Darth Vader Is Secretly The Batman Of The Star Wars Universe
Fans of Star Wars probably don't see Darth Vader as the stealthy type - and rightly so - but before the Battle of Hoth, the Sith Lord actually employs the same ninja-like tactics that DC's Batman is notorious for. The startling moment in Star Wars transpires during a time when a mysterious organization known as The Hidden Hand has already put enough well-orchestrated hits on the Sith Lord to warrant his attention, in Star Wars: Target Vader #1 by writer Robbie Thompson, artists Marc Laming and Cris Bolson, colorists Andres Mossa, Erick Arciniega, Jordan Boyd, Neeraj Menon and Federico Blee, and letterer Clayton Cowles.
The comic opens to a group of bounty hunters in a foggy area discussing the merits and downsides of working for The Hidden Hand. Suddenly, one of their members is silently taken out and dragged into the mist without anyone noticing. Each of them is soon picked off one by one in short order until only one remains. In typical Batman fashion, Vader only shows himself to the remaining member who is by now quite terrified and leverages that terror to squeeze out what he wants to learn about The Hidden Hand.
Although a fun parallel to draw correlations to, this cloak-and-dagger approach seems out of character for the Sith Lord. Vader relishes at the prospect of confronting his enemies head-on like most Force-wielders prefer, as made evident by their use of lightsabers as opposed to long-range weapons. Many of Vader's most infamous massacres where he employs such brutal tactics take place in the comics like the time Darth Vader shoots down two whole squadrons of X-Wings on his own before crashing himself and detonating the thermal detonators of the Rebels who quickly surrounded him, in 2015's Vader Down #1. In 2020's Darth Vader series, the Sith Lord descends into the bowels of Mustafar to confront the Eye of Webbish Bog, a suicide mission that requires him to fend off monstrous creatures without his lightsaber or the Force.
But similar to what transpires in Target Vader, other extenuating circumstances have required the Sith Lord to adopt less direct approaches. In 2015's Darth Vader series set directly after A New Hope, Palpatine strips the fallen Jedi of his status for failing to protect the first Death Star. This complicates things for Vader exceedingly when he becomes obsessed with learning about the boy who destroyed the Death Star because he no longer has access to unlimited credits or an army. So he hires the talents of the archaeologist Doctor Aphra to perform his dirty work while he watches her progress from the shadows. Probably the most heinous of Vader's orders required Aphra to literally attack an Imperial vessel and steal recently confiscated credits to fund his efforts in finding Luke Skywalker.
Vader undoubtedly prefers fighting up close and personal to his enemies much like DC's Superman, who by no means battles from the sidelines. But sometimes the Sith Lord has no choice but to employ the same tactics as DC's resident ninja at large, Batman (without adopting Bruce Wayne's no killing rule, of course). Sometimes Vader has limited resources and must manipulate others from the shadows to get what he wants, like what Batman does in the Justice League. Other times, he is forced to terrify his prey first before killing them to gain information, a strategy that Batman has proven to be most effective on more than one occasion. Even though Vader's efforts fail in this particular instance, he is certain his victims would have told him what he needed to know if they were privy to that information, just like they claimed. For as Darth Vader says after killing them, "I believe you."