Wedge Antilles is a human male from Corellia, introduced in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (1977) and played by Denis Lawson. In the films he is a supporting pilot with perhaps a dozen lines. In print he became the anchor of one of the most successful runs the Expanded Universe ever produced.
The X-Wing books
Michael A. Stackpole's X-Wing: Rogue Squadron (Bantam Spectra, 1996) launched a series that eventually ran to ten novels, with Aaron Allston taking over for the Wraith Squadron books. Their innovation was simple and radical: no Skywalkers, no Force, no chosen ones — a military ensemble in which competent people plan operations and some of them do not come back. It is the closest Star Wars has come to writing a straight war novel, and Wedge is its commanding officer.
Why he works
Because he is the franchise's best portrait of ordinary excellence. He has no destiny and no bloodline. He is simply very good at flying and better at leading, and the books use him to argue that the Rebellion was won by staff work and squadron discipline as much as by prophecy.
Canon
Current canon has kept him and used him carefully: Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy opens with Wedge captured while scouting Imperial remnants, and he appears in the sequel-era films and fiction as a retired instructor. The X-Wing series itself is Legends and has no canon equivalent, which is a genuine gap on the modern shelf.
Reading note
If you have only ever read Jedi novels, start here. The X-Wing books are the standard rebuttal to the idea that Star Wars fiction is only about the Force.
