With the introduction of new Star Wars movies, we inevitably got introduced to new villains. These included characters such as Kylo Ren or Supreme Leader Snoke. However, these characters were controversial because many fans ended up comparing them to Darth Vader. As far as most Star Wars fans are concerned, Darth Vader is one of the scariest villains of all time. He’s basically a skeletal robot who can cut you in half or simply choke the life out of you by looking at you. Compared to this level of dangerous menace, it’s easy to think that the new villains just aren’t that frightening. But is all of this really true? We cannot deny that Darth Vader is really damn scary. However, since the franchise is over 40 years old, there are plenty of different bad guys to choose from and take it from us: some of these villains are a lot more dangerous than Darth Vader ever was.

Some of them are simply more of a threat, packing the destructive capability of a Death Star inside their mortal frames. Others are more influential, controlling the galaxy through manipulation in ways that Vader never could, and some are simply creepier than Vader could ever be. Want to know what makes them such big threats? Don’t worry, you won’t have to sell your soul to Emperor Palpatine. All you have to do is keep scrolling so that you can learn all about 20 Star Wars Villains more dangerous than Darth Vader!

21 PALPATINE

When you’re preparing a list of villains more dangerous than Darth Vader, some characters are going to be more obvious than others. We figured we’d rip the band-aid off quickly and name the most obvious villain that puts ol’ Anakin Skywalker to shame: Emperor Palpatine.

Vader can be pretty scary, of course -- he's good at choking people and fighting the inexperienced. However, we've seen Palpatine come out alive versus four Jedi. Later, he’s been able to defeat people without even lifting his lightsaber and, of course, he masterminded a 30-year plan to be ruler of the galaxy... ultimately making him a much scarier dude than Vader!

20 REVAN

For some Star Wars fans, the name “Darth Revan” may not mean much, but for Knights of the Old Republic fans, though, this character is everything. In fact, in is evil heyday, Revan managed to do things that make Vader look like a nobody.

For instance, Revan helped beat the Mandalorians back during wartime, and then he founded a Star Forge that allowed him to create a new Sith Empire. Ultimately, Revan would have conquered the galaxy if he wasn’t betrayed by his apprentice, making him a truer threat than Vader ever was. All in all, we can’t wait to eventually see this character in a movie or TV show.

19 NIHILUS

Darth Nihilus in The Sith Lords

Darth Revan and Darth Malak were the big Sith baddies in the first Knights of the Old Republic. For the sequel, though, we’re introduced to several new Sith Lords and one of them is just as deadly as the Death Star using nothing more than the Force!

Darth Nihilus may look like a Sith Lord who watched Scream too many times. However, he has a specific ability to use the Force and feed on other people. At one point, we see that he used his ability to destroy all life on a planet! Compared to this, Vader’s ability to Force Choke the occasional enemy (or ally) is child’s play.

18 SION

Jedi and Sith alike are kind of scary to the general galactic populace. After all, they have fantastic powers that others will never have. However, there’s one comfort to these citizens -- when these powerful warriors are taken out, they at least stay gone.

Or do they? In the second Knights of the Old Republic, we are introduced to Darth Sion. He’s taken that whole “hate gives a Sith power” thing pretty literally and manages to keep coming back from certain demise. Imagine a nearly immortal Sith warrior -- much more dangerous than Vader, who basically died as a defeated old man instead of a mighty warrior.

17 SNOKE

Supreme Leader Snoke is a controversial figure in the fan community. After all, he was built up as a grand and mysterious figure before being taken out in a kind of silly way. However, we must admit that he was still a scarier figure than Vader ever was.

In terms of raw power, we see that Snoke is able to easily contain powerful Jedi like Rey and Kylo Ren. He’s also powerful in the Force, able to link enemies’ minds across great distances. Finally, he turned the First Order into a galactic threat -- Vader was always content to be second fiddle!

