Darth Vader Clone

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Comes with his own Imperial March and Cool Helmet; similarities only grow bigger as the game progresses.[1]

Being one of the most iconic film franchises of all time, Star Wars has proven to be a major influence on many aspiring creators since the release of A New Hope back in 1977. Its vast array of characters, Cool Starships, aliens, and weapons have all ingrained themselves in pop culture, with one of the biggest standouts being Darth Vader. Perhaps the living embodiment of Evil Is Cool, the iconic dark lord of the Sith captivated millions with his threatening presence, menacing voice, and surprising depth as a character once his familial ties to Luke Skywalker were revealed. So unsurprisingly, he'd become a huge Fountain of Expies as the years passed, with many villains following in his footsteps.

While a Darth Vader Clone won't display all of the following traits, more than a few will definitely be present. These include:

Not surprisingly, many characters of this type are found in Star Wars canon itself since many writers want to have a Vader of their own. Funnily enough, the vast majority of these tend to predate Vader in the timeline, making him an Expy of a common Sith archetype in-universe. See also May the Farce Be with You and Vader Breath.

Examples of Darth Vader Clone include:

Anime and Manga

  • Iron Mask from Mobile Suit Gundam F91, combining Darth Vader Clone and it's Japanese equivalent, the Char Clone.
  • Griffith from Berserk checks a lot of the boxes: a dirt-poor boy who grew into a powerful, handsome swordsman? A chosen one who lost his way and fell into darkness? A merciless enforcer of the series' ultimate evil clad in black armor and a Badass Cape? He can even crush people with a single gesture thanks to his brutal psychic powers! The similarities are most certainly deliberate given that the late Kentaro Miura was a huge Star Wars fan, but the big difference between the two is that Griffith is an unapologetically cruel and sadistic Complete Monster, completely lacking in any of Vader's sympathetic traits.
  • Much like Kentaro Miura, Eichiro Oda of One Piece fame is a self-admitted Star Wars fanboy. And it shows: two major villains late in the series are distinctly Vader-flavored.
    • Judge Vinsmoke's the evil father of one of the Straw Hats, Sanji, and a vicious caped, mask-wearing brute who leads an army of clones dressed in white (bonus points for being named Germa 66, a reference to the Clone Troopers’ massacre of the Jedi when Palpatine issued Order 66) and is one of the chief servants of the pirate emperor Big Mom. But while Vader is a stone-cold Badass, Judge is not. The man's a shit-talking coward who bawls like a baby when he's betrayed and nearly killed by Big Mom.
    • A lot less pathetic than Judge is King, pirate emperor Kaido's number two. He’s got the overwhelming strength and stoicism Judge lacks, as well as the kickass suit of black armor and a hellish voice. He's also skilled with a blade, and when he isn't stabbing his opponents he's usually grabbing them in a chokehold.
  • In the Pokémon games, Mewtwo is a monstrously powerful wild animal created through genetic experimentation who simply wants to be left alone. But in the anime, he's basically Darth Vader as a Pokemon. He briefly serves as the ultimate weapon of Giovanni, the boss of Team Rocket, who controls him with a suit of torturous, intimidating Power Armor while using his destructive psychic powers to crush his opponents in battle. When he breaks free from Giovanni's servitude and tries to take over the world, he ditches the armor but keeps the deep voice and destructive psychic powers. And the thing that ultimately moves him into performing a Heel Face Turn is Ash's willingness to sacrifice himself in order to stop his evil ambitions.

Comic Books

  • Star Wars Legacy: Cade refuses to let his childhood love Azlyn die, even though she asks him to, accepting her fate and the will of the Force. When all other option fail, he gets her to people who put her in a Vader-esque life support armor. After waking up, she was really pissed at him. Fortunately for her, she managed to avoid slipping to Dark Side and managed to get the scary black suit replaced with something much more elegant.
  • Micronauts' own Baron Karza, in both the toy and the comic.
  • Lumiya was trained by the man himself and is practically a Distaff Counterpart.
  • There's also Dirk Raider from Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!. Not only is he similar in appearance to Darth Vader (although his helmet is more similar to Boba Fett), he even has a similar backstory to Vader's Start of Darkness in Revenge of the Sith. A notable difference, however, is that Dirk Raider's more of a Card-Carrying Villain instead of a complex character.

