History Awesome / StarWarsLegends

-->It was good that they could not see his face when he spoke. "TheEmpire owes you...''thanks'', Prince Xizor."

** And the post-Order 66 arc of the Dark Horse Clone Wars comics featured Vader utterly ''owning'' a group of at least half a dozen Jedi. With his lightsaber disabled by a cortosis blade...which he takes from the Jedi carrying it, then snaps her spine. Even when his right hand was ''cut off'', he was still able to fight - he picked it up with the Force and hurled it, and the blade it was carrying, into the heart of a Jedi jumping at him.

* Boba Fett clears out a flying Imperial concentration camp for a pittance, just to prove he's Boba motherfucking Fett. He even guns down the Mengele analogue who charges at him with a lightsaber, reminding him that "Jedi weapon doesn't make you Jedi". Then, when the Captain threatens to blow up the ship with them both on it, Fett just turns and walks away, promising to find and kill him later...luring the Captain out of the pilot's seat so Fett can kill him. Boba Fett is ''badass''.

-->'''Mara Jade''': "Ysanne Isard...you've left your datapad plugged in."

** Empatojayos Brand. [[spoiler: At the climax of ''Empire's End'', Palpatine's spirit departs his dying final clone body and attempts to possess Han's son Anakin. However, Brand (who was mortally wounded by Palpatine moments earlier) throws himself in the way, causing Palpatine to possess ''him'' instead. The result is that Palpatine is '''''DRAGGED INTO THE FORCE BY BRAND'S SPIRIT, KILLING HIM'''''. And unlike all of Palpatine's other deaths, this death is '''''PERMANENT''''' and '''''FINAL'''''. Did we mention Brand [[KarmicDeath was an Order 66 survivor]]?]]

** Speaking of ''Comicbook/DarkEmpire'', it's a shame Empatojayos Brand isn't mentioned here. [[spoiler: At the climax of ''Empire's End'', Palpatine's spirit departs his dying final clone body and attempts to possess Han's son Anakin. However, Brand (who was mortally wounded by Palpatine moments earlier) throws himself in the way, causing Palpatine to possess ''him'' instead. The result is that Palpatine is '''''DRAGGED INTO THE FORCE BY BRAND'S SPIRIT, KILLING HIM'''''. And unlike all of Palpatine's other deaths, this death is '''''PERMANENT''''' and '''''FINAL'''''. Did we mention Brand [[KarmicDeath was an Order 66 survivor]]?]]

* The ''Knights Of The Old Republic'' comic series (a prequel to [[KnightsOfTheOldRepublic the game]]) is basically a series of incredible awesome punctuated by a ridiculous number of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments of Awesome]]. These include:

* The entirety of Jango Fett: Open Seasons is CrowningMomentOfAwesome for Jango but the two best examples have be when right after seeing his friend Myles [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe get bisected]],Jango proceeds [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to slaughter half the attacking Jedi company]], using [[RockBeatsLaser a rock, garrote wire and his bare hands]]. The second is right after telling Dooku all of this uses magnets in his gloves to float and pull his guns to him so fast that for a split second Dooku thinks he had the Force!. Jango then [[CrazyPrepared reveals that he released a virus into the room as soon as he came in,which will leave Dooku blind in forty minutes and brain dead within an hour]].

* Remember Luke's brief mention of a friend named "Tank" to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Tank becomes a full fledged character in the Star Wars: Empire comic series as a junior officer named Janek Sunber. One of his earliest assignments sends him to a primitive jungle world on a routine patrol. Things take a turn for the worse when the natives lay siege to them, and only Sunber's quick thinking and original strategies hold the fort. Throughout the whole arc, he's firmly cemented as a badass, but his Crowning Moment of Awesome comes when he and his unit are left stranded out in the battlefield when the group behind him retreats due to its cowardly commander. Sunber knows that if he doesn't do something, they'll all die. Spying the wreckage of one of their juggernauts, he primes a thermal detonator, noting to himself all of the ways this desperate gambit could fail. He throws the grenade, miraculously managing to place it so that it detonates the tank's fuel cells as the enemy advances, blasting them into disarray and allowing him and his soldiers to fall back.