16 KYLO REN

Ok, we can already hear fans rioting. How can we list Kylo Ren as more dangerous than Vader when it’s part of Ren’s character that he lives in Vader’s shadow? The real answer comes from the fact Kylo Ren is so unpredictable.

While Vader was known to Force Choke people out of anger, he was generally predictable in his goals and methods. Kylo Ren, however, is just as likely to destroy a turbolift or end his boss as he is to follow his orders. At the end of the day, the devil we don’t know is scarier than the one we do!

15 MAUL

Darth Maul was a little disappointing in The Phantom Menace. Sure, he looked cool, and his fights were truly epic. But he was a man of few words who ultimately ended up dying way too early, leaving plenty of fans disappointed.

However, this character just kept coming back. He threatened our heroes in Clone Wars and Rebels and even made a cameo in Solo as a kind of syndicate overlord. With this ability to keep coming back from defeat more and more powerful, we’re going to go ahead and declare Maul as more dangerous than Vader. To really decide things, though, we’d love to see them fight it out!

14 THRAWN

Not everyone who is more dangerous than Vader has to be a Force-user. In the case of Grand Admiral Thrawn, it’s actually his ability to negate the Force that makes him so dangerous. That, and his absolutely frightening level of intelligence.

Thrawn is basically a master planner who can take one look at a culture’s art and divine their special weaknesses. In the books, he was able to nearly secure victory for the Empire while also keeping the Force at bay with the mysterious Ysilamiri creatures he discovered. Not only is this guy scarier than Vader, but he had the ability to render Vader completely helpless!

13 GRAND INQUISITOR

Sometimes, the characters who are scarier than Vader are scary because of the very different lives they have led. In the case of the Grand Inquisitor, he has led a life very similar to that of Darth Vader. However, he emerged even scarier than our favorite Dark Lord!

This character was once a Jedi Temple Guard who knew all the secrets of the Jedi before turning to the Dark Side. In time, his job would be to hunt down and end the Jedi who survived the Clone Wars. In this way, he’s a lot like Vader. However, the Inquisitor also had a double-edged lightsaber and the ability to wield it in a way that he could almost never be countered!

12 DURGE

Most of the time, it takes someone with Force powers to stand up against someone with Force powers. However, the mysterious Durge was an exception to this rule. Not only did he have the gear and the prowess to stand up to Jedi in combat, but his special abilities made him almost impossible to end.

He’s been a threat to the Republic army as well as Jedi like Obi-Wan Kenobi. What really makes him scary, though, is how difficult he is to truly defeat: this guy had to literally be Force-pushed into the sun in order to be taken care of in a permanent way!

11 C’BAOTH

Like we said before, we think a combination of power and unpredictability is a recipe for someone truly dangerous. That’s why we aren’t hesitating to declare Joruus C’baoth as much scarier than someone like Darth Vader -- and the Emperor himself might agree!

We eventually find out that this C’baoth is a clone of the original. He has gone insane over the years but retained his high power level. This is why the Emperor chooses him as a guardian of his most important base. When unleashed, though, C’baoth has all the dark powers of Palpatine along with a willingness to mind control everyone to his whims!

10 DEATH TROOPERS

For many fans, it was a sad state of affairs when Disney rendered all of the Expanded Universe as non-canon. Among other things, it meant that cool names got recycled for characters that weren’t nearly as cool. As an example, “Death Troopers” are scary shock troopers but in the EU, though, they are far scarier.

The original term refers to Stormtroopers that were reanimated as zombies. Stormtroopers are already pretty scary, and turning them into zombies cranks the scary factor up to “eleven.” EU fans can take heart, though: these characters live on every year through very spooky Star Wars cosplay!

9 STARKILLER

Starkiller wielding his lightsaber in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

In the Force Unleashed game, you play the role of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice. The conceit is that Vader plotted to kill the Emperor well before he made the pitch to Luke, and he kept a super-powerful Force user hidden for just this occasion.

