Cad Bane/Legends

Cad Bane was a male Duros who rose to be the galaxy's deadliest bounty hunter during the Clone Wars. Born on the planet of Duro, the ruthless Bane worked for the highest bidder, and after fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett perished in the opening battle of the war, the Duros became the galaxy's best and most fearsome mercenary. Around 22 BBY, Bane was hired to break the Republic captive Ziro Desilijic Tiure out of prison on the galactic capital of Coruscant, and formed a team of hunters to capture members of the Galactic Senate. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was forced to free Ziro, and Bane later disbanded his team of hunters.

The Duros hijacked a dangerous weapon from the Skakoan assassin Kul Teska on Alzoc III, and Teska and the Jedi Order both attempted to retrieve the stolen cargo because of its value. Later working for the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, Bane stole a Jedi holocron containing information on potential Force-sensitive infants from the Jedi Temple. The bounty hunter and his Separatist escort were ambushed over the planet Devaron by Jedi forces, but the Duros managed to escape. Bane captured the infants listed on the holocron and brought them to a secret facility on Mustafar, where Sidious planned to alter them for his own purposes. At some point, the Duros was given the heavily modified Porax-38 starfighter Xanadu Blood by the Confederacy as partial payment for his work.

Bounty hunter
"Master Cad Bane, I presume. I've heard much about you. Who hasn't? The greatest hunter since Jango lost his head&hellip;"

- Davtokk

Cad Bane was a Duros male who was born on the planet of Duro during the last decades of the Galactic Republic. He became a bounty hunter, earning a reputation as the galaxy's preeminent mercenary who operated solely for the financial reward of his missions. Bane worked for the highest bidder, and cared little for who employed him as long as he continued to get his pay. If his quarry offered him a better fee, Bane had no qualms with turning on his original employer. Bane was in operation during the Clone Wars, and by the time Jango Fett&mdash;the bounty hunter considered to be the galaxy's best&mdash;perished in 22 BBY during the opening battle of the war, Bane was something of a veteran in his line of work. With Fett out of the picture, Bane rose to be among the galaxy's most notorious, ruthless, and fearsome bounty hunters. However, Bane had enemies, and a considerable price was placed on his head.

Raid on the Senate
In 22 BBY during the Clone Wars, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt crime lord based on the galactic capital of Coruscant, was arrested for his participation in a failed plot&mdash;orchestrated by the Confederate Head of State, Count Dooku&mdash;to kidnap Rotta, the son of Ziro's own nephew, Jabba Desilijic Tiure. For his crimes against the Republic, Ziro was incarcerated in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center on Coruscant. Bane was hired to free the crime lord, but did not opt for a straightforward rescue. Instead, the Duros decided to force the Republic into freeing Ziro by taking hostages. To do so, he would need a group of skilled bounty hunters, and assembled a team consisting of the Jedi hunter Aurra Sing, the Weequay mercenary Shahan Alama, and the Patrolian slicer Robonino. The team was backed up by two Separatist BX-series droid commandos and a number of IG-86 sentinel droids.

As the organic members of Bane's posse usually worked alone, Bane decided to arrange a test for his comrades to ensure that they could work together as a team. Bane lured fellow bounty hunter Davtokk to the planet of Keyorin under the pretense that Bane was holding a recruitment drive. Bane knew that Davtokk intended to kill him and collect the bounty on his head, and assembled a life-size mannequin of himself from a scrapped battle droid to fool the bounty hunter. After arriving on the planet and entering the safehouse with directions from a techno-service droid that had been planted by Bane, Davtokk fired upon the mannequin, assuming it to be Bane. As Davtokk discovered the deception, Bane watched events unfold as his team engaged the enemy hunter and crippled him.