** The man even dies with a CrowningMomentOfAwesome. After spending 3 books being an undefeatable master strategist obsessed with the artwork of the species that he's so handily defeating, he's killed simply by a knife stabbed into his back by his bodyguard. Pure white uniform, crimson blossom of blood..

** In the Tales from the New Republic anthology, Fett takes on an entire Imperial garrison to recover a target he is after - although the quarry escapes. Years later, Fett finds him as an old man, telling stories about Boba Fett to a group of orphans (one of whom asks if Fett is a good guy or a bad guy). After the story is over and the children leave, Fett emerges from the shadows, [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming tips the man for his story (saying it may provide "an answer to a little girl's question") and leaves him in peace]].

--> '''Vergere''': ''Do you?''
--> '''Jacen''': ''Yes. I'm a Jedi.''
* Jacen's best CrowningMomentOfAwesome occurs earlier in Traitor: when he makes the living armor out of amphistaffs and looks at the Yuuzhan Vong warriors headed towards him, with the immortal line, "I'd like you to meet some friends of mine." Followed by a fantastic CurbStompBattle.

** In ''[[Literature/HandOfThrawn Specter of the Past]]'', he's waiting for a rendezvous with New Republic General Garm Bel-Iblis to negotiate a [[PeaceConference peace treaty]] between the New Republic and TheEmpire (though he fears Bel-Iblis might not show up.) Traitorous Imperial elements send a pirate fleet to attack Pellaeon's ship and make him think Bel-Iblis has turned him down. In one brilliant maneuver - a CrowningMomentOfAwesome in its own right - Pellaeon demolishes the pirate fleet and proves they were not sent by Bel-Iblis (he used one of Bel-Iblis' own strategies). He then settles back down to wait for the real Bel-Iblis. When his second-in-command asks what they'll do if their unknown adversary comes after them again, Pellaeon responds "Let him try."

** The third book, ''Showdown at Centerpoint'' has a series of [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments Of Awesome]] for Anakin, Jacen and Jaina, ages 7, 9 and 9, respectively. New Republic Intelligence agent Belindi Kalenda sums the list up nicely for the childist Admiral Ossilege:

* What ''Shatterpoint'' is to Mace Windu, ''Literature/DarkRendezvous'' is to Yoda. The whole novel is roughly a 50/50 split between Awesome and [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Heartwarming]].

* Simultaneously a CrowningMomentOfFunny, when Han shuts down the arrogant Imperial commander early on in ''Destiny's Way''. She brags about how TheEmpire would never have had the kinds of problems with the Yuuzhan Vong that the New Republic was having, as they would have mobilized their entire fleet at the first sign of trouble and then would have swiftly and mercilessly crushed the opposition. Han fires back by pointing out that TheEmpire would have done nothing of the sort and instead would have wasted god knows how much on a [[AwesomeButImpractical massively impractical superweapon]] that would have either not worked or would have had [[AchillesHeel some design flaw]] that an enemy ace could exploit and destroy, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking would have given it a stupid, grandiose name to boot]].

*** Automatically a CrowningMomentOfFunny purely for the term "Nostril of Palpatine".

** Dean Jinzler, overlapping with CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming, letting go of his anger for his sister and embracing his heritage.

* The novel ''Literature/DarthPlagueis'' is a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for TheDarkSide itself.

---> '''Jinzler''': "I am an electronics technician, like my father before me."
* ''Literature/{{Allegiance}}'': When the Hand of Judgment stormtroopers find out that Luke and Han are with the Rebellion, Han tries to dissemble by telling them that they're only [[NotInThisForYourRevolution sort of]] involved; they respond with "So you're only ''sort of'' traitors?" Luke reminds them that ''they'' are deserters, which is exactly the wrong thing to say, and Han defuses the situation by talking about how he was in their boots once, he left the Empire for similar reasons, how the Empire has betrayed its own ideals, and how the Rebel Alliance isn't out to break down order but to change things the only way that they can be changed. Other things too. He reflects what the stormtroopers had said back at them, and he says various things that actually reflect on ''him'', and his own uncomfortable semi-participation in the Rebellion. Han in the end manages to get the Hand of Judgment more or less on his and Luke's side.

