Many of us have been wondering ever since the Clone Wars series began, why was Captain
Rex never promoted to the Rank of ARC trooper?
Well, today I’m going to breakdown the story which confirms that Captain Rex WAS an arc
trooper, and the only ever Canon battle where he wore his ARC Trooper armour.
So before we get into it, remember to hit the big red button down below for more awesome
Star Wars Lore videos.
At the moment, 69% of you are not subscribed, so make sure to subscribe if you enjoy the
video.
The only ever Canon battle where Rex wore his ARC Trooper armour was the Battle of Horain
in the Crantori System.
Anakin Skywalker’s republic forces are under heavy fire from the separatist droid army
and ARC Trooper Rex is in urgent trouble.
Rex manages to fire back and defend himself from the incoming B2 battle droid, and has
his life saved by Obi-Wan Kenobi, who leaps in front of Rex, deflecting the incoming blaster
fire.
ARC trooper Rex is shocked but thankful for Kenobi’s intervention.
Obi-Wan reports that Anakin is having trouble, and is currently engaged in a fierce battle
against some vulture droids, elsewhere on the battlefield, telling Rex that they will
have to fight side by side to make it out alive.
Obi-Wan then signals to Rex that they will make a run for the nearest Republic evacuation
point, as the separatist droids begin to surround them once again.
After he realises that they are in a much tougher position than they first through,
Obi-Wan worryingly asks Rex, “how did you even get into this mess in the first place?’
ARC Trooper Rex then explains awesomely that he rescued a group of Horian children from
a crater, but was cut off from his Torrent Company in the process.
We then get an awesome moment between the two, where Kenobi tells Rex that he is a good
man and that he can see why Anakin holds him in such high regard.
Moments after giving the complement, Rex jumps to Kenobi’s aid, pushing him into a razer
thin gap between the B2 Battle droid’s blaster fire, saving his life.
Following this, Rex is grazed by one of the blaster bolts, but isn’t too worried because
in his words, “it’s nothing a bacta tank won’t cure”.
Maybe the next step in Rex’s career should have been a Clone Commando, because we know
how much they love bacta.
After this Kenobi shouts that he’s never seen so many droids in his life, but fortunately,
they all start to malfunction and their circuitry begins to spark.
Hilariously, one of the droids malfunctions so badly, that he begins to feel sorry for
Rex and Obi-Wan, and begins firing back at his own fellow droid brothers.
Rex then remarks that this is the first time he’s ever seen a battle droid have a conscience.
Kenobi then asks the droid if he’s ready to switch sides and join the Republic, to
which he quickly responds “You bet - Battle droid B1-0516 at your service”.
In the typical Clone Tradition, Rex refuses to call the droid by his serial number, instead
giving him the nickname Bats.
Bats then immediately begins giving away the tactics of the droid forces and tells Obi-Wan
exactly where the other droids on the planet are hiding.
Bats directs Obi-Wan and Rex to a massive wreckage, where Spider droids are currently
patrolling.
After they arrive on the sight, Bats goes even further and commits a war crime, pretending
that Obi-Wan and Rex are surrendering, so that they will hold their fire.
He then picks up two blasters, and begins firing them both on his former friends, allowing
Kenobi to carry the injured ARC Trooper Rex to safety.
As they two are walking off, Rex recognizes that Bats isn’t too bad for a tin-head.
As they are waiting and doing some reconnaissance, Rex asks Kenobi “is he ok”.
Kenobi replies “Who?
Anakin?” to which Rex responds, “No- I meant bats, that was one brave little droid”.
Kenobi claims holds no attachment to the droid, but it is awesome to see that Rex respects
the little Clankah for saving his life.
Rex is so concerned with the safety of Bats that he convinces Obi-Wan to go back and rescue
him, but the plan is one of Anakin’s, so Kenobi believes that it is very likely to
get them captured.
Bats is quickly arrested, and taken back to the droid commander, where they threaten to
wipe his memory and reset him back to his base programming.
Before they can do so however, Bats goes absolutely ballistic, flailing his arms all over the
air and destroying all of the droids surrounding him.
He even starts talking down to his old commander.
While this is going on, Kenobi and Rex slam a stolen tank into the wall of the command
centre, breaking through the wall, allowing them to begin destroying the droids.
