Amaiza

• Appeared in:
  
  I
  II
  III
  IV
  V
  VI
  CW

• Homeworld:
  Ord Mantell

• Species:
  Human

• Gender:
  Female

• Size:
  1.7 meters

• Affiliation:
  Former den-mother of the Black Hole Gang, now independent operator

• 

From the Expanded Universe

Though she makes almost no reference to her full name these days, Amaiza was once Amaiza Foxtrain, one half of a set of performing twins. She and her sister Jodelle worked as a dancing and tumbling act for Quatrain Pudundruh, a Twi'lek entrepreneur on Ord Mantell who was forced to sell the sisters into slavery during a rough year. The two became the property of the Black Hole Gang, a space pirate assembly based out of the Delphon system. Jodelle was accidentally killed in a pirate raid, which galvanized Amaiza's resolve to learn the skills necessary to survive as a pirate. After exposing the mismanagement of the Delphon leader, Kayso, the popular Amaiza ascended to the position of den-mother of the Black Hole Gang.

The gang was dispersed by the Empire in an attack in the Delphon system, by which time she had racked up a record that included dead or alive bounties in six star systems. Rudderless after the scuttling of her group, she gravitated to the backwater Outer Rim world of Aduba-3 to seek work. When Han Solo was hiring spacers to protect Onacra, a small Aduban farming community, from marauding Cloud-Riders, Amaiza was one of the down-on-their-luck spacers who answered the call.

Along with Chewbacca, Jaxxon, Hedji, Don-Wan Kihotay, Jimm the Starkiller Kid and FE-9Q, Amaiza and Han Solo dealt with bloodthirsty high-hounds, the cutthroat Cloud-Rider gang, and an enormous creature known as the behemoth from below that emerged from the depths of Aduba-3. Through it all, Amaiza proved her combat skills, suffering only a twisted ankle from all this action.

After the Aduba-3 caper, Jaxxon and Amaiza stayed together working as a team. With Amaiza's gambling skills, she was able to raise their small stakes to a level where Jaxxon could get his freighter, Rabbit's Foot, repaired. The two operated out of Nar Shaddaa as well as other shadowports in the backwater of the galaxy.

The bounty hunter Valance, working under the mistaken impression that Jaxxon and Amaiza could lead him to Luke Skywalker, had his fellow hunters hound the pair. Valance mistook Jimm the Starkiller Kid for Skywalker, and tracked him to Aduba-3. Amaiza and Jaxxon arrived before he did to warn Jimm of the coming hunter. In a final confrontation with Amaiza and Jaxxon, Valance realized his error and fled Aduba-3.

Amaiza is an exotic looking female, with fair skin, white hair, and decorative corneal lenses that give her cat-like pupils in brilliant orange eyes. In her younger days, she would often be scantily clad in red leather and often wore a red flower in her hair. She brandishes twin blaster pistols in a pair of hip holsters. She is crack shot. Han Solo remarked how he once witnessed her shoot the antennae off a ji-ant at 600 yards.

She and Han Solo have some sort of past history, but both remain coy as to what that might be. The two evidently enjoyed the verbal sparring that would invariably develop from their conversations. When asked if anyone had ever told her that she talked too much, Amaiza responded to Solo that one previous acquaintance had, and that "his widow was living it up on Bestine with his death benefits."

Behind the Scenes

Amaiza first appeared in "Eight for Aduba-3" Star Wars #8 (1978, Marvel Comics), the second installment in a multi-part story-arc inspired by The Seven Samurai that focused on Han Solo gathering a posse to protect a besieged farming village. She would later appear in "The Hunter," Star Wars #16 (1978, Marvel Comics), a fill-in issue notable for focusing on supporting characters and not the main stars from the first Star Wars film. Amaiza was largely ignored by the larger continuity of the Star Wars expanded universe until profiled in an article is Star Wars Gamer #4 (2001, Wizards of the Coast).