Film

  • The original Darth Vader from the Star Wars films is the Trope Namer, and inspired a few other characters in the movies that followed.
    • Word of God says that Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and General Grievous from the prequel trilogy were all deliberate Call Forwards to Vader, with each villain Foreshadowing Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side by embodying a different aspect of his future self: Maul as The Dragon who enforces the Emperor's will with stoic menace, Dooku as a sympathetic fallen Jedi disillusioned with the Order he served, and Grievous as a foul-tempered cyborg with breathing problems and Bad Boss tendencies.
    • Kylo Ren from the sequel trilogy deliberately models himself after Vader, and is even his grandson to boot. He wears a similar ensemble, serves a Palpatine wannabe who himself is a proxy for Palpatine before he takes the reins in episode 9, and has anger issues even worse than Vader's to the point of throwing violent tantrums at the drop of a hat. He even gets his own Heroic Sacrifice while fighting back against Palpatine.
  • Darth Vader's own appearance is often thought to be inspired by the Film Serial character The Lighting from The Fighting Devil Dogs.
  • Dark Helmet from Spaceballs, who's a goofy parody played by the very non-threatening Rick Moranis.
  • Zurg from Toy Story 2. Him being an evil emperor technically makes him closer to Palpatine, but his Tin Tyrant appearance, menacing voice, and badass weapon (a Big Freaking Gun instead of a Laser Blade in his case) all invoke Vader, same with him dropping a Luke, I Am Your Father-style bombshell of his own on Buzz Lightyear.
  • Lord Graal is a pretty blatant one from The Humanoid.
  • The Doctor AKA Cobra Commander is this in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The sequel has him closer to his original cartoon incarnation.
  • Tron: Legacy has the masked, black-clad bad guy Rinzler who actually is former good guy Tron, who returns to the light side and tries to kill his evil master at the end.

Literature

  • Margaret Weis is a huge fan of the Vader character, so it's no surprise she borrowed his general aesthetic for several of the Dragon Highlords from the Dragonlance Chronicles, which she co-wrote. The closest to Vader in terms of both appearance and character, though, is not a Highlord at all, but rather the undead knight Lord Soth. The direction of Raistlin's story arc also paralells Vader's in some ways, though the two characters aren't very alike in terms of personality, appearance, or abilities.
  • The Star Wars Expanded Universe has a lot of books taking place after Vader's death, and a number of villains who call back to him, even if they'd never met him. Kueller of The New Rebellion is one of the most notable ones, though he also has callbacks to the Emperor. There's even a point where Luke, fighting him, decides to have an Obi-Wan Moment and let himself get killed so he can guide his sister - but his sister interrupts by just shooting Kueller.
  • The Horned King in The Book of Three.
  • Galaxy of Fear has a literal clone of Darth Vader... and he's not an impressive one. His armor is crappy, and he's something of a petulant manchild that is easily cut down by the real Vader.
  • There are a lot of deliberate parallels between Star Wars and The Inheritance Cycle, but interestingly enough, there is no one true "Darth Vader Clone". Rather, Vader's traits are split among several characters.
    • While mainly more of a Palpatine copy, King Galbatorix has got the tragic backstory of being a child prodigy who grew to be a skilled and celebrated Dragon Rider, only to go insane with grief after losing his beloved dragon. Much like Anakin with the Jedi, he blamed his fellow Riders for all his problems and led the charge in slaughtering most of them. He also kills one of Eragon’s mentor figures, though he's not the obvious Obi-Wan stand-in.
    • Morzan, the first of the Forsworn served as the Bigger Bad's brutally powerful right-hand man, was a master swordsman whose weapon was a red Cool Sword, and had parental ties to one of the heroes: Murtagh. He was also stated to be Eragon's father, but that turned out to be a Red Herring.
    • Murtagh himself follows in his dad's footsteps as Galbatorix's Vader, red sword and all. But while Morzan was a purely evil brute, Murtagh is a far more tragic character who is forced to serve Galbatorix against his will before redeeming himself with an act of love. His battle with Eragon at the end of Eldest is even a 1:1 copy of Luke's fight against Vader in Cloud City, complete with the "long lost family member" bombshell reveal. And before Galbatorix enslaves him, he has a lot in common with pre–Face Heel Turn Anakin due to being a troubled, yet friendly young man known for being an absolutely ruthless combatant.
    • Shruikan gets points for being Galbatorix's literal dragon, whose immense size and void-colored scales make him a Kaiju-flavored Vader clone. He was also Reforged Into a Minion through a torturous procedure that left him a shell of his former self fueled solely by anger and hatred.