* Creator/MattStover's ''Literature/{{Shatterpoint}}''. ''All of it'', largely due to copious amounts of [[Creator/SamuelLJackson Mace Windu]]. To give you some perspective, imagine [[Film/PulpFiction Jules Winnifield]] got ''really'' Zen, shaved his head and his face, and then someone handed him a lightsaber. Roughly four hundred pages of [[BeamMeUpScotty rich, Corinthian]] '''Win''' ensue.
** Highlights include taking ''himself'' hostage to reason with his wayward former apprentice, Depa Billaba and getting his butt kicked by Kar Vastor and [[XanatosGambit still coming out ahead]]. At the end, [[spoiler:he incapacitates Vastor with a telekinetically thrown shield, having previously (with the help of the clones and Nick) killed all Vastor's EliteMooks. Depa is down and catatonic. Nick Rostu is down and badly wounded. Mace remarks "Looks like I'm the last one standing."]]
*** {{Sidekick}} Nick Rostu also gets one just before that. [[spoiler:Vastor is down, but Depa has finally snapped. Despite Mace's pleading, she raises her lightsaber to her temple. Before she activate it and put a blade directly through her brain, Nick -- who up to that point appeared dead -- summons enough strength and accuracy to ''shoot the handle out of her hand'']]. That Nick is quite the badass, and furthermore [[spoiler:he lives]].
** The Battle of [[spoiler:Lorshan Pass]], and the clones' [[spoiler:capture of the spaceport]].
*** The beginning of that battle especially. [[spoiler: First, while armed with two lightsabers, Mace captures a gunship hundreds of feet in the air by basically executing a FastballSpecial. After Depa Bilaba captures another gunship, he ''attacks'' the remaining hundred or so enemy ships before tricking the droid fighters into attacking their allies.]]
** The fact that [[spoiler:he more or less single-handedly ended a war that had been raging for decades in ''less than a week''.]]
** Beating up two thieves in the airport shower. ''Naked''. Shortly thereafter, his [[CrowningMomentOfFunny "negotiation" with Geptun]], then breaking the hand of a guy who tries to punch him simply by ''bowing his head''. No Force involved.
** Geptun, when Mace [[spoiler: realizes [[MacGuffinDeliveryService just how well he's been played.]]]] And again later; [[spoiler:"I keep forgetting that he's smarter than I am."]] And then [[spoiler:"Move over, young man, I'll drive."]]
** Chalk[[spoiler:'s death.]]
** Taking out [[spoiler:a gunship and damaging two more while only using his lightsabers ''once.'']]
** The spy in the opening sequence is made retroactively awesome when Mace realizes what he must've done. He mentally compares the little man's strength to his own. It occurs to him that he might not have been able to do it. He spends a great deal of the book with various serious injuries and he still wins; decisively. To sum it up:
-->'''Mace Windu:''' Kar Vastor is not the most dangerous man in the Korunnai Highlands.
-->'''Nick Rostu:''' You only say that because you don't know him.
-->'''Mace Windu:''' [[BlaseBoast I only say that because he doesn't know me.]]

