Mira Volz

Mira Volz was a Human female who was the daughter of the inventor Renn Volz, both inhabitants of the planet Little Kessel. Mira assisted her father from a hidden lab within the Giant Fungi Forest. During the height of the Galactic Civil War, Mira joined her father in testing out his latest invention, the Ionic Ring Ship, which could manipulate the climates of various worlds from space. During the demonstration, in which father and daughter transformed the world of Zerm into a paradise, they were confronted by the Imperial Captain Bzorn who took charge of the Ionic Ring Ship and imprisoned Mira to force Renn Volz to work for him. With Mira a captive of the Empire, her father was forced to use the Ionic Ring to devastate worlds that were harboring Rebels.
However, during a botched prison ship transfer, Mira escaped from Imperial custody and smuggled herself aboard the Millennium Falcon which was docked nearby. After escaping the world, the pilot of the ship, Han Solo, and his friend, Luke Skywalker, discovered Mira hiding in the ship's cargo. Mira pleaded with them to help rescue her father, and the two men agreed. They caught up with the Ionic Ring Ship at Little Kessel, and Mira used her father's lab and his sub-space image transmitter to contact her father and keep him from attacking her world. Though the use of her transmission and a rescue mission organized by Solo, her father was rescued from the Empire and the ship was destroyed, keeping the technology out of the hands of the Empire.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Mira was born on Little Kessel, a planet along the Kessel Run. Her father, Renn Volz was a talented scientist and operated out of a hidden lab in the Giant Fungi Forest on the world. Mira worked as her father's assistant, aiding his experiments and cooperating in the testing of his inventions. She was present when her father developed the sub-space image transmitter and his greatest invention, the Ionic Ring Ship, which could be used to manipulate the climates of various worlds from space. Mira joined her father aboard his ship for the first demonstration of the device. Father and daughter made their way to the planet Zerm to fix destructive storms that had been devastating the planet's surface. Assisting her father, Mira helped to tame the weather on the world, transforming it into a paradise.
Unfortunately for Mira and her father, the Imperial Captain Bzorn found out about the device and its potentially destructive capabilities. As Mira was using the ship to manipulate rains over the crops on Zerm, they were interrupted by a Star Destroyer captained by Bzorn. The Imperial captain boarded the ship with a force of stormtroopers and forcefully commandeered the Ionic Ring. Amid her father's protests, Bzorn stated that he would now use his device to devastate Rebel planets. To ensure his cooperation, the Imperials took Mira hostage, removing her from the ship. As her father began to devastate planets along the Kessel Run with the Ionic Ring, Mira was taken to a distant planet, but during a botched prison ship transfer, managed to escape. As she ran from her captors, she overheard that the next target of the Ionic Ring was the planet Rion.
===Rebel aid===
At the same time, the smuggler Han Solo was visiting the spaceport where the prison ship transfer was supposed to occur. Solo was there picking up a shipment of spice for Jabba the Hutt through his contact Malo. As his ship, the Millennium Falcon, was loaded with the cargo, Mira smuggled herself aboard. As stormtroopers searched for their escaped prisoner, Mira was able to escape the world on board Solo's ship. Mira knew that she needed to tell her father that she had escaped so that he would no longer be forced to serve the Empire. She stayed on the Millennium Falcon as it made its way to the planet Randa where a secret Rebel base was located. As Solo rendezvoused with his friend, Luke Skywalker, Skywalker's droids, R2-D2 and C-3PO, detected a stowaway in the Millennium Falcon cargo. The two droids informed Skywalker and Solo of Mira's presence, and they listened to her plight. Mira was desperate to contact her father and she informed the Rebels about the next destination of the Ionic Ring at Rion.
Although Solo did not entirely believe her story, he agreed to stop by Rion, as it was located along the Kessel Run where Solo was already headed. Skywalker was much more eager to help Mira, infatuated by her beauty, and Mira was appreciative of Skywalker's support, planting a kiss on his cheek. As the Millennium Falcon headed towards Rion, Skywalker and Mira talked and flirted with one another, with Skywalker stating that he would like to visit Mira on her world of Little Kessel at some point. When their ship arrived at Rion, they were surprised to see the once lush world transformed into a frozen ice planet. Mira told the two Rebels that the Ionic Ring must have already come to the world, but Solo decided to investigate himself. He headed to Tana's Resort to question the proprietor and his friend, Tana.
After landing at the resort, the group was confronted by freezing inhabitants of the planet, desperate for food, as the food on the planet had all been frozen. Solo gave a portion of his shipment of spice to the desperate people before Mira and the group met with Tana, who confirmed Mira's fear. The Empire had come to the world and demanded that they turn over every Rebel on the world. When they refused, the world had been frozen. Tana told the group that she had overheard the next target, Mira's homeworld of Little Kessel. Just as they were preparing to leave, one of Tana's patrons informed her that stormtroopers had learned that Mira was on the planet and were coming for her. Mira and the Rebels escaped out the back of the resort but were caught in a firefight with stormtroopers. The ice storms on the planet kept both sides from seeing one another and the Rebels were able to make their way back to the Millennium Falcon. However, as they boarded the craft, the stormtroopers were able to locate their escaping quarry. Mira was pulled onto the craft by Luke as Solo and his first mate, Chewbacca, defended them. C-3PO and R2-D2 used the lights on the Millennium Falcon to blind the attacking Imperials, giving the Rebels time to depart Rion.
