In 1999, Lucasfilm Star Wars: The Phantom Menace introduced the audience to Darth Maul. Played by the then-unknown Ray Park, the red and black Sith was defined more by aura than anything else: he had very little dialogue, but he looked cool as hell and looked good in his one fight scene. That you were just entering star Wars even though he was excited about the franchise’s first film in decades, he seemed ready to be a scene spoiler.
And then… he was cut in half, his bisected parts falling down a veeeeeeeery long hole. Some comedians play with the idea that he’s coming back, and he’s mentioned in video games, but not? It’s just a blip on the radar when it comes to the big Prequel story that establishes Anakin Skywalker’s descent from Darth Vader. We probably wouldn’t talk about him today, but back then Star Wars: The Clone Wars he went and brought him back. In a few months, he will talk about his first solo television project Maul-Shadow Lord, set between his last appearance (plural) in between The Clone Wars and his eventual resurrection Star Wars Rebels.
As in the Two Great Comedies, death has always been a funny thing Star Wars, with many characters returning after it seems like we’ve seen them for the last time. When it comes to the current season of the franchise, it itself technically started in episodes of The Clone Wars, Darth Maul is ground zero or close to it. Midway through the show’s third season in 2011, audiences were introduced to Savage Oppress, Maul’s brother and effectively a reskin with a lighter skin tone. What at first appeared to be the perfect form of a dead Darth and an interesting antagonist in his own right turned out to be a subtle operation to bring back the real Maul in the next season.
Above the rest The Clone Wars’ and later RebelsMaul ends up becoming incredibly involved in the state of the galaxy and characters like Obi-Wan and Palpatine come Revenge of the SIth and the Original Trilogy. In many ways, it sounds like a change in the name of Dave Filoni and George Lucas: not only does Maul return, he allows several revenges with the person who ruined his life, throws the Mandalorians and becomes a crime lord with his brother, again he knows about Anakin’s importance. That Maul is up to date on the matter of star Wars and to find that all this happened to him would be dumb (and in some cases it is) if it were not a small thing, but the key to his condition: star Wars he never forgets to remind you that from his first appearance to the last, he loser.
The problem with a few once-dead, now-brought-back characters like Boba Fett and Ahsoka is that the forces involved know they have to look cool to justify bringing them back. They are booked to be good and come out on top at the end of the day, and any time they don’t represent the image of the game it’s a dead and dying breath. Fortunately, Darth Maul does not have this problem because there is a level of self-awareness in everything around him. He looks great in battles and has followers, but he is far from a load bearing pillar, or so it is. In terms of screen time, it’s only three arcs out of many that make up The Clone Wars and five Rebels’ 75 episodes.
If anything, Maul’s appearance in both shows how his continued survival comes only because he keeps getting in the way of other characters: every time he faces Obi-Wan he ends up defeated, and the only person he can fully relate to is a 16-year-old kid who has tried to trick him twice. He killed his brother because they were both too loud for Palpatine to ignore, and he dies at the hands of the man he spent years grooming, whose name he shouted across the endless desert like a scorned lover after a Shakespearean monologue. Maul isn’t so much the hero of his story as he is someone who wants to get back at others so he can warrant a mention on the wiki. The sadness and humor of his character is how much he struggles and doesn’t see how he’s going to get better not important in the grand scheme of things.
All of which means that Filoni and company have spent years knowing that Maul is a mess, striking a fine balance between making him worthy of redemption while still constantly beating him down to humble him. (He is thrown over the edge by the man he had blinded two minutes earlier, for crying out loud.) But there lies the question. Mthunzi Nkosi: in a “new franchise” planet full of gangsters, cops, and a potential apprentice, can the Maul we’re about to see match up to the Maul we saw in two shows in 2010? Will he keep his powers under control or find some kind of proverbial flare-up as he tries to become a crime lord?
When will we find out Maul-Lord of Shadows hits Disney+ on April 6.
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