Star Wars, and The Mandalorian in particular, loves to bring back a familiar face. So when, in the latest issue of Empire Magazine, Jon Favreau teased that the identity of one of the mysterious Warlords of Moff Gideon’s Shadow Council will have a name reveal that fans will like when they hear it in The Mandalorian and Grogu, that probably will only mean one thing: that name is one familiar to us from elsewhere in Star Wars continuity, and above all else, it’s probably a name from the old expanded universe.
We know that at least two of the unidentified Imperial Warlords who first appeared in the seventh episode of The Mandalorian‘s third season, “The Spies,” will appear in the new movie, the characters played by Jonny Coyne and Hemky Madera. Madera’s Warlord has been seen in scenes set on an ice planet that will have Din and Grogu engage in a major action sequence against Imperial Remnant forces, while Coyne’s role is much more mysterious—not wholly glimpsed in trailers yet, but new imagery from the March 2026 issue of Empire, which hit newsstands this week, shows the character next to an imprisoned Grogu, overlooking the arena we’ve seen Rotta the Hutt fighting in.
It’s Coyne’s Warlord in particular that Favreau teased as having the name fans will react to. Given that we already know he’s a warlord, and given the likelihood we’re going to be drawing on some EU lore here for a namedrop, why not start with the man who defined that title for Star Wars‘ Expanded Universe?
Who Is Warlord Zsinj?
Although Imperial warlordism as a concept largely became a major factor in the Expanded Universe after the Empire’s defeat at the Battle of Endor, Zsinj earned the title during the Galactic Empire’s height—when “Warlord of the Empire” was a title bestowed, like “Tan” and “Baron” for pilots, to extremely skilled military commanders by Emperor Palpatine. In fact, “Warlord” was made for Zsinj.
He earned the honor early in the Empire’s reign for a pretty unorthodox reason. Zsinj’s mother, Maarisa, was an admiral in the Republic’s Outland Regions Security Forces, and remained loyal when it became the Empire. However, the process of imperialization brought with it broad discrimination against both non-human and non-female beings, and Maarisa Zsinj found herself increasingly sidelined in the new military structure. Stealing her Venator-class Star Destroyer, Retaliation, when it was ordered for decommissioning, Madame Zsinj became a renegade pirate, and her son was given an opportunity: a Star Destroyer of his own, the Victory-class Iron Fist, and the promise of glory if he brought his mother down.
He did so after a bloody campaign, earning himself the mantle of Warlord, and although he would rise through the ranks of the Imperial Navy to become an Admiral and even a Grand Moff eventually, he would continue to be known as Warlord Zsinj throughout his career, amassing a vast fleet of Star Destroyers under his personal command in the Quelii Oversector—the single largest fleet in the Navy, in a region of space that covered Taris, Dathomir, Mandalore, and dozens of other worlds.
With the Emperor’s death over Endor, however, Zsinj began making a play to keep that power as his own. Although initially appearing to be aligned with the remains of the Imperial Ruling Council, Zsinj consolidated his power on the planet Serenno, using his military might to forcibly control his borders, never to expand them, building his power within the guidelines that professed his loyalty to the true Empire, recruiting Imperials and pirates alike to his cause as he ramped up his military assets.
By 6ABY, with the New Republic largely occupied by dealing with the Empire’s true leader, Director of Imperial Intelligence Ysanne Isard, and her grip on the galactic core, Zsinj began striking against the New Republic in earnest, destroying facilities and raiding supplies across New Republic space in a series of hit-and-run attacks. His status as a problem for the fledgling Republic only grew after Isard’s death and the liberation of Coruscant, with many Imperials dedicating themselves to Zsinj’s authority in the wake of her death, defeating and absorbing the holdings of other smaller remnant Warlords—by when his former Imperial title had become a catch-all descriptor for any rogue Imperial remnant who tried to establish themselves as rulers of their own fiefdoms.
With Isard’s defeat, the New Republic formally turned its military focus to Zsinj, tasking General Han Solo with his own command force to hunt the Warlord, which included both Rogue and eventually Wraith squadrons, elite starfighter teams led by Wedge Antilles, the latter specifically established to engage in hybrid starfighter and spec ops campaigns to counter Zsinj’s own unorthodox tactics. By 8ABY, Zsinj’s personal Empire covered as much territory as that of the official Imperial Remnant, and was only even remotely rivaled in scope by Greater Maldrood, the regions controlled by Warlord Treuten Teradoc (more on him later). But despite his power, the tide slowly turned against Zsinj—Solo nearly destroyed his flagship, the rechristened Executor-class Star Dreadnought Iron Fist, multiple times, leading to Zsinj faking its destruction to retreat to his secret base on the planet Dathomir.
