clan, he opts to remain behind while Rex returns to the war. While Cut was undoubtedly on Rex’s mind in the decade and a half between Order 66 and his inception into the early Rebellion, many fans of the clones wonder about him just as often. Careful readers of a story set much later, however, will know that Cut got exactly the ending he wanted.
In Star Wars: Aftermath, the first volume in Chuck Wendig’s trilogy of novels of the same name, interludes to other parts of the galaxy are used for dramatic effect. Some have links to future plot developments in the series, but most are isolated vignettes of a galaxy at war with itself to set the tone for the story. One of the latter takes us back to Saleucami for the first time in the era after Return of the Jedi’s explosive conclusion. Here, the Taffral family is fractured by debate. One son has joined the Rebellion while the other remains loyal to the Empire. Their father attempts to keep the peace by speaking of a neighbor who long ago cast war aside. His name? “Old Man Lawquane.”
Kix
We first meet Kix, the dedicated clone medic of Torrent Company, in the same episode as Cut Lawquane, “The Deserter.” In “Orders,” the errant clone Fives tries to tell Kix of a horrible plot against the Jedi and the galaxy itself, but Kix doesn’t seem to get it. Ever-analytical, though, he mounted his own investigation, eventually learning the truth of Order 66. He is captured by Count Dooku, put into cryogenic stasis, and ultimately lost.
When Sidon Ithano, a pirate captain so daring that he inspired this very site, learns of a missing Separatist ship in the short story “The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku,” by Landry Q. Walker, featured in Tales from a Galaxy Far, Far Away: Aliens: Volume I, he and his crew of brigands go hunting for the eponymous treasure. It turns out to be none other than the long-lost clone medic, who joins the pirate crew in an era that had otherwise forgotten him and everything for which he fought.
Tan Divo
A very asymmetrical police inspector featured in only two episodes of the series, this bumbling buffoon was forgotten by many viewers as readily as those he “helps” would like to forget him. In Pablo Hidalgo’s 2018 reference book Scum & Villainy: Case Files on the Galaxy’s Most Notorious, readers get to know Tan Divo more intimately than anyone ever expected. The book is presented as an in-universe sum of not only his knowledge, but that of his daughter, an Imperial Security Bureau agent, as well as his grandson, an official in the New Republic. Divo aficionados will be crushed to learn that he perished on Alderaan when it was destroyed, and everyone else will be shocked to learn that there are Divo aficionados.
Lux Bonteri
When fans think of Onderon today, Saw Gerrera is probably the name that springs to mind most readily. Although the planet has a rich history in the Expanded Universe even before its appearance in the series, it is Saw’s story, told through this series, Star Wars Rebels, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story that has gotten the most exposure. But the first Onderonians introduced in The Clone Wars were Senator Mina Bonteri, sympathetic Separatist, and her son, Lux.
While Mina’s career before the war is showcased in E.K. Johnston’s young adult novel Queen’s Shadow, we see Lux’s adult life in a very different story. in 2017’s Rogue One sequel/Battlefront II prequel novel Inferno Squad by Christie Golden, Imperial agent Iden Versio is tasked with infiltrating the remnants of Saw Gerrera’s organization after his death. Fans of The Clone Wars will remember that Lux was tied to the Gerreras’ insurgency from its inception in the episode “A War on Two Fronts.” Two decades have not erased his loyalty to his fellow Onderonians, with him continuing to guide the movement under the codename of “the Mentor.”