The Duros emerged from the shadows and confronted Davtokk, explaining that the entire operation had been arranged as a final test for his new team. Pointing one of his blaster pistols at Davtokk's head, Bane killed the incapacitated mercenary. Heading to Coruscant, Bane took his team to raid the Galactic Senate, planning to take senators hostage in order to force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to release Ziro the Hutt. After Bane, Alama, a sentinel droid, and two droid commandos landed at the Republic Executive Building in an airspeeder, a squad of Senate Commando guards confronted the approaching Bane. The Duros commented on their hastiness, and before the guards could arrest Bane, Sing used a sniper rifle to kill most of the guards from a long-range post. Bane personally eliminated the Senate Commando captain, Jayfon, by tackling him and snapping his neck.

With the guards eliminated, Bane signaled to Sing, Robonino, and the other hunters that the coast was clear. The bounty hunters arrived at the building with several more sentinel droids. Leaving the droid commandos outside to clear the platform and stand guard, the team entered the headquarters of the Senate. After eliminating the Senate Commando posted at the Executive Building's power control room, as well as several droids inside, Bane left Robonino to shut off the power before heading for the building's atrium with the rest of his team. Along the way to "meet" the senators, Bane eliminated two patrols of guards by tossing a primed thermal detonator into their barracks when both shifts were assembled there. Entering the atrium, Bane caught the attention of the senators discussing a piece of Senate legislation by firing several blaster shots. The bounty hunters surrounded the senators, and when Senator Philo objected to being taken hostage&mdash;walking away while refusing to "listen to insolence"&mdash;Bane shot him in the back.

The Duros ordered the senators to turn over their communication devices before contacting Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in his office via a holotransmission, Bane stated that the senator hostages would be freed if Ziro the Hutt were to be released from prison. After Palpatine objected, Robonino shut off the power, trapping Palpatine and Senator Orn Free Taa in the office and compromising all external communications. As the bounty hunters collected the senators' transmission devices, Bane came across Senator Padmé Amidala. While speaking with her, Bane noticed Amidala glance at something behind him, and the bounty hunter turned around and recognized Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker surveying them from an upper level window. Bane fired at the man, and Skywalker fled, prompting the Duros to order Alama and an IG-86 sentinel droid after the Jedi.

Alama returned without the droid, and reported that while it had been destroyed by Skywalker, an examination of the droid's remains showed that the Jedi Knight did not have his lightsaber. Bane dispatched Sing with Alama to find and bring the Jedi back to him. The Duros contacted Palpatine once more and told the Chancellor to make a pardon disc. Senator Taa would be picked up by Bane's airspeeder and taken to deliver the disc to the prison. Taa reluctantly obeyed, and the sentinel droid 3D took the senator to the Detention Center. Sing and Alama then returned to the atrium with Robonino and an unconscious, handcuffed Skywalker, and the Duros taunted the knocked-out Jedi Knight before ordering him to be tossed in with the rest of the hostages. Meanwhile, 3D collected the Hutt and went back to the Executive Building, while Taa stayed at the prison in the safety of the Coruscant Guard. Preparing to leave, Bane ordered the rest of his team to set up their "parting gifts" around the senators&mdash;a laser web that would activate explosives upon the slightest touch.

Wishing the senators and Jedi a "most respectful farewell," Bane left the building with his comrades. Upon the team's arrival outside on the landing platform, two LAAT/i gunships landed, and clone troopers of the Coruscant Guard piled out. The troopers confronted the group of bounty hunters, blocking their escape, and Palpatine contacted Bane. The Chancellor ordered the Duros to surrender, but Bane him of the trapped senators, and Palpatine reluctantly relinquished his attempts to apprehend the bounty hunter. Bane's airspeeder arrived, driven by 3D and hauling Ziro in a rear transport. With the lives of the senators still at risk, the Coruscant Guard clones allowed the team of mercenaries to escape. After they were a safe distance away, Bane remotely activated the explosives as payback for the indignities Ziro had suffered in prison.

Skywalker, in the meantime, had recovered, and began to cut a hole in the floor around himself and the senators. Just as the explosives went off, the Jedi and the senators dropped into the room below. As Ziro congratulated Bane on a "job well done," Bane demanded his pay from the Hutt, as he did not work for free. After they had escaped, Bane transferred the rewards for the mission appropriately into the accounts of his accomplices, although Alama did not believe that the Duros had transferred all of the credits. Bane ordered Alama, Sing, and Robonino to "bury their prides" and flee separately to hide from the Republic, stating that it would not do to get captured. The bounty hunters complied, though both Alama and Robonino encountered problems trying to make their getaways.