* Minor example, but in the recent FateOfTheJedi novel Allies, Grand Master Hamner's aide, a young human Padawan, deftly talks him out of personally negotiating with the massive Mandalorian force that has just [[spoiler: laid siege to the Jedi Temple with orders to force them to hand over the mad Jedi.]] She outmaneuvers every argument he tries to make, and convinces him that she's the better person for the job, because nobody could possibly consider her a threat. True, she had no way to know that the Mandalorian commander would [[spoiler: summarily execute her]] because she wasn't completely giving in, but it still qualifies.
** In the same series, the trial of [[spoiler: Tahiri]] is becoming more and more of a farce, and it begins to seem impossible that she will not be executed. Despite easily being capable of breaking out at any time, [[spoiler: Tahiri]] refuses to do so, because it would mean turning her back once more on the Light Side.
** The showdown between Luke and the Hidden One. Luke manages to show the hidden sect the folly of their isolation, beat the Hidden One in a massive Force battle, and then has his son finish him off with logic.
** In ''Allies'', Raynar Thul, perpetual ButtMonkey, executes a awesome one-liner before fighting off five Mandalorian Supercommandos off with a apprentice:
--> '''Raynar''': [[CasualDangerDialogue I am Jedi Thul.]] [[FalseReassurance I have not fought for real in many years.]] [[BlatantLies I should be a pushover.]] [[BringIt Come get me.]]
** Luke, after meditating for several days (and being quite weak), notices a strike team of Sith Warriors coming to kill him and his son. What do they do? [[CurbStompBattle Take them all down.]]
*** The battle ends with Luke, in a single, split-second opening, cutting Olaris Rhea (who was leading the squad) ''into four pieces.'' She looked away ''for an instant'' and that was all she wrote.
** In ''Vortex'', a journalist's assistant gets one after said journalist, busy documenting the brutal suppression of a peaceful protest, is herself murdered by the commander of the suppressing army of Mandalorians. This assistant, given orders not to draw attention to himself so that he could complete the broadcast safely, decides to disobey those orders and kicks the Mandalorian commander down a flight of stairs, right into the waiting arms of two Jedi intervening to stop the massacre.
** In ''Conviction'', Leia runs to find Allana, who she realizes is acting in accordance with some prophetic dreams she (Allana)'s been having. This leads to Leia having to save Allana's hide from a Sith Saber (Equivalent of a Jedi Knight) leading a force trying to kill her and her mother. The Saber is twenty years Leia's junior, younger, stronger, and quite likely more experienced in combat. In about twenty ''seconds'', [[CurbStompBattle he's decapitated without a second thought]].

* ''Awesome/{{Legacy}}''

* In ''ShadowsOfTheEmpire'', [[TheRival Xizor]] manages to make ''Darth Vader'' look like an idiot ''in front of the'' '''Emperor'''. To elaborate: Xizor tips off Vader about a Rebel base. Vader takes credit for it in front of the Emperor. Vader is sent off to pulverize said Rebel base. Xizor drops in on the Emperor for drinks and casually mentions giving the info to Vader. Vader phones in to report mission accomplished. The Emperor makes Vader ''thank'' Xizor. While ''[[HumiliationConga kneeling]]''.

People who have not yet read ''[[HandOfThrawn Spectre of the Past]]'' and ''[[HandOfThrawn Vision of the Future]]'' should take note of this. People who have read them will undoubtedly get that really awesome spine-shiver that is accompanied with an "OMG that's so awesome" feeling. You know the one I'm talking about. Yes you do.

* One for Admiral Gilad Pellaeon at the climax of each of Timothy Zahn's ''HandOfThrawn'' books:
** In ''[[HandOfThrawn Specter of the Past]]'', he's waiting for a rendezvous with New Republic General Garm Bel-Iblis to negotiate a [[PeaceConference peace treaty]] between the New Republic and TheEmpire (though he fears Bel-Iblis might not show up.) Traitorous Imperial elements send a pirate fleet to attack Pellaeon's ship and make him think Bel-Iblis has turned him down. In one brilliant maneuver - a CrowningMomentOfAwesome in its own right - Pellaeon demolishes the pirate fleet and proves they were not sent by Bel-Iblis (he used one of Bel-Iblis' own strategies). He then settles back down to wait for the real Bel-Iblis. When his second-in-command asks what they'll do if their unknown adversary comes after them again, Pellaeon responds "Let him try."

* ''[[JediAcademyTrilogy I, Jedi]]'' is full of them.