Live-Action TV

  • Wolzard from Mahou Sentai Magiranger. Heavily-armored, deep-voiced, sword-wielding black-magician dragon to the Eldritch Abomination N.Ma - and secretly the team's brainwashed missing father. His Mystic Force counterpart Koragg also counts, although he's only the Red Ranger's dad.
  • Before either of them was Chouryou/Iron Face Xiang Lao from Gosei Sentai Dairanger. Fallen Hero and father of Ryou, the series' Red Ranger. He is by far the most blatant. His boss amongst the villains is a ripoff of the Emperor when in human guise, he dies saving his son from said boss's Electric Torture, and the spirits of his friends appear to forgive him when he passes.
  • Moff Gideon from The Mandalorian is an Imperial officer who seems to be deliberately styling himself after Vader, and to his credit he does a good job at it. While he's no Sith, he's a scary man with a commanding presence, fancy black garb, and a lightsaber (actually the Mandalorian Darksaber) of his own. He also copies an aspect of Vader you don't tend to see in his many expies: he's a flying ace who even pilots his own custom-model TIE fighter! And if all this wasn't enough, his endgame involves creating an army of battle droids that are themselves an army of Darth Vader clones. And speaking of...
    • Like in the pre-Disney continuity, Dark Troopers are droids heavily styled after Vader, and are nigh-unkillable menaces that inspire the same kind of terror that he does... until Luke Skywalker swoops in to curb stomp them into scrap metal and save the day.
  • Zoom from CW's The Flash was designed with Vader in mind, and it shows. His costume is basically a Sith-flavored take on the Flash's suit, is something of a force user (the Speed Force, specifically), and he'll happily kill any minion who fails to prove their worth to him. His deep and monstrous voice was also provided by a different actor than the man physically playing him, with said actor being a black man known for his impressive voice (Tony Todd, as opposed to James Earl Jones).