Thinking he had eluded Solo for the meantime, little did Warlord Zsinj know that Han was about to show up on his doorstep. Han returned to Coruscant after the seeming destruction of the Iron Fist, only to find that his paramour, Princess Leia Organa, was considering a political marriage to Prince Isolder of the powerful Hapes Consortium to bolster the New Republic’s finances. Long story short: Han went rogue, winning the ownership of Dathomir in a game of sabacc against a Drackmarian warlord, kidnapping Leia, resigning his commission, and whisking her away to his new property, thinking it would convince her to marry him instead (what a man, Han Solo!).
Arriving at Dathomir aboard the Millennium Falcon, Solo and Organa promptly realized that they had uncovered the heart of Zsinj’s power. Crash landing on Dathomir, Solo and Organa encountered the local Nightsisters, powerful practitioners of the Force and magic, and were eventually joined in captivity by a pursuing Isolder and his companion, the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. As the Nightsisters attempted to negotiate with Zsinj’s forces in orbit to hand over Solo, the Nightsisters attempted to betray Zsinj during the holdover, creating an opportunity for the prisoners to stage an escape.
As Luke destroyed the satellite network Zsinj operated above Dathomir to free the world, Han engaged in a reckless charge in the Falcon directly against the Warlord’s dreadnought. Weaving through Zsinj’s starfighter corps and the Iron Fist‘s shields, Solo opened comms with Zsinj, told him to kiss his wookiee, and fired two concussion missiles directly at the unprotected bridge of the capital ship, killing Zsinj—broadly ending one of the biggest threats in the galaxy to both the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant alike.
Who Could It Be If It Isn’t Zsinj?
But while Zsinj would be an obvious choice if The Mandalorian and Grogu wanted to bring back a prominent post-Endor villain—we’re dealing with a Warlord character, and Zsinj is the Warlord—we do have to remember that Favreau was specifically talking about Jonny Coyne’s character here, and we know what he looks like, and it’s not Zsinj.
Sure, he doesn’t have to look exactly like Zsinj did in the EU, but if you’re going through the trouble of bringing the character back into Star Wars continuity, you’re a coward if he doesn’t have the twirly mustache, and while we have our gripes with Favreau and Dave Filoni’s obsession with the familiar time, it feels like even they would understand that a mustachless Zsinj is a sauceless Zsinj. And no offense to Coyne, but his character doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the level of the threat Zsinj was played up to be in the EU after he was initially introduced—temporarily caging Grogu and slumming it around Hutt arenas is not exactly on the level of being a galactic power on par with the actual official Imperial Remnant.
There are other deeper-cut names then that the movie could leverage. While Zsinj was by far and away the largest commander of independent remnant forces at the time in the EU, the widespread use of “Warlord” to refer to rogue Imperial officers by the New Republic meant there were plenty of others who could be potential candidates for Coyne’s character to become. We’ve already mentioned one of them—Treuten Teradoc. While Teradoc preferred to use his Imperial title of High Admiral, he was still a prominent Warlord, and a major rival of Zsinj’s territory, even as his own sector of rule was considerably smaller.
After Zsinj perished above Dathomir, Teradoc moved to try and absorb some of the Warlord’s territories for his own, but combined campaigns by both the New Republic and Imperial forces saw him flee to the Deep Core, where he would eventually serve the reborn Emperor Palpatine. Teradoc survived Palpatine’s second destruction, becoming the most prominent remaining Warlord, but was ultimately put down by the maneuverings of Admiral Natasi Daala, who worked with former Thrawn protégé, Gilad Pellaeon (who served under Teradoc at the time), to dispose of the era of warlordism and reunify the scattered forces of the Empire under a singular rule.
The other potential candidate was a rival of Teradoc’s in the post-Zsinj period, Blitzer Harrsk—the founder of Zero Command, one of the first prominent breakway Warlord regions. Harrsk, like Teradoc, stayed independent from other Imperial campaigns against the New Republic, including Thrawn’s, until he was drawn to the Deep Core by the promise of Palpatine’s return, and likewise survived the clone Palpatine’s defeat. It was Harrsk that helped Daala stage her initial plan, thinking he was allying with her to eliminate Teradoc during ostensible negotiations among the warlords at Tsoss Beacon, only to be one of the 13 Warlords executed by Daala and Pellaeon there when talks brown down.
What Could Warlord Zsinj’s Return Mean for The Mandalorian and Grogu?
We’ve said before that Zsinj could have made a compelling villain for The Mandalorian and Grogu, a prominent enough scale of threat that still has connections to the underworld elements that were prominent in the early days of The Mandalorian. Especially given that we know Thrawn is largely being saved for Ashoka‘s second season (and Dave Filoni’s still-ostenisbly-planned Imperial Remnant/New Republic movie), Zsinj could serve as interesting bridge from The Mandalorian and Grogu to those plans, given his own links to Dathomir in the EU, and the world’s importance to Thrawn in the current continuity.
More than anything, Zsinj’s arrival in canon would further the truest thing about contemporary Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia remains the most vital text of the Expanded Universe as far as modern Star Wars is concerned.
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