The following contains spoilers for Star Wars #23, on sale now from Marvel Comics.
In the Star Wars Universe, the Death Star has truly been a terrifying concept. Moviegoers were horrified when it was used to destroy Alderaan in Star Wars: A New Hope and was eventually brought back to annihilate more rebels in Return of the Jedi. It's become such an iconic pop culture weapon that the franchise was still influenced by it in the latest trilogy.
Simply put, the Death Star is one of cinema's most intimidating weapons of mass destruction, which is why Rogue One detailed how the rebels were able to get the plans for Luke Skywalker to initially destroy the first one. Interestingly, as Marvel's Star Wars series continues to detail the backstory of the war just before The Empire Strikes Back, fans discovered the franchise's female Darth Vader actually remixed the Death Star's most famous attack, adding in a brutally dark twist.
In Star Wars #23 (by Charles Soule, Ramon Rosanas, Rachelle Rosenberg and Clayton Cowles) Princess Leia's rebel fleet comes under attack. In this series, Zahra (Moff Tarkin's protégé) has proven to the sadistic Emperor Palpatine that she's essentially a female version of Darth Vader, making it her personal mission to kill the princess after her rebels destroyed the Death Star, killing her mentor in the process.
In Panisia's orbit, Zahra arrived with her massive Star Destroyer, Tarkin's Will, blocking off the fleet, but rather than shoot them down, she had a twisted plan for the encampment on the planet. She took her flagship down, and when the rebels pursued, she used ionized cannons to render their systems inert. With them unable to fly or fight back, Zahra used them like bombs, ruthlessly dropping them down to Panisia's surface like destructive meteors.
Zahra developed and implemented her brutal strategy quickly, impressing the Imperial troops. What made this worse than just using a Death Star to destroy the planet, Leia and her troops on the planet below had to make the horrible decision to either shoot down their own allies in order to minimize damage, or evacuate the rebel bases and allow them to fall to their deaths. Either way, many of their comrades would be lost.
This also allowed Zahra to savor all of the misery that she imposed upon her enemies. To top it off, the merciless villainess still used her ship's thrusters to torch a rebel base, adding even more to her death toll. This allowed Zahra to bask in the glory of the destruction, and the knowlege of the psychological toll her actions took on Leia and the rebels, much as Vader relished in the destruction of Alderaan.