Poe Dameron is easily one of the Star Wars sequel trilogy's breakout characters and it's not hard to see why. Poe's an everyman hero; a talented pilot who was dispatched by General Leia Organa to track down a promising lead to Luke Skywalker's hidden enclave in the hopes that he would recruit her brother to aid the Resistance in The Force Awakens. Before this, we didn't know a whole lot about Poe's adventures before his first cinematic one. Until, that is, the release of Marvel's Poe Dameron comics series, which details his exploits with an elite fighter group: Black Squadron.

Written by Charles Soule with art from Phil Noto and Angel Unzueta as well as letters by Joe Caramagna, Poe Dameron is the story of how Poe went from a talented fighter pilot to a Resistance leader. Recruited by General Organa herself, Poe is charged with finding Lor San Tekka (portrayed by Max von Sydow in The Force Awakens), a man who possessed a portion of the map to Luke's hidden redoubt on Ahch-To. Dameron assembles a team of four fighter pilots and a technician to create Black Squadron. Dameron leads the squadron alongside his friend and colleague Temmin "Snap" Wexley, and Resistance pilots Kare Kun, L'ulo L'ampar, while Jessika Pava comprised the core group with technician Oddy Muva rounding out the team.

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Snap Wexley was a veteran pilot who fought in the Battle of Jakku and would go on to prove a faithful ally and friend of Poe from The Force Awakens all the way to his tragic death in The Rise of Skywalker. Kare Kun was a human pilot in the New Republic who flew with Poe during his days as a member of Rapier Squadron, only to join the Resistance and be recruited into Black Squadron. L'ulo L'ampar was a Duros pilot and veteran of the war against the Empire, having flown alongside Poe Dameron's mother during the Battle of Endor. Jessika Pava joined the Resistance after the First Order broke a treaty with the New Republic and began openly arming for war. She flew with Poe and Snap in The Force Awakens. Oddy Muva was an Abednego technician who helped keep the squadron flying.

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The squadron's efforts to track San Tekka took them to the mountainous planet of Ovanis where they met with a group of eccentrics known as the Creche Cult. The group worshipped and protected a giant egg, believing that one day the egg would hatch a savior to bring peace to the known galaxy. While learning that Tekka had visited the cult some time prior, the group found itself in a skirmish with the First Order. A First Order Security Bureau agent named Terex had recruited Oddy Muva against his will as a spy in the Resistance by way of blackmail, and the ambitious agent gathered First Order forces to capture the Resistance pilots, hoping to obtain intelligence from their enemy.

The battle raged in the skies of Ovanis, and the unexpected hatching of the egg and the birth of two combative flying creatures gave Poe the chance he needed to turn the tide of battle and drive Terex and his surviving forces away.

In later adventures, Black Squadron infiltrated a maximum-security prison to question Grakkus the Hutt, a crime lord with a taste for Jedi artifacts who'd crossed paths with San Tekka and might have had information on his whereabouts. Terex, through Muva, knew of their arrival and bribed the officials to hold Black Squadron, leading to a last-minute escape thanks to BB-8 and his fellow Black Squadron astromechs disabling a gravity generator. Terex was eventually undone and Muva's wife was rescued, but not without cost: L'ulo L'ampar died protecting escape pods holding freed slaves, and Muva himself gave his life to save Black Squadron by destroying a First Order warship.

By the time of The Force Awakens, Black Squadron was disbanded and the veteran pilots distributed throughout the Resistance. But, Poe's time as leader of Black Squadron helped forge him into a leader and was an integral step on his path from hotshot pilot to Resistance legend.

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