Star Wars: The Mandalorian - Timothy Olyphant's Cobb Vanth Explained

After a nearly year-long wait, Star Wars: The Mandalorian has finally returned with a brand new season on Disney+. Friday morning brought the Season 2 premiere of The Mandalorian to viewers around the world, and with it, a ton of questions. Besides planting the seeds for a major plot involving a character from Star Wars past, The Mandalorian introduced a new face from the Aftermath book series that fans of the franchise are sure to love, even if they have some questions about him. We're talking, of course, about Cobb Vanth.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for the first episode of Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2! Continue reading at your own risk...

As many fans speculated ahead of the season, Cobb Vanth is played by none other than Justified star Timothy Olyphant. Vanth was first introduced in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath books as the Sheriff of Freetown, a small settlement on Tatooine. On The Mandalorian, the town is called Mos Pelgo, and Vanth is known as the Marshal.

Vanth is most well-known as the man with Boba Fett's armor, which is the reason why he's introduced in The Mandalorian. Din Djarin is on a quest to find other Mandalorians in order to get help seeking out any remaining Jedi, hoping to reunited The Child with his people. He is informed of a Mandalorian in Mos Pelgo, but it turns out to be Vanth wearing Boba Fett's Mandalorian armor. Mando agrees to help Vanth kill a krayt dragon and protect his town in exchange for the armor.

The books don't offer a ton of backstory on Cobb Vanth, other than the fact that he got Fett's armor from some Jawas after they sorted through the wreckage of Jaba the Hutt's barge. On the show, Vanth gets a little more of a story. His settlement was taken over by a mining guild after the fall of the Empire and many people became slaves. He escaped, only to be found on the brink of death by Jawas. He traded what he had to get the armor from them and returned to Mos Pelgo in Fett's suit, freeing everyone from the miners.

There's no telling when we will see Cobb Vanth again, but there's no doubt he'll return some time in the future. Fans will undoubtedly fall in love with the character by the time the episode is through.

What did you think of Cobb Vanth's live-action debut? Let us know in the comments!