Several years before the Battle of Yavin, Kleb Zellock met with a Tammuz-an named Sollag Den at Doodnik's Café. Den wanted to hire Zellock to find a lost member of the Tammuz-an royal family named Mon Julpa. He offered the bounty hunter 40,000 keshels if he could locate Julpa before the other bounty hunter, IG-88, had a chance to find him. Zellock accepted the offer and sent his assistant bounty hunter, Yorpo Mog,into the streets to begin investigating. Mog eventually discovered Mon Julpa masquerading as an android at a local auction block. After several misadventures with Julpa's new friends Jann Tosh, C-3PO and R2-D2, they finally captured him. Julpa and the others were sent to work in Kleb's keschel mines.
During this time, Mog discovered that the mines were rich with a raw element known as Nergon-14. Recognizing the elements use in the construction of proton torpedoes, Kleb decided to smuggle sell his stock of Nergon-14 to the Galactic Empire.
As Jann Tosh and the others continued working in the mines, they discovered pockets of flammable gas and realized that if said gas was sparked by the mines' ore cutters, the tremors from the resulting explosions could possibly cause the Nergon 14 to activate and subsequently explode. They escaped from slavery and managed to corner Zellock in his office, where they tried to warn him of the danger and persuade him to stop the ore cutters before it was too late. Zellock, however, refused to trust or listen to them, and sure enough, the cutters ignited the gas, and the explosion tremors activated the Nergon 14, with there being enough present to destroy the entire mine.
Realizing that his operations were about to literally go out with a bang, Zellock escaped from his office and into the mine tunnels along with Mog, preparing to escape from the mines before the Nergon-14 could explode, with the heroes splitting up to find him. Gathering as much money as he could carry and holding off C-3PO and R2-D2 who had stumbled onto them by chance at gunpoint, he decided to leave Mog behind and board his own custom sport skiff to escape alone. Thanks to a dysfunctional leg, C-3PO managed to kick Zellock's mini-stunner into Mog's hands and he, angered at his boss's betrayal, shot Zellock, knocking him out. After which, the droids reunited with Jann, Julpa, and Sollag, and they all escaped the mines with Mog and an unconscious Zellock just before the Nergon-14 exploded, dumping all of Zellock's money in the process to lighten the load on the skiff, leaving him seemingly broke. They then promptly turned Zellock into the nearest security station, seemingly putting an end to his criminal empire.
Kleb holding a mini-stunner
Kleb Zellock was a corpulent male alien with jaundiced, yellow skin and small, sharpened teeth. He dressed in attire common to many spacers throughout the galaxy.
Like many gangsters, Kleb was a greedy and ruthless individual. He was willing to enter almost any financial engagement so long as there was a promise of great profit. This included the arena of bounty hunting. Active between the years 10 BBY and 5 BBY, Kleb's only true allegiance was to himself, and he commonly betrayed his own servants and clients so long as it suited his purpose.
Kleb had the ability to emit a shrill, ear-piercing siren wail that caused great pain to those nearby.
Kenner designed an action figure of Kleb Zellock in 1985 as part of its Star Wars Droids line. This line of action figures was size-compatible with the other Kenner Star Wars action figures, but design-wise, it represented a different toy line. Kleb's action figure was one of several from both the Droids and Ewoks series that was never released.
- Star Wars: The Action Figure Archive
- Star Wars Encyclopedia
- "The Toys That Never Were" — Star Wars Insider 92
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- "Proto Power!" — Star Wars Insider 128