Obi-Wan then slices through the horde of droids inside, while Bats jumps into the tank, ready
for a return to the Republic evacuation point.
As they take the AAT back to the Republic evacuation point, Anakin’s troopers alert
him that a tank is incoming.
Anakin orders his men to fire on it immediately, but before they can do so, Obi-Wan and Bats
emerge from the hatch at the top of the tank, forcing Anakin to tell his men to hold their
fire.
Anakin is absolutely astounded at how his master got himself into such a strange situation,
but ultimately accepts it as just the craziness of war.
And to end the heartwarming story, Rex is carried away by Obi-Wan, where he admits that
he did in fact like the crazy Clankah just as much as Rex did.
Let me know in the comments down below if you’d like to see Bats involved in some
future Clone Wars content, who knows, maybe he somehow gets involved with the bad Batch
during the Star Wars: Batch Series.
So because this is the only time in Canon that we see Rex wearing his ARC Trooper armour,
something may have happened to his original standard armour.
Because we can see that the other Clones are wearing the standard Phase II clone armor
in this comic, maybe this is set just after the transition to the new armour, and Rex
has sent this helmet and armour out for modifications.
We know that Rex modified his helmet so that it was unique from the rest of his troopers,
so maybe the Battle of Horain took place during the time it was being modified.
Captain Rex also does not have tally marks on his arc trooper armour, so maybe he kept
better care of it and valued it more highly than his standard clone armour.
But that could also be because this is pretty early in the war, and maybe he just hasn’t
had enough of a chance to do whatever it is he tracks with the tally marks.
I don’t think he was demoted from the Rank of ARC Trooper, because Rex is a very level
headed Clone Captain that cares deeply about his troopers, and takes responsibility for
his actions.
He considers any loss on the battlefield to be a personal failure of his, very similarly
to how Anakin thinks, making them a great combination.
I have also seen some people say that Rex is not actually an arc trooper, and that he
just picked up the armour and used it for this battle.
This cannot be true for a few reasons.
First is that it would probably be seen as extremely disrespectful and maybe even disgraceful
to wear a set of armour that you have not earned the correct rank for.
There is absolutely no chance that Rex would wear ARC Trooper armour if he was not given
the privilege of becoming an ARC Trooper.
On top of this, we also got some further Canon confirmation that Rex is an ARC trooper from
a Canon ARC Trooper source book, which states that Rex is: “A loyal, brave ARC Trooper
who often fought alongside Anakin Skywalker in the 501st.
Later, he befriended the Rebellion.”
So with two Canon sources now confirming that Rex has an ARC Trooper past, there is no way
that he simply picked the armour up and was allowed to use it.
To even further back this up, Captain Rex used the DC-17 Blaster pistols throughout
the entirety of the war, a weapon which is most commonly handed out to ARC Troopers.
Given that we rarely ever saw a non ARC Trooper use the DC-17 blasters, being an arc trooper
is a pretty great explanation for why he has them and is so proficient with them.
His long history with the weapons as an arc trooper could also explain why he was so reluctant
to move away from them, even after all this time without wearing the sacred ARC Trooper
armour.
Either way, I think we’ll see a lot more ARC Trooper Rex content coming up in the near
future, as the Star Wars Battle Tales series in currently releasing.
Because the Battle Tales series is set much earlier in the war, there’s a good chance
that we’ll see some of Rex’s training days in flashbacks or even his time as an
ARC Trooper.
Hopefully we’ll even get to see exactly why he no longer wears the armour towards
the middle and end points of the war.
We’re also probably going to see some major tie in to Captain Rex’s time as an ARC Trooper
in the Star Wars: The Bad Batch series, with Echo potentially re-telling stories to the
rest of the Bad Batch, that Rex told him.
Being selected for the majorly important role is no small deal, so you can definitely expect
that Rex told many of his troopers about the experience, unless something bad happened
causing him to leave.
So make sure you subscribe to see the Clone Wars battle Tales comics covered on the channel.
So that is the only mission where captain Rex was allowed to wear his ARC Trooper armour.
If you enjoyed the video, remember to hit the subscribe button and check out the Sith
holocron merch down below.
Cheers guys, hope to see you in the next one!