Through the game’s DLC, you get to see a version of this character who fully embraces evil as “Lord Starkiller.” In this form, he is able to effortlessly defeat Luke Skywalker in combat, all while retaining the power to tear Star Destroyers from the sky. Our verdict? This dude is pretty damn dangerous, and it’s good our heroes never had to face him within canon.

8 CAEDUS

Darth Caedus

Disney may have destroyed the EU, but some fans hold out a theory that they are picking and choosing from the EU to create the new canon. For instance, there was the character of “Darth Caedus.” Let’s see if this sounds familiar: he is the son or Han Solo and Leia Organa who turns to the Dark Side and runs an evil empire!

That’s right: this guy was basically Kylo Ren 1.0. He is a powerful Jedi before his fall, able to tackle some of the greatest foes in the galaxy. And after he turns to the Dark Side, he is a threat to powerful Jedi like Luke Skywalker, and he threatens the New Republic itself!

7 EXAR KUN

Star Wars' Exar Kun standing before a pyramid among a lightning storm

There are a lot of heavy hitters on this list. However, this next one is a warrior who created the entire legacy that Darth Vader tried to follow in. Who are we talking about? Exar Kun: one of the very first Lords of the Sith!

This former Jedi turned evil and became a great foe. He eventually took Ulic Qel-Droma under his wing and they helped kick off the whole “always two there are” thing with the Sith (though this would be codified by another Sith). Eventually, he is defeated... but his evil spirit haunts Yavin IV, eventually going after Luke Skywalker and his new apprentices before finally being banished for good.

6 KREIA

Kreia rounds out our list of characters from the Knights of the Old Republic games. If you don’t know much about her, chances are that she doesn’t look dangerous. After all, how can a little old lady be scarier than Darth Vader? But it turns out she is a major threat to all life in the galaxy!

She’s powerful as a Force user and Sith on her own, and she trains some of the most ruthless warriors in history. But we really have to give it to her for ambition: she came close to pulling off a plan that would have effectively destroyed the Force itself!

5 HK-47

Like we said before, not everyone has to have Force abilities to be more dangerous than Darth Vader and in the case of this next character, he actually exists outside of the Force bubble that binds all living things. Who are we talking about? Everyone’s favorite assassin droid, HK-47!

This droid was the property of Darth Revan before losing his memory. Both before and after that, though, he showed that he was willing and able to take out any Jedi or Sith who stood in his way. Thanks to various video games, we know that his reign of terror lasted thousands of years and many different bodies.

4 BANE

Darth Bane

Ever wonder how and why the whole “rule of two” became a big thing with the Sith? It all started with Darth Bane. He saw that constant Sith backfighting had threatened their entire way of life and ultimately created the “rule of two” as a way to preserve order.

Bane was a powerful Sith in his own right, and he terrified the galaxy with his cruelty and his capability. Mostly, though, we think he’s scary for the Rule of Two business: without this rule, the Sith wouldn’t have been so sneaky and able to survive over the millennia as they have.

3 PLAGUEIS

Darth Plagueis with Lightsabers

For most of these entries, whether the character is more dangerous than Darth Vader or not is up to debate. How do we decide who is scarier? This is obviously a matter of opinion. However, this next character is definitively scarier as he could do what Darth Vader could not: conquer the end itself!

We are, of course, talking about Darth Plagueis the wise. Like Socrates, we mostly know about this guy thanks to his pupil, Palpatine. What do we know is very scary: this guy had the power to bring people back to life. In this way, he was more god than Sith, and that much more dangerous because of it.

2 VITIATE

Part of what makes Darth Vader’s story tragic was that he started out as a good guy. We follow his corruption and his fall and wish things could have been different for him. However, this is not the case with the next villain on our list -- Vitiate.

This dude was basically a criminal from a very young age, and he was all too happy to take out family as well as friends. If that’s not creepy enough, his long-term plans included wiping out all life in the universe. Compared to this, Vader mopping up surviving Jedi is downright quaint.