Video Games

  • A non-canon example is in The Force Unleashed's dark side ending, which has Galen Marek in a similar situation to Darth Vader by being made a cyborg.
  • Darth Malak from Knights of the Old Republic is possibly the most obvious Darth Vader expy.
  • Dark Madder from Warp Force.
  • Kabal from the Mortal Kombat series.
  • Grahf THE SEEKER OF POWER of Xenogears was specifically designed to resemble Darth Vader.
  • Golbez from Final Fantasy IV is a more fantasy-themed version, complete with a Cecil I Am Your Brother moment. He wears black armor, is a Badass Baritone when he's voiced, has a rather ominous and rather badass theme whenever he is nearby, used to be good but was corrupted and brainwashed by Zemus, and once he comes to his senses he helps the heroes destroy him.
    • As two more Shout Outs, in Dissidia Final Fantasy he has an attack called "Cosmic Ray", which fires blasts of electricity from his hands in a manner heavily resembling Force Lightning (ironically, the original Darth Vader never actually learned this attack and in fact was killed by it), and he calls the CPU boss from IV to fire lasers, the CPU greatly resembling the Death Star as a large black metal Attack Drone.
  • Gabranth in Final Fantasy XII is The Dragon to The Emperor, Vayne, is revealed to be Basch's Evil Twin and is a Fallen Hero who is pretty much single-handedly responsible for the fall of Dalmasca and the Empire's reign in the region. Clad in dark silver armor with a black cape and having a metallic echo to his voice due to his helmet, Gabranth is actually a broken man who feels he has nothing to live for except his servitude to Vayne, his home and family having been taken from him or given up. By the end of the game he helps the heroes defeat Vayne, but is mortally wounded for his heroism and dies soon after.
  • King K. Rool looks nothing like Vader (since he's, you know, a big fat crocodile dressed in royal garb), but he behaves this way in Donkey Kong 64. He's got a prominent case of Vader Breath and a menacing voice to match, reacts poorly to his minions failing him, and spends the entire game trying to destroy Donkey Kong's home with what's basically a miniature Death Star with a crocodile motif.
  • Darth Malgus in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Also, most Sith Warrior PCs can give it a decent go, especially with some of the late game helmets like this.
  • The bosses of the 1987 Star Wars Licensed Game for the Famicom are a long line of Darth Vader knockoffs, such as Scorpion Vader and Wampa Vader, who drop their masks and cloaks soon into the Boss Battle. The actual Darth Vader is defeated before the assault on the Death Star.
  • The Darkshine Knight from Seiken Densetsu 3 qualifies. He wears bulky dark armor, is a formidable swordsman and is second in command to the Big Bad. Later he is revealed to be working for the Dragon Emperor, which actually makes him third in command. Oh, and he's also Duran's (one of the protagonists) father
  • In the arcade game Xain D'Sleena (also known as Solar Warrior), one finds on the top of a temple located in the planet (named Cleedos Soa/Jupiter [2] respectively) a flying head that looks suspiciously similar to Darth Vader's helmet and that must be destroyed in order to follow on the level. If one skips the planet, it will appear in space chasing your ship from behind. Worse, it cannot be killed since your ship just fires to the front, so you must just dodge its bullets until it retires.
  • Arguably, Xemnas from the Kingdom Hearts series in terms of appearance and backstory. He wears a black cloak, has a deep and commanding voice, wields "ethereal blades" that are basically red lightsabers minus the hilts, and his past incarnation Terra is a very blatant Anakin Skywalker Clone, albeit one whose fall to the dark side was legitimately not his fault. His skillset also includes throwing humongous objects around with telekinesis and shooting lightning out from the palms of his hands, though Vader never actually used Force Lightning himself.
    • Another Terra-adjacent Vader clone would be The Lingering Will, Terra's rage and hatred for Xehanort in the form of a stupidly powerful armored Keyblade warrior. However, he isn't evil so much as he is driven completely driven by rage against Xehanort and anyone in league with him, as well as a desire to make up for his mistakes as Terra.
  • Epsilon from Mega Man X Command Mission.
  • The Gamecube game Custom Robo has Sergei, who not only possessed a baritone voice (well, it's implied due to the eight-bit speech sounds being deep), a face mask obscuring all but his right eye, being a high-executive to the Z-Syndicate, and The Dragon to Oboru, but is also the older brother of Marcei. Likewise, he also pulls a Heel Face Turn late into the game.
  • The Magic Emperor in Lunar the Silver Star, being a Fallen Hero on a Knight Templar quest to return the world to divine rule, and clad in black armor and robes with an enclosing helmet that makes his voice sound much deeper than it does otherwise.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a few. Fittingly, they're all associated with an evil emperor.
    • Funnily enough, the Flame Emperor himself or rather, herself is basically Darth Vader in a medieval setting. While his manipulative warmonger tendencies and status bring Palpatine to mind, he's got the imposing armor, mechanical voice, Bad Boss tendencies, and tragic backstory most would associate with Vader, and even offers Byleth a genuine offer to team up and eliminate the shadowy Sith-like Agarthans that he answers to. And if you choose to side with Edelgard during a Black Eagles playthrough, you can take the Emperor up on that offer.
      • And the similarities go even further after the Emperor's identity is revealed. Edelgard von Hresvelg was traumatized at a young age due to the loss of many of her loving family members, and she herself was subjected to horrific experiments that gifted her with immense strength. She's also secretly the half-sister of her fair-haired Arch-Enemy Dimitri, and in a Silver Snow playthrough is an antagonistic former pupil of Byleth's firmly on the side of evil.
    • The Death Knight is an even better example of this trope, being a terrifying warrior clad in skeletal black armor with a hellishly deep voice filtered through his helmet. He's an obscenely powerful combatant that you shouldn't even think of fighting early in the game, and serves as the muscle of the Flame Emperor's army. He's also related to one of the heroes: Mercedes of the Blue Lions. More specifically, he's her handsome and mentally troubled younger brother Jeritza/Emile, who became a twisted serial killer after suffering from a psychotic break in the aftermath of killing his abusive family. If her paralogue is completed, she'll try to coax a shaken Death Knight back to the light, but he ultimately dies in her arms, emotionally moved by her kindness but unwilling (or perhaps unable) to divert from the bloody path he walks.
    • Should you choose to side with Edelgard during a Black Eagles playthrough, Byleth becomes an example of this trope. Male Byleth has a slight edge over his female counterpart due to being a handsome young man who wears intimidating black armor, but both versions become the chief enforcer of the emperor's will, were born under unusual circumstances, and wield a glowing Cool Sword in battle. They even mirror Anakin's Face Heel Turn by refusing to kill a helpless Edelgard at the behest of their superior Rhea, the archbishop, and shortly afterwards lead an armed assault on a holy temple housing their students and colleagues (though you don't kill them until later in the game). Since Rhea was hoping to train up Byleth as her successor, they even count as as a wayward pupil that turned to villainy and eventually kill her... though with the twist that Rhea herself goes insane and crosses the Moral Event Horizon due to her hatred for them.
  • Black Doom from Shadow the Hedgehog is a menacing, deep-voiced alien conqueror who tries to tempt Shadow into embracing The Dark Side. He's even Shadow's father by way of being his genetic donor. However, his more overtly sorcerous powers and appearance as well as his Manipulative Bastard tendencies and lack of redeeming qualities allow him to do double-duty as a Palpatine analogue.
  • Batman Arkham Knight gives us the Arkham Knight himself. He's got a sweet suit of high-tech armor that masks his voice with a deep robotic filter, and is the right hand man of the manipulative Scarecrow. He's sharp-tongued towards minions who fail him, fueled by anger and hatred, and has a personal connection to Batman due to being Jason Todd, his second Robin who was believed to have died after being subjected to horrific torture at the hands of the Joker. Despite having nothing but hatred for Batman, the Caped Crusader's attempts to sway him back to the side of good are ultimately successful, and he saves his life when the Scarecrow has him dead-to-rights.
  • It’s odd to imagine The Tinkerer being portrayed as this, since he's a tiny balding old man in the comics. But his gender-flipped incarnation in Spider-Man: Miles Morales fits this trope to a T. Instead of a (mostly) Non-Action Guy, she's the leader of a gang of dangerous anarchists who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and rides into battle wearing a cool-looking mask that deepens her voice. Her fall into villainy stems from the loss of her beloved brother, and she has a personal connection to the hero: she's Phin Mason, Miles Morales' best friend. And despite being resistant towards Miles' attempts at making her come to her senses, she ultimately sees the error in her ways and goes out performing a Heroic Sacrifice in order to save his life.
  • The Inquisitors from the Star Wars franchise as a whole are an entire squadron of Darth Vader Clones, but none come closer to embodying this trope than the Second Sister of Jedi: Fallen Order fame. She's got the look down to a T: black armor, Badass Cape, voice-filtering mask, the works. Her presence is nearly as intimidating as Vader's, and she plays a very similar role as she relentlessly hunts Cal Kestis across the galaxy, even killing his mentor/father figure Prauf in the process. And when she reveals herself to be Trilla Suduri, the fallen Padawan of Cere Junda, her cool-headed demeanor proves to be a mask for a furious tortured soul who feels betrayed by her former master. Unfortunately, she sees the light just in time for Vader himself to perform a Heel Face Door Slam on her.
  • Due to being a Sentai-flavored love letter to cinema as a whole, the villains of the first two Viewtiful Joe games are both obvious sendups to Darth Vader. The Black Emperor from the sequel is far more obvious, since he looks exactly like Vader but with a more overt samurai theme, and he pilots a Death Star-themed mech to boot. But both the Black Emperor and King Blue are Fallen Heroes with scary voices that are revealed to be the antagonistic fathers of Joe and Sylvia respectively, and both come to their senses after Joe (and later, Sylvia) beat the stuffing out of them.
  • No More Heroes has Dark Star, the Rank One assassin who wears awesome black armor, wields an even cooler laser sword, and tells Travis Touchdown that he's his father. He's just messing with him, as Jeane reveals after she kills him.

