Star Wars: All 5 Times Darth Maul Has Returned

When Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was being marketed to the world, there was a ton of curiosity as to who this mysterious devil-looking fellow was. And, while this may sound ironic, one of the best things about The Phantom Menace is that it doesn’t really tell you anything at all about who the fellow, Darth Maul, is. We know he’s frightening looking. We barely hear him speak a line. And, in the third act, we learn that he has a dual-sided lightsaber which he definitely knows how to use, thanks in no small part to Ray Park’s seamless acrobatics.

He’s a character who went over well with fans, even if the surrounding movie didn’t (at least, not at the time). And when a character proves to be that popular, an IP sure does have a hard time of keeping them dead. Maul is no exception considering he has appeared in multiple different Star Wars projects after being bisected. We’re going to go through those resurrections here. But bear in mind, by resurrection, we just mean he came back in a non-Phantom Menace project, not that he repeatedly died again and was resurrected again.

5) Star Wars: The Clone Wars

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars we learn that Darth Maul has two brothers, Savage Opress and their baby brother, Feral. Savage didn’t even know about Maul until he was told about him via Mother Talzin, who believed Maul to still be living after his fight with Obi-Wan. Naturally, Savage went off in search of his brother and ultimately found him on Lotho Minor.

After the fight with Obi-Wan, Maul escaped to Outer Rim planet where he basically sat in a cave for a decayed and stewed over his defeat. Savage and Maul plan revenge on Obi-Wan, Maul gets nice new metal legs, and they take their revenge by kidnapping Obi-Wan and beating him. But oddly enough Obi-Wan is saved by Sith Acolyte Asajj Ventress and they escape Maul and Savage. All in all, Maul is a heavy supporting player in The Clone Wars‘ fourth and fifth seasons.

4) Star Wars Rebels

It may have came out (and even concluded) before the next entries on our list, but Maul’s time on Star Wars Rebels nonetheless represents his final days. We find Maul in a grieving place (Darth Sidious killed his brother, Savage Opress, in the fifth season of The Clone Wars). But, in time, he starts manipulating Jedi apprentice Ezra Bridger as they search for a Sith holocron. After they arrive at the holocron’s location, they help Ahsoka Tano and Kanan Jarrus fight a few Inquisitors.

However, he hasn’t turned to the side of good. He ultimately blinds Kanan and fights Ahsoka. He then abandoned Ezra and flew off in the Eighth Brother’s TIE fighter to find and exact final revenge on Obi-Wan. He eventually finds him on Tatooine but things don’t go Maul’s way. Obi-Wan cuts his lightsaber in half, slashes his torso, and Maul dies in his arms.

3) Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story takes place about five years before Rebels and about nine years after the conclusion of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which we’ll get to in the next entry. It’s canon just like those shows, hence Maul’s physical appearance being just about the same (he even has his shiny metal legs).

All in all, his cameo in Solo is about a minute and a half and, because of Solo‘s failure, it never amounted to anything. But it was definitely an interesting direction for a semi-sequel, having Maul instruct Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra to come to his home planet of Dathomir and co-lead the gangster organization Crimson Dawn.

2) Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7

Why is the seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars listed separately, you might ask. Because it wasn’t really supposed to happen. It was only because of Disney+ that it came into existence. In other words, it represented a second time that creatives thought they should bring Maul back for The Clone Wars.

Maul actually gets a pretty meaty run in Season 7, appearing in the final five of its 12 total episodes. It all culminates in him sensing Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side, crashing a ship upon which he was being held prisoner, and going into hiding as the Empire began to rise.

1) Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord

Taking place in between The Clone Wars and Rebels, the upcoming Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord shows fans what he was doing about a year after the Clone Wars. We see him build his crime syndicate and look for a young malleable mind to train.

The 10-episode series will hit Disney+ on April 6th of this year. The series, like so much Star Wars media these days, was created by Dave Filoni and it will run for ten total episodes, with two episodes debuting each week.

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