Lit Comic Collectors: Who has an original Handbook 1: X-Wing Rogue Squadron?

Hi everyone. Sorry to post a new thread instead of just asking in the General Questions thread or the Wookieepedia thread, but I figure this is the easiest way to get the most attention and to effectively solve the problem. And hey, I've been here for thirteen years; permit me a little indulgence.

I have the Dark Horse omnibuses of the Rogue Squadron comics but not the original single-issues. I've been doing some Rogue Squadron-related stuff on the Wook lately, and I came across this article:

"Firstpilot Rekush was a Mon Calamari officer and one of Gial Ackbar's closest aides. Rekush was the one who pointed Feylis Ardele out to Wedge Antilles as a possible Rogue Squadron candidate."

It was created in 2006 by Kuralyov, who was very active in the Wook's first few years but whom hasn't edited since 2008. The article's only source is Handbook 1: X-Wing Rogue Squadron.

That handbook is included in the first X-Wing Omnibus, but it doesn't mention Rekush or a "firstpilot" anywhere. Feylis Ardele's entry says only:



I would have said Case Closed and just marked Rekush's article for deletion, but the first sentence of Feylis's entry isn't a complete sentence, which gave me just enough uncertainty to wonder if something was left out when the Handbook was transferred to the omnibus ... ?

A google search for Firstpilot Rekush only brings up this 2003 Geocities page on the Rogues , which mentions Rekush under Feylis's entry. At first I thought that maybe the Geocities page was a copy-paste job from this different-than-the-omnibus-original-handbook I've dreamed up but probably doesn't really exist, but scrolling through and actually reading some of the entries quashes that idea pretty quickly:

"Plourr Ilo: puts honor above all else. She is a warrior through and through and will not hesitate to kick anyone's butt who disagrees with her. Even though she may appear aloof, she has a good relationship with her team mates, though she does it by way of criticizing and mocking them. She seems to hang out most with Derek and Wes"

Anyway... in the interest of being indisputably sure that this Rekush character doesn't exist, and that what actually happened was that Kuralyov used this Geocities page as a primary source when creating Rekush's article in 2006 --- can anyone with the original handbook, in non-omnibus form, check the page with Feylis/Beruss/Ibtisam et al. and confirm that no, the omnibus didn't rewrite anything, and that the incomplete sentence leading off Feylis's entry isn't anything at which to blink twice? You guys know how ornery the people at the Wook can get --- an attempt to delete this article without a full investigation might not be met all that enthusiastically.

I've also checked Feylis's entries in Who's Who In Rogue Squadron and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, but no mention of any sort of Rekush character.

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided.

 

Strange. I have the original Rogue Squadron Handbook, and close at hand. Under Feylis Ardele, it says this, word for word:

"On the advice of Admiral Ackbar's trusted aide and fellow Mon Cal, Firstpilot Rekush, Wedge Antilles interviewed Feylis Ardele, a cadet who had recently come from the Commenor Militia."

No other mention of Rekush that I can see.

 

Well...

...... Well.

Huh.

How... about that.

So they did change the Handbook for the Omnibus. ... Would they have removed some of the info from the pilot bios in order to fit the pages into the smaller omnibus format? I dunno.

I did a quick search through some c. 2005 threads here about the omnibus, but nobody seemed to mention it. Edit: Wait, this guy in 2009 said: "Umm, I don't know if this counts, but the "datafiles" in the X-wing Rogue Squadron Omnibus are an abbreviated version of the X-wing Rogue Squadron Handbook. Some of the entries are cut down significantly." How about that! I had no idea. And here I was, all confident enough to delete the Rekush page. Hooray for due diligence.

Thanks so much for looking into that, Nom. I hate to ask for more, or for it to seem like I doubt you, but is there any chance you could snap a pic of that page with your phone and e-mail it to me? It's mostly just for my own Rogue records. ... Which sounds like a weird thing to call an unorganized folder on my computer's desktop. If so, I would be incredibly grateful. I'm at removed, but if it's too much trouble no worry at all. Thanks again for checking!

 

Sure. Hope it helps.

 

Nom, you're a champion! I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the trouble to do that.

Here's what he sent me, folks, on the off chance anyone else is interested:



That is quite a bit longer than what made it into the omnibus, and it also matches that Geocities page word for word.

The omnibus's truncation sentenced Rekush to obscurity forever. Never got mentioned in another source, and is barely linked to on the Wook (I just added it to Feylis's page now --- how the hell did Havac even find it when he was writing Wedge's article back in oh ten?).

Anyway. Back to trying to flimsily justify ROTJ's Red Two as being a different character than Grey Leader. Carry on!

 

@Jeff_Ferguson - I edited your post above to remove the email address for security reasons since these pages are available to the public without them having to log in. It's best to share personal information like that via PM - you never know who might be lurking about to cause trouble.

 

Thanks. I tend to be pretty absentminded about that.

Or maybe I planned all along for my e-mail address to suffer the same fate as Rekush! REMOVED FOREVER! It's poetic!

 

I see enough horror stories about issues with data and privacy so I tend to err on the cautious side.