Cargo thief
After Bane inadvertently hijacked a dangerous weapon on Alzoc III from the Skakoan assassin Kul Teska, both Teska and the Jedi went to retrieve the stolen cargo because of its importance and value.

Work for Darth Sidious
Bane was later hired by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who personally contacted Bane and hired the bounty hunter to steal a holocron from the Jedi Temple's Archives on Coruscant, as well as a memory crystal that contained a list of potentially Force-sensitive infants&mdash;quite simply, the future of the Jedi Order. Bane initially believed the mission to be impossible, but after Sidious suggested that the bounty hunter's reputation had been exaggerated, Bane agreed to the job, requesting an elite starfighter and triple his usual rate. Using schematics of the Temple, a techno-service droid, and a shapeshifter, the Duros was able to infiltrate the Temple and retrieved both items. Bane also captured the Rodian Jedi Bolla Ropal to use the holocron and unlock the crystal. Under electrocution, Ropal refused to help the bounty hunter and preferred to die, a sacrifice that Bane deemed foolish. However, two Jedi soon headed his way to capture the bounty hunter.

Bane escaped and was lent a Separatist escort by Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray. After a long chase, Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, found the bounty hunter over Devaron. The two Jedi dropped out of space with Clone Captain CC-7567 and a squad of several clone troopers aboard several All Terrain Tactical Enforcers, intending to board Bane's Munificent-class star frigate and retrieve the stolen holocron. Skywalker's flagship, the Resolute, attacked Bane's loaned escort, and Gunray contacted Bane, angered that his ships were being damaged and destroyed. With his frigate crippled, Bane ordered his battle droid crew to transfer complete control of all shipboard functions to his wrist-com. The bounty hunter lured the Jedi and clones to the frigate's gunnery deck and turned off the artificial gravity. As Bane had planned, a firefight erupted between his battle droid forces and the Jedi, allowing the hunter to flee and draw one of the Jedi after him.

Tano pursued Bane and fell into the trap set by the bounty hunter, who cut the Padawan off from her Master and lured her to a dead-end corridor. Bane knocked her out, stole her lightsaber, and placed her in binders inside an airlock. With Tano taken hostage, Skywalker agreed to use the Force to unlock Bane's stolen memory crystal, but as the bounty hunter took the crystal, Skywalker telekinetically retrieved his own and Tano's lightsabers, making quick work of Bane's B2 super battle droid bodyguards. However, Bane opened the airlock and propelled himself away with his rocket boots, while Skywalker rushed to prevent his Padawan from falling into the vacuum of space. Although Captain CC-7567 and his clone squad went for safety, Skywalker refused to leave the Munificent-class frigate with the bounty hunter still on the loose. Bane was eventually able to retrieve the infants listed in the memory crystal and took them to a secret facility on the remote planet of Mustafar, where Darth Sidious planned to surgically alter them and create a corps of Force-using spies.

At some point, Bane was given the Xanadu Blood&mdash;a heavily modified and well-equipped Porax-38 starfighter&mdash;by the Confederacy as partial payment for his work on its behalf.

Personality and traits
One of the galaxy's most lethal, ruthless, fearsome, and deadly bounty hunters, Cad Bane earned the reputation of the leading blaster-for-hire during the Clone Wars, as fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett had perished on Geonosis at the beginning of the war. Bane had much less moral content than Fett, and would often turn upon the very people who hired him unless he was paid. However, if the price was right, the Duros could not be stopped, and would track his quarry to the ends of the galaxy if necessary; nothing was more important to Bane than credits. He was capable in blaster combat, but preferred stealth and surprise tactics instead of a direct fight when the possibility arose.

