I’ve always disliked heavily battle-damaged images of Vader like this. For one it totally ignores the whole “he needs his mask and electronics boxes to live” thing (you know, like how Luke hesitates to take off the mask in ROTJ…). And for two, am I really supposed to believe that he was exposed to such enourmous trauma that it blew away and actually melted his shoulder and chest armor (that withstood a direct hit from Luke’s lightsaber in ESB) but his pasty white flesh underneath is just fine? It’s like having a grenade blow off a medieval knight’s plate armor leaving him standing around in his skivvies unscathed. It just immediately makes my brain hurt and my disbelief just won’t be suspended.
Sorry you feel that way
Eh, I’m not. It’s not like I’m losing sleep over it or having anger management issues. It’s just an observation. Just one of those many things in the EU that makes me kinda roll my eyes when I see it.
I actually DO like the idea of a battle damaged Vader after some kind of big battle (either similar to what we got in the Vader Down comic run, or him hunting down the last few Jedi holdouts in hiding). In fact, that’s always been kinda my personal cannon to explain why his costume changes from film to film - offscreen battles that require repair/replacement of various bits.
It’s just the actual depictions of said battle damage, like in that picture, are usually just way too “XTREEEMMMZZZ!!!” for me to find credible or enjoy.