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Ever since Disney purchased Lucasfilm and established a new official canon for Star Wars, fans have been able to see the return of some familiar faces from the franchise’s past in unexpected places, whether it’s giant green rabbit Jaxxon — who appeared in kid-centric Star Wars Adventures comic books — or Grand Admiral Thrawn, who’s gone on to become a prime mover in the Ahsoka series on Disney+. This March, however, Star Wars fans will get one of the most unexpected returns yet: a character who, technically, has never actually shown up in a galaxy far, far away so far.

Marvel’s upcoming Star Wars: Jedi Knights series will feature the official canon debut of Atha Prime — a villain originally created back in the 1980s for a Star Wars toyline that never ended up being released. The character was designed to be the primary villain of Star Wars: The Epic Continues, a proposed 1986 expansion of Kenner’s Star Wars toylike that was ultimately rejected by Lucasfilm.

In his original conception, Atha Prime was intended to be a master geneticist who had been exiled by the Empire but freed as a result of the events of Return of the Jedi. In his new canonical incarnation, the villain will be “a mysterious planet’s tyrannical ruler who boldly opposes the Republic and the Jedi Order,” according to a Marvel press release.

“While developing the series, Marc [Guggenheim, series writer] discovered this deep cut—the antagonist from Kenner’s unrealized The Epic Continues toy line,” Star Wars: Jedi Knights editor Mark Paniccia said in a statement from the publisher. “We saw the original design and were immediately sold. What a cool character to bring into canon and what a perfect book to do it in!”

The series — set in a period before The Phantom Menace, and featuring Jedi including Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn — will launch March 5, written by Guggenheim with art from Madibek Musabekov. Atha Prime will feature on a variant cover to the first issue by John Tyler Christopher, imagining the character’s action figure had it actually been produced; you can see the full cover below.

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