--> Jaina: So who are you going to hit them with? The New Republic, or the Rebellion?
--> Wedge: Neither. We're going to him them with an enemy they've never had the displeasure of facing. We're going to hit them with the Empire.
-->Tycho: They're not going to like the Empire.
** The third one was called Operation Emperor's Spear. The ''Lusankya'' was systematically stripped of its weapons, fitted with an internal reinforced spear along its eleven mile length, and packed with explosives. Then Eldo Davip himself singlehandedly [[RammingAlwaysWorks rammed it into the Vong worldship]], before escaping in a Y-Wing made of spare parts for this purpose.

----

** The spy in the opening sequence is made retroactively awesome when Mace realizes what he must've done. He mentally compares the little man's strength to his own. It occurs to him that he might not have been able to do it. He spends a great deal of the book with various serious injuries and he still wins; Decisively.

-->That's not what the Empire would have done, Commander. What the Empire would have done was build a super-colossal Yuuzhan Vong-killing battle machine. They would have called it the Nova Colossus or the Galaxy Destructor or the Nostril of Palpatine or something equally grandiose. They would have spent billions of credits, employed thousands of contractors and subcontractors, and equipped it with the latest in death-dealing technology. And you know what would have happened? It wouldn't have worked. They'd forget to bolt down a metal plate over an access hatch leading to the main reactors, or some other mistake, and a hotshot enemy pilot would drop a bomb down there and blow the whole thing up. Now that's what the Empire would have done.

** In ''Betrayal'' he breaks out of an (admittedly cushy and low-security, but still monitored) prison cell using a tumbler of water, a video game, and a wheeled chair. By planning carefully, memorizing how his captors respond to what he does, timing things to the half-second, and moving very quickly when he gets the chance. After that he locks his captors and the security detail into that cell and thinks that now all he has to do is find a locker room, shed these clothes and substitute them for a local uniform, find a hangar, and steal something with a hyperdrive. All while evading members of Intelligence. He calls this task ''Easy'' - and it must have been, since his next appearance has him in an X-Wing, easily evading every attack coming at him. And identifying his attacker as his daughter ''because of her flying style'', despite not knowing that she would be there.

* In the collaborative TimothyZahn - Michael Stackpole novella ''Side Trip'', Grand Admiral Thrawn returns from the Unknown Regions to play dress-up as Jodo Kast, destroy Black Sun's influence on Corellia, and get command of the Noghri from Darth Vader. None of the viewpoint characters know who he is or what he's doing; they think he's a bounty hunter going with the money. But the readers know, and can piece together what he's doing, and it is ''awesome''.

* Captain Raymus Antilles, the captain of the ''Tantive IV'' whom Darth Vader executes at the beginning of ''ANewHope'', scores one in a prequel comic to Episode IV. A merciless Imperial officer has Leia at gunpoint and is planning to shoot her to make a point to her men. Knowing that there's no time to think, Antilles orders the gunners to fire, not at the officer, which would have vaporized Leia as well, but just ''over'' him. The shot scorches the man by mere proximity while leaving Leia completely unharmed.

* The novel ''DarthPlagueis'' is a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for TheDarkSide itself.

* In OutboundFlight, Thrawn had a tiny picket force of three small cruisers and seven fighters. He beat two Trade Federation split-ring battleships, each with a massive complement of droid starfighters, and six armed Techno Union ''Hardcell''-class transports, plus seven escort cruisers. Not one Chiss died. See, the Trade Federation remote-controlled their starfighters with comm signals that were supposedly unjammable, because if the enemy jammed one frequency they just shifted to another. No one would dare jam ''all'' frequencies, because then no one could communicate with the other ships at all. Except that Thrawn did that and countered the countermeasures. And found the [[AttackTheWeakPoint weak points]] in the larger ships. And rigged up a stolen gravity-well generator so that no one could escape.

* ''StarWarsLegacy'' issue 4 which is about a squad of Stormtroopers ends with them fighting and killing a ''Sith Lord who's armed with a force whip and lightsaber" by shooting him in the back.

* Admiral Gar Stazi turn the trap laid by the Imperial fleet over its head and able to steal the Advanced Star Destroyer in ''StarWarsLegacy'' 21. Him also giving badass retort to Valan's offer to surrender also makes him living up his name of GAR.