Made famous for her eye-catching design within a brief cameo in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace and her subsequent appearance in the 2008 Star Wars: the Clone Wars television series, Aurra Sing has become one of the most well-known bounty hunters in the Star Wars franchise. Yet despite Aurra's notability among fans, many are unaware that within the pages of Dark Horse Comics, Aurra Sing was revealed to have once been a Jedi Padawan before falling to the dark side.
While her occupation as a bounty hunter has always remained a consistent part of Aurra Sing's characterization within the galaxy, her past as a Jedi Padawan was something that has been abandoned by the new Star Wars Canon, despite it being an integral part of her early conception after her brief appearance in the first film of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In 1998, comic book writer Timothy Truman expanded upon the nonexistent story of this background character as part of the Star Wars: Republic comic book line promoting the release of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 1999. Within the pages of the series, Timothy Truman turned Aurra Sing into a Dark Jedi that hunted and killed her former Jedi Knight comrades for money, and for her own twisted enjoyment.
Aurra Sing's Dark Jedi persona made its first debut in the Star Wars: Republic: Outlander (by Timothy Truman, Tom Randy, Rod Pereira, Rick Leonardi, Al Rio, Stephen Hawthorne and Mark Lipka) mini-series where after a rise in Tuskan Raider assaults plague the desert planet of Tatooine, the notorious Crime Lord; Jabba the Hutt commissioned Aurra Sing to eliminate the Chieftain of the aggressive Tusken Raider clan. But unbeknownst to Jabba, Aurra Sing had an ulterior motive for taking the assignment as she had learnt that the Tusken Raider Chieftain was in actuality an exiled Jedi Master known as Sharad Hett.
However, Aurra was not the only one to learn of Sharad Hett leading the Tusken Raider clan as famed Jedi Master Ki-Adi Mundi had also arrived at Tatooine to try and persuade the exiled Jedi to stop his attacks. Ki-Adi's search for Sharad Hett would only help the Jedi Hunter track down Sharad Hett and his clan, allowing her to kill Sharad and give Jabba the location of the Tusken Raider clan so he and his consortium could begin annihilating the tribal group. Aurra attempted to increase her Jedi kill count by assassinating Ki-Adi Mundi and Sharad Hett's Force-sensitive song, crossing lightsaber blades with the Jedi Council member. Fortunately for Ki-Adi Mundi, his greater experience forced Aurra Sing to retreat, having to remain content with only killing one Jedi Knight.
Aurra Sing fell to the Dark Side because, as a Jedi Padawan, Aurra was trained by the Jedi Master An'ya Kuro. Her brutal training methods earned Kuro the moniker of 'The Dark Woman'. An'ya Kuro's combination of merciless physical and psychological training slowly ate away at Aurra, making her despise her master. Eventually while on a mission, Aurra was kidnaped by a gang called the Sennex Pirates and sold into slavery, the pirates claiming that the Dark Woman paid them to do it, Aurra's hatred of her master leading her to believe the pirates which prompted her hatred of Jedi and led her to become a hunter of Jedi.
Decades later, after Aurra Sing had established herself as a Force-sensitive bounty hunter, she enthusiastically accepted an assignment to locate and kill her former master. Targeting Republic Senator Tikkes and feigning an assassination attempt, Aurra successfully lured her old master out of hiding and managed to wound An'ya Kuro with a sniper shot. But Aurra's plans soon go awry when she is confronted by A'Sharad Hett, the son of the Tusken Raider Jedi she had killed and who had followed in his father's footsteps to become a Jedi Knight.
Fueled with a desire to avenge his father's death and see Aurra face justice for her crimes, A'Sharad engaged her in a lightsaber duel, with the young Jedi Knight ultimately besting Aurra and incapacitating her. However, by the storyline's climax, Aurra Sing would eventually escape the Jedi's grasp and continue to roam the galaxy for new bounties, especially Jedi bounties. Aurra was left largely unused in media after Star Wars: the Clone Wars,
However, her compelling backstory was not completely forgotten, as it became the inspiration for Asajj Ventress' characterization in later seasons of the television show. Ventress gradually transitioned from being a Dark Side Adept to the bounty hunter profession. Regardless of this fact, it is unfortunate that Aurra Sing's fallen Jedi origins have been largely forgotten, as her original backstory appropriately complimented her unique design, making her an incredibly distinctive character among the large cast of bounty hunters within the Star Wars universe.