Poe Dameron

Biography

The son of Rebel Alliance pilot Shara Bey and soldier Kes Dameron, Poe Dameron was raised on Yavin IV. He began flying starships as a child, using his mother's A-Wing. Poe's mother died when he was eight years old.

As an adult, Poe flew X-Wing starfighters for the New Republic, leading Rapier Squadron. However, he became dissatisfied with the Republic's inaction in combating the First Order. After Rapier Squadron came across a civilian freighter under attack by the First Order, Poe unsuccessfully attempted to persuade his commanding officer to contact the Resistance about the attack. After coming across a First Order staging point while on a patrol mission, Poe met with the Resistance's leader, General Leia Organa, and informed her of the freighter attack. Organa gave Poe an offer to join the Resistance, which he accepted. His first major mission was to covertly board the yacht of a Republic Senator, in order to prove he had been secretly funding the First Order.

Some time after this mission, General Organa tasked Poe and Black Squadron - his team of starfighter pilots- with locating Lor San Tekka, who had information related to the location of her missing brother, Luke Skywalker. Poe eventually found Tekka on the planet Jakku, and although succeeded in retrieving the information, he was captured by the First Order. Poe entrusted the data to his astromech droid, BB-8. Poe escaped from First Order custody with the help of Stormtrooper FN-2187, who Poe named "Finn". The pair stole a TIE Fighter, which was shot down and crashed on Jakku. While Finn, with the help of the scavenger Rey, located BB-8 and made his way off-planet in the Millennium Falcon, Poe met a native who found him a ship to return him to the Resistance.

After a brief skirmish on the planet Takodana, Poe returned to the Resistance base on the planet D'Qar. Having helped devise a plan to attack the First Order's superweapon Starkiller Base - a planet converted into a battle station, with the ability to destroy every planet in a system at once - Poe led the Resistance's X-Wings in battle. Poe fired the shots that destroyed Starkiller Base.

Shortly after the Battle of Starkiller Base, Poe participated in the evacuation of D'Qar, leading the efforts to destroy a First Order Dreadnought cruiser, against the orders of General Organa. Resistance ships were able to destroy the Dreadnought, but most were destroyed in the process. For his insubordination, Leia demoted Poe from Wing Commander to Squadron Captain. Leia was later severely injured when the First Order attacked the Resistance flagship, and command was temporarily transferred to Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo.

Poe took immediate dislike to Holdo's command, and went behind her back, devising a plan to shut down the First Order's hyperspace tracker. This ultimately proved unsuccessful, and upon discovering that Holdo was using the last of the Resistance's fuel supply on light transports, Poe staged a mutiny against her. Holdo was actually using the light transports to land Resistance personnel at an abandoned Rebel Alliance base on the planet Crait, and Poe's actions had the unfortunate effect of allowing the First Order to destroy many of them. Despite this, after Holdo sacrificed herself to destroy the First Order flagship, a fully recovered General Organa returned command of the Resistance forces, heavily thinned by First Order pursuit, to Poe.

Poe led the Resistance forces in a last ditch effort to repel the First Order on the surface of Crait, although the battle quickly turned in the First Order's favor. However, the intervention of Luke Skywalker bought the Resistance, including Poe, enough time to escape Crait in the Millennium Falcon.

Behind the Scenes

Poe Dameron first appeared in the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in which he is portrayed by Oscar Isaac. He made his comic book debut in the first issue of his self-titled series.