The season finale Skeleton Crew he brought with him something that fans have been wanting to see ever since Return of the Jedi: B-Wing bomber actually doing something. The the legendary fighter for the alphabet has long been a stalwart of Star Wars games, novels and comics, but it took more than four decades to actually see one in live action firing in combat. And yet, despite all the excitement, you might have been a little surprised at how Skeleton CrewThe B-Wings opened fire—because it has a much more recent origin story than the B-Wing itself.
A brief history of the B-Wing weapon
A hybrid attack fighter and heavy bomber, the B-Wing has always been considered one of the best equipped fighters in the Alliance fleet. We never actually saw them in action Return of the Jedi— the thin profile of the fighter model made it difficult to shoot on blue screen, meaning that many of the planned shots with the new ship were eventually cut from the film. After the opening shot of the Battle of Endor and scenes of the Rebels turning away from the still-operational Death Star II, the B-Wings barely appear in the final film.
This one left supporting material — mostly early Star Wars role playing and then in the 90s and early video game series like X-Wing, TIE Fighterand Outlaw Squadron game, to fill the gaps in what makes the B-Wing stand out among the Rebel arsenal. The answer was mostly a lot firepower – if the X-Wing was a skilled craft, A-wing a fast fighter, and the Y-Wing specifically a heavy bomber, the B-Wing operated in the niche of a heavy fighter designed to punch above its weight class and engage capital ships. The tips of each of its S-foils, as well as two blaster bays under the cockpit, gave the starfighter a robust arsenal of heavy laser cannons and, most importantly, disabling ion weapons that would allow the B-Wing to penetrate larger vessels with a volley of fire that could breach ship systems and shields. The B-Wing could then follow with a complement of explosives, in the form of multiple proton torpedo launchers or space to carry even more devastating payloads.
Enter the Blade Wing
in Star Wars expanded universe, both the B-Wing and the A-Wing are introduced as ships produced by the Alliance and its allies after the Battle of Yavin—the B-Wing was specifically developed with the help of then-newly recruited Gial Ackbar as part of “Project Shantipole”, deemed necessary for the Alliance to upgrade its combat compliment as the Empire responded to the Death Destruction of the Star at the hands of a starfighter wing with increased production of capital ships. This was partly the in-universe explanation for why no fighters appeared during the events of the A new hope or The Empire Strikes Backbut when Star Wars there was continuity relaunched in 2014both ships were inducted into the Rebel fleet earlier in the timeline. The A-Wing first debuted during the peak Star Wars Rebels‘ first season as the lead starfighter of Phoenix Squadron, a rebel cell that eventually recruited the series’ heroes into the fledgling alliance, but the B-Wing got its own dedicated introduction in Rebels the second season of “Wings of the Master”.
In some ways, the B-Wing was introduced out of a similar need – the Rebels’ lack of ships with the firepower to break through capital ship blockades – but otherwise its origins were radically revised. Since Ackbar was not found, he was replaced by Quarrie, a lone engineer of the Mon Calamari who was working in secret on a prototype B6 starfighter, called “Blade Wing”. Shantipole was no longer the name of the project and the research station that gave birth to the ship, but the planet where it hid. Instead of a ship designed in tandem with the top of the Alliance, it was now a single ship, negotiated by the parties Hera Syndullawhich would eventually lay the groundwork for the development of the B-Wing on a larger scale.
Oh, and it also had a large laser beam. Although the Blade Wing still retained the individual blaster mounts for the traditional ion and laser weapons on the tips of its s-foils as it did in the Expanded Universe, Rebels introduced the composite beam laser as the Blade Wing’s primary weapon against capital ships: a quadruple linked heavy weapon that could draw energy from the Blade Wing’s installed hyperdrive to charge and fire a short-range target beam capable of penetrating deflector shields and hull plating.
After the successful defense trial of Phoenix Squadron’s supply ship to the blockaded world of Ibaar, Senator Bail Organa secured a shipyard for both the Quarrie and the Blade Wing, leading to the design being redone as a large scale. production of the B-Wing began. But in the iteration, the composite beam was seemingly dropped from the final design, with a secondary gunner position on the opposite tip of the Blade Wing’s main wing… until the weapon appeared in Skeleton Crew this week, that is
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