The Duros did not place his trust in others easily or often, believing that the best way to ensure that a task was completed was to do it himself. When his frigate was crippled over Devaron, he ordered his battle droid crew to transfer full control of the ship to his wrist-com, enabling him to turn his transport into a weapon that he could use against his would-be captors, Skywalker and Tano. Although Bane did not always undertake missions himself, gathering a team together to raid the Senate and free Ziro the Hutt, operating alone gave him the freedom to improvise and more credits that did not have to be divided with others. His methods of choosing comrades for joint operations and his introduction into the bounty business remained obscure to the galaxy, and Bane preferred to keep it that way.

Bane knew that Davtokk intended to execute him for the bounty on his head, and used this to his advantage, luring Davtokk to Keyorin to serve as a test for his team. Undaunted by individuals of higher authority, he remained unswayed with both the Senate Commandos' attempt to arrest him and Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's threats of retribution. Indeed, the Duros even welcomed the opportunity to test his abilities against the "legendary prowess" of the Jedi Knights. He did not let personal feelings get in the way of his jobs, but would have enjoyed to take down the likes of Jedi Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Bane took cold pleasure in striking fear through his quarries, as evidenced by his treatment of the senators.

When Senator Philo attempted to leave while refusing to listen to Bane's "insolence," the Duros killed the senator without a second thought and showed the other senators that he meant business. The Duros did not take prisoners, and intended for his senator hostages to be killed even after he had gone through negotiations with the Chancellor for their release in exchange for Ziro's liberation. After his team had freed Ziro and escaped from the Republic Executive Building, Bane cared little what happened to his accomplices as long as they hid from the Republic. When Darth Sidious requested the bounty hunter's services for infiltrating the Jedi Temple, Bane believed the job to be impossible and foolhardy, but immediately agreed to the job&mdash;requesting triple his normal rate&mdash;when Darth Sidious suggested that the Duros's reputation had been exaggerated.

Equipment
Bane carried a set of personalized twin blaster pistols that were customized from the BlasTech-engineered LL-30 model, and had quick-draw holsters to hold them at his waist. He had cybernetic breathing tubes that were imbedded in his cheekbones; they were directly connected to his windpipe, allowing him to work freely in the harshest atmospheres without requiring additional protection or oxygen. Bane's durasteel magno-grip boots were equipped with customized Mitrinomon jetpack thrusters, and his wrist gauntlets possessed a variety of built-in tools and weapons, including a cable launcher, comlink, data uplink, and non-lethal stunners. He often wore a wide-brimmed hat and a tunic made from Nashtah hide.

Behind the scenes


Cad Bane made his first appearance in The Clone Wars web comic Invitation Only, and then appeared in the television series' first season finale, "Hostage Crisis." Because the episode introduced the concept of bounty hunters into the series, Bane was one of the first such bounty hunters to be featured in the television series. Bane will be making more appearances in the second season of the series. He appeared in the web comic Hunting the Hunters, Part 1, a transition between the series' first two seasons, and is already scheduled for a part in the episodes "The Holocron Heist" and "Cargo of Doom," as well as the former's novelization. Bane will also be a playable character in Republic Heroes, a multi-platform video game set between the television series' first two seasons, which is to be released in October 2009.

Bane was portrayed by voice actor Corey Burton, who also provided the voices for Ziro Desilijic Tiure and Shahan Alama in "Hostage Crisis." At the suggestion of series producer and Star Wars creator George Lucas, Burton took inspiration from film actor Peter Lorre, and used Bane's already established Western American influences to voice the Duros mercenary with his own original characterization.

The Gen'Dai mercenary Durge was to originally appear as the television series' first bounty hunter, but the character was changed into "Nom Kahbah" before George Lucas became involved with the character's development. Unused sketches of a bounty hunter existed from the original Star Wars films, and the sketches ended up providing the basis for Bane's model. At Lucas's request, inspiration for the character was taken from Lee Van Cleef's characters from the films The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More, and the name was eventually changed to "Cad Bane."

Appearances

 * The Clone Wars: Invitation Only
 * The Clone Wars: Hunting the Hunters (Part 1)
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Holocron Heist
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Holocron Heist