The Star Wars franchise is at this point well known for its assortment of named background characters, lovingly referred to by fans as “Glup-Shitto”s. I may have fallen down rabbit hole online recently and discovered a few of these characters that might be my new favourites of the entire series.

For a Brief moment in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, we catch a glimpse of a bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to hunt down the Millennium Falcon. And yes, Boba Fett is there too, but I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about Zuckuss.

Zuckuss is a bug-like, force sensitive, humanoid from the planet Gand who became a bounty hunter after being cast out of his familial clan and fleeing his home planet. After Zuckuss’s first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back he’s been featured in a few different adaptations of the film as well as in the Star Wars Adventure comic book series. I want to also mention that he only speaks it the third person, and I love that.

But, Zuckuss is not a solo act, no. He’s only one half of a feared pair of bounty hunters. His partner is crime: 4-LOM. And no, that’s not a typo, the number 4 is part of his name. It may seem strange at first but the reason for 4-LOM’s numerical name is that he’s a droid! He’s a LOM-series protocol droid who overrode his programming and escaped his assignment to later become a bounty hunter.

Despite being portrayed as the bad-guys in the comics, Zuckuss and 4-LOM are so endearing to me. Their partnership dynamic and relationship is just so real. You can tell they know each other really well and care about each other. For background characters with maybe 5 seconds of screen time in the original trilogy, 4-LOM and Zuckuss are remarkably fleshed out characters.

If you have an hour or so to sink on the Star Wars wiki, I highly recommend looking into some “Glup-Shitto”s yourself. Maybe you’ll find a new favourite character to yap about like I did!