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Lord Vader

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From the very first moment Darth Vader appeared on the silver screen in the original 1977 installment of "Star Wars: A New Hope", there was no question that his character was a villan that would rival any that came before him. For generations, Darth Vader has been the iconic "bad guy", transcending genres as the epitome of darkness in movie villan lore.

In each of the original Star Wars epics, Vader faced off against various Jedi. In "A New Hope", it was Obi Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Master who had survived the Clone Wars and who had proven himself time and again with a lightsaber. In "The Empire Strikes Back" he faced off against Luke Skywalker, his son, in a battle that combined his skills as a swordsman with his mastery of the darkside of the "force". Surely, his skills as a fallen Jedi were something to be feared, for even Yoda himself cautioned Luke that facing Vader would result in dire consequences.

Looking at the more recent installments in the Star Wars saga, we learn the backstory of how Darth Vader became so powerful. His earliest Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn identified that Anakin Skywalker (who would become Darth Vader later in life (for those of you who are uninitiated into the Star Wars universe)), had a midichlorian count that far exceeded any Jedi that had ever existed. Qui-Gon went so far as to suggest that Anakin was "the chosen one" who was sent to restore balance to the Force.

Now I am not trying to take anything away from Darth Maul. In Episode 1, Darth Maul was obviously quite accomplished with a lightsaber. In fact, he was the only character in any of the films to featured a double sided lightsaber. However, looking at facts, and simplifying the statistics down to an elimination event, Darth Maul was defeated by Obi Wan Kenobi, who had not even been granted the rank of Jedi Master at that point. Many years later, as mentioned above, Obi Wan Kenobi, now a veteran Jedi Master, was struck down by Darth Vader. Now, I will give you that Obi Wan Kenobi allowed himself to be struck down, but I think it would be fair to say that he knew at that point that he had no chance of defeating Darth Vader and simply sacrificed himself to save his friends.

When we consider that Darth Maul's character was not able to defend himself successfullly against an apprentice Jedi, there is no way that Darth Maul could possibly outmatch a Sith Lord as powerful as Darth Vader.

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