===Showdown on Little Kessel===
As the Millennium Falcon made its way towards Little Kessel, Mira broke into tears, afraid for her father and the fate of her world. She was comforted by Skywalker and was able to compose herself as they arrived at her home planet. The group had arrived ahead of the Imperials and the Ionic Ring Ship, giving them time to devise a plan. Mira guided the ship to her father's secret lab where she came up with a plan to contact her father and inform him that she was no longer a hostage. Using her father's sub-space image transmitter, an experimental piece of technology that had never been tested, Mira hoped to transmit an image of herself into the Ionic Ring and inform her father of her freedom. Skywalker was worried that the untested technology might hurt her, but Mira decided to go through with the plan anyway.
Mira closed herself inside the transmitter and R2-D2 was able to transmit an image of Mira into the Ionic Ring Ship. The transmitter, which was only one way, left Mira blind to what was occurring inside her father's ship but R2 confirmed that her image and voice was being transmitted to the Imperials. As Mira attempted to contact her father, the Ionic Ring appeared above Little Kessel and Captain Bzorn transmitted a message to the world demanding that all Rebels on the world surrender personally to him or they would devastate the planet. As Mira called out to her father, R2 moved Mira's image around the ship, hoping to get her father's attention. Solo, not satisfied with the dependence of Mira's image eventually reaching her father, decided to take the Millennium Falcon and board the Ionic Ring. Taking Skywalker and Chewbacca with him, Solo left to personally stop the Imperials from destroying the planet.
As Mira continued to try to contact her father, the planet began to experience earthquakes caused by the Ionic Ring. The storms and quakes caused by the Imperial attack caused the Volz' lab to lose power and the transmission began to weaken. However, unknown to Mira and the droids, her image was helping to distract the Imperials on the Ionic Ring Ship, allowing Solo, Skywalker, and Chewbacca to storm the bridge and inform Mira's father that she was safe. At the same time, Mira's image finally reached the bridge of the ship, confirming beyond a doubt that Mira was free. Mira's father stopped the attack, and Captain Bzorn was killed in the ensuing fight, allowing the scientist to rig his ship to self-destruct.
Back in the Volz laboratory, the sub-space transmitter finally lost power due to the Ionic Ring attack. Mira was left to hope that her message had gotten through as she waited with C-3PO and R2-D2. As they watched the skies outside the lab, they witnessed a massive explosion, causing Mira to believe that her father had perished. However, they were soon joined by the Millennium Falcon, which had escaped the Ion Ring self-destruction. Mira was ecstatic over the group's survival and she thanked the Rebels for rescuing her father and her world. Although Skywalker had shown a romantic interest in Mira during the mission, his interest did not last much longer after Little Kessel had been saved from the Empire.
==Personality and traits==
Mira was a young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. By the time of the Galactic Civil War, she had never acted against the Galactic Empire before her father was kidnapped by Captain Bzorn. She was emotional over the loss of her father and her forced imprisonment, and during the mission to save her world, she broke down in tears several times. Mira was thankful for Skywalker's support and she flirted with him during their travels along the Kessel Run. However, following the rescue of her father, their romance petered out and they went their separate ways.
As the daughter of a noted scientist, Mira had some scientific skills, and she was able to operate the Ionic Ring to manipulate the climate on the world of Zerm. With R2-D2's help, she was able to operate her father's sub-space image transmitter and aid in the rescue of her father. She was also quick enough to escape from her Imperial captors during a prison ship transfer, smuggling herself aboard the Millennium Falcon and avoiding detection until the ship landed on the planet Randa.
==Behind the scenes==
Mira Volz was created by Russ Helm and illustrated by Russ Manning for use in The Second Kessel Run, a comic strip published by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. The story was reprinted by Dark Horse Comics in Classic Star Wars: The Early Adventures 6, which colored the originally black-and-white comic strip panels. The collection also chose to remove the Sunday comic strips, due to the fact that the Sunday strips generally repeated parts of the storyline already shown in the weekly strips. However, the Sunday strips did show some exclusive dialogue and action. In particular, one of the Sunday strips for The Second Kessel Run showed Mira kissing Luke Skywalker's cheek, which was not repeated in the weekly strips and therefore left out of the Dark Horse reprint.
Two articles in Star Wars Galaxy Collector magazine discussed Mira Volz's exploits during the comic strip. ComicScan: Coming Full Circle referenced The Second Kessel Run and Mira Volz's role in the storyline in issue 3, and ComicScan: Luke-ing for Love in all the Wrong Places in issue 7 mentioned Skywalker's short-lived flirtation with Mira.
The Second Kessel Run states that Mira and her father are from the planet Kessel, the namesake of the Kessel Run. However, the appearance of the world as a verdant planet filled with giant fungi was ignored by later works, notably The Jedi Academy Trilogy, which depicted the planet as a barren wasteland. This discrepancy was retconned in The Essential Atlas, which stated that the Kessel in The Second Kessel Run was a different planet known as Little Kessel.
==Appearances==
*"The Second Kessel Run" 
==Sources==
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*Star Wars: The Comics Companion
==Notes and references==
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:Kesselians