For some reason, bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe have been revered above all other professions. The first to gain notoriety was Boba Fett and his appearance in The Empire Strikes Back caused a cult status reserved for very few characters in cinema history. He was given a number of peers in that film (Bossk, IG-88, 4-LOM, Zuckuss and Dengar) but none matched him in comparison.

More recently, we've been given Jango Fett, Zam Wessel, Aurra Sing who have, in their own small ways broached some part of Boba Fett's popularity.

In the current, most popular form of Star Wars (Clone Wars, which I rave about regularly) Boba Fett has yet to come of age. And so the galaxy needs a bounty hunter.

At Wondercon, Lucasfilm unveiled this new villain, Cad Bane.

Bane is a bounty hunter modeled after Lee Van Cleef and his turns in the Man With No Name Trilogy (which you should all race out, buy and watch repeatedly.) He’s a Duros with seemingly no scruples.

Series director Dave Filoni describes Cad Bane as an older bounty hunter at the top of the game since Jango Fett is no longer around. "Cade Bane has a lot more looser moral content than Jango ever had. He’ll shoot you dead, unless you offer him more money, and he might not and shoot the person who hired him dead."

He'll be making his Clone Wars premiere (alongside Aurra Sing!) in the season finale episode Hostage Crisis which airs March 20, 2009 in the United States on Cartoon Network.

In order to tide us over, Lucasfilm has given me an early look at this week’s episode of Clone Wars in the form of this new trailer. And I have to say that this is the hard PG-13 stuff everyone seemed to want about Clone Wars.

Wow.

I have to say, it looks like Cad Bane is going to earn his keep as a Star Wars bounty hunter.

Bryan Young is a regular contributor to Huffington Post and writes about Star Wars and other geekiness at Big Shiny Robot.