Web Original

  • Chad Vader is a near-literal example of this trope, except he's Vader's bumbling klutz of a brother who's stuck working at a grocery store. Funnily enough, his voice actor Matt Sloan would go on to voice the actual Vader in various Star Wars spinoffs.

Western Animation

  • Dark Laser from The Fairly OddParents, who's deliberately designed to be a parody. Some TV Guide misprints even refer to him as Vader.
  • Dark Vegan from Johnny Test - though he's probably more of an Expy of the aforementioned Dark Helmet.
  • Duck Vader from Tiny Toon Adventures
  • Baron Ryang from the Trapped in TV Land episode of Teen Titans
  • Darph Bobo from Tripping the Rift
  • Loonatics Unleashed: Slyth Vester, a combination of the cat Sylvester and Darth Vader!
  • Jack Thompson in the animated adaptation of Ctrl+Alt+Del, where he's portrayed as Vader... but as a censorious anti-gaming crusader.
  • Savage Opress from Star Wars: The Clone Wars looks more like a Darth Maul clone at first glance, but he's a Vader Expy through-and-through. Once a noble Nightbrother warrior, his fall to the Dark Side happened as a result of him trying to protect his beloved little brother, resulting in him being transformed with dark magic into a merciless monster of a man who kills that very same brother with no remorse. He's an imposing, no nonsense berserker who serves as the muscle to various powerful darksiders, and prefers to overwhelm his enemies with brute force rather than finesse. And in an interesting twist on the Luke, I Am Your Father trope, he isn't related to a hero... but a villain. Specifically, he's the brother of Darth Maul, who serves as a far kinder and genuinely caring Palpatine figure to him. He even dies like Vader by being struck down by Palpatine, and reverting to his good-hearted true self right before dying.
  1. ↑ The protagonist is his brother, they fight in space, and he regrets his wrongs deeds in the end, fighting the BigBad.
  2. ↑ despite being a desert world with even a Shout-Out to Dune
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