Cad Bane is one of the most effective bounty hunters ever depicted in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, audiences have grown accustomed to watching the exploits of sophisticated fighters like Din Djarin in The Mandalorian. But in earlier decades with the release of the first Star Wars trilogies, characters like Boba and Jango Fett received limited screen time to demonstrate their abilities. It was the debut of Cad Bane in the Season 1 finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars that fully introduced fans to a bounty hunter in their prime.

The epitome of the self-interested, ruthless loner, Bane’s return in Lucasfilm Animation’s Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld – now available to stream on Disney+ – sheds light on the character’s little-known origins. But what do the established stories in both animation and live-action tell us about this elusive bounty hunter?

Cad Bane concept art for Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Kilian Plunkett.

A Brief from George Lucas

While featuring stories on the front lines involving Jedi, clone troopers, and their Separatist foes, The Clone Wars also took plenty of time to explore the criminal underbelly and political intrigues of the Star Wars galaxy. Cad Bane emerged as a bounty hunter specially-equipped for battling Jedi, the chief threat to all nefarious dealings in that era. When supervising director Dave Filoni and screenwriter Henry Gilroy began envisioning such a character, the show’s creator George Lucas made a couple specific suggestions.

“George really wanted the character to resemble Lee Van Cleef, the actor from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” Gilroy explained in 2008. “So Cad Bane got a hat that was very similar to Van Cleef's and had this speech pattern that reminded you of Lee Van Cleef as well.” Known as “Angel Eyes” in the 1966 spaghetti Western, Van Cleef’s character is a roguish mercenary who archetypally illustrates “the bad” of the movie’s title. With his stylish, wide-brimmed hat, Angel Eyes is a greedy, merciless gunslinger with a penchant for seeing the job through.

Lucas also suggested that Bane be a Duros, a species first glimpsed briefly in Star Wars: A New Hope’s Mos Eisley Cantina, with their distinct cool-color skin, prominent foreheads, and red eyes. Voiced by actor Corey Burton, Bane became a calm, calculating villain at the heart of a string of bounty hunter stories told throughout The Clone Wars and beyond.

A Bold One

Cad Bane does not shy away from difficult jobs. His earliest depicted storylines see Bane infiltrate the Jedi Temple to steal a precious Holocron, kidnap Force sensitive children, and take members of the Galactic Senate hostage inside their own capitol building. His clients include the most notorious villains, from the Hutt crime lords, to Count Dooku and the Separatists, to even Darth Sidious himself.

In Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Bane is hired by the resourceful Kaminoans to track down Omega, one of their most precious clone assets. And Bane is at work for the Empire as well, once more kidnapping children with high midi-chlorian counts.

Years later in The Book of Boba Fett, Bane takes a job with the dominant Pyke Syndicate as they operate a criminal spice trade. When it comes to bounty hunters, Bane’s name still commands respect across the galaxy, and he manages to endure through multiple regime changes and major conflicts.

A Thorn in the Jedi’s Side

The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark cover

Other than the Sith lords themselves, few adversaries pose as much of a threat to the Jedi as Bane. His cunning skills matched with his adept equipment (including a droid sidekick, Todo 360) allows him to cause all sorts of trouble for Force users. During one early encounter with Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano aboard a Separatist frigate in The Clone Wars, Bane’s memorable rocket boots give him a distinct advantage when the bounty hunter disengages the ship’s gravity field. He later takes on not one but two Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Quinlan Vos, again using his rocket boots.

While Bane certainly doesn’t fear the Jedi, he does maintain a certain respect for their willingness to “give you a fair fight,” as the bounty hunter explains in “Bane’s Story,” Tom Angleberger’s entry from the 2020 book The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark. That respect is lost, however, after Bane is betrayed by someone whom he believes to be fellow bounty hunter Rako Hardeen, but is in fact Obi-Wan Kenobi in disguise.

Following a plan concocted by criminal Moralo Eval, Bane manages to lead an operation that would’ve successfully kidnapped Supreme Chancellor Palpatine were it not for Kenobi’s duplicity. Bane suspects Hardeen’s insincerity from the beginning, and laments that even the Jedi have been changed by the war. Bane’s desire for a fair fight, of course, does not go both ways, as he engages in repeated acts of subterfuge himself.

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