Pop Culture Poll: Dengar vs. Bossk

Friends, as most of you are already aware, today happens to be May the 4th – that day when the majority of fans choose to celebrate the lasting legacy of the Star Wars franchise. The celebration also seems to manage to tempt many of us to pry open our wallets for some fantastic merchandise, to say nothing of the fact that Disney+ has released both a brand new Star Wars inspired short for The Simpsons as well as the eagerly awaited first episode of the Star Wars: The Bad Batch animated series.

Originally I had played around with the idea of naming these new articles something like Pop Culture Combat, a silly tip of the hat to the likes of Mortal Kombat, but after talking it over with my fellow Pop Culture Retrorama Colleagues… we agreed that was a rather aggressive name to use, right?

So, with these Pop Culture Poll articles we will be taking two Pop Culture characters or properties, talk a bit about them (which is no different from what we usually do) and ask you the reader to tell us in the comments or on social media which is the winner in the proposed situation. And as today is May the 4th, I thought the first poll should be between two of the feared bounty heroes that were first introduced in 1980’s Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back.

The Corellian bounty hunter known as Dengar is widely recognized for leaving a path of destruction in his wake while hunting his targets. Thanks to the excellent Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, we learn that Dengar and Bossk were working as bounty hunters during the three-year war that took place between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. In fact the duo worked for the bounty hunter syndicate on Tatooine known as Krayt’s Claw, along with the teenage Boba Fett who was the leader of the group.

Dengar it would seem as the Galactic Civil War came to an end had no qualms with augmenting his natural talents, honed as a gladiator in his early years, by undergoing cybernetic improvements. And while it has not been stated outright, there is a character in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that bears a striking resemblance to Dengar, but is called Rothgar Deng.

The feared Bossk is a Trandoshan and the son of Cradossk, a famed bounty hunter in his own right who ended up making a good pile of credits working with the Empire during the Galactic Civil War. It has been said that Bossk’s first act upon being hatched on Trandosha was to devour the eggs of his other siblings. And while Bossk would be trained as a bounty hunter by his father, it would seem there is bad blood between the two, with some online sources stating that it involved the younger Trandoshan not being able to capture Han Solo and Chewbacca. It is noteworthy that the Trandoshans and Wookies have a long-standing rivalry, as the reptilian species delights in hunting, capturing, and skinning their prey to be used a gruesome trophies.

Make no mistake about it, the Trandoshans are extremely capable warriors and hunters, known just as much for their fierce nature as their cruelty. Although having said that Bossk would wind up acting as a mentor/bodyguard of sorts to a young Boba Fett, even sticking by the teenager during their period of incarceration in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center on Coruscant to protect him. After escaping the prison the two would stay together as a team when Boba founded the Krayt’s Claw syndicate, although the two bounty hunters would find their paths finally diverging, only to meet up again when answering a job from none other than Darth Vader. The job being offered by the Dark Lord of the Sith was to locate the Millennium Falcon and capture those aboard… but no disintegrations.

Like with Dengar, Bossk ended up working for Jabba the Hutt and can be briefly glimpsed in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – although as I understand it, in Star Wars canon as it is now, it is unknown whether the Trandoshan survived the rescue of Han Solo and the destruction of Jabba’s sail barge.

Enjoy this informative video focusing on Bossk and past lore now under the Star Wars Legends line of books, comics, and other media.

In closing out this article, let us say that both Dengar and Bossk are hired to bring in Preens B’oola, the Twi’lek criminal located on Corellia. Who do you personally think would be the one to succeed in capturing the target?