Darth Maul Getting Star Wars Prequel Comic

A new Star Wars comic book project has been announced: titled Star Wars: Darth Maul, the five-issue miniseries will be a Darth Maul prequel story, released by Marvel Comics.

The series will be written by Cullen Bunn (Uncanny X-Men, Deadpool) and drawn by Luke Ross (Spider-Man, Green Lantern). The character will reportedly be a composite of the character from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and The Clone Wars television series; that basically means a combination of violent thuggery and cunning malice, which has kept the character a focal point of Star Wars lore for nearly two decades since his brief introduction.

According to USA Today:

“The comic finds Maul an untested warrior under the training of Darth Sidious, who would later become the Galactic Emperor. Told to stand down from engaging with Jedi yet, Maul hunts down the worst of the worst in the cosmic underworld to vent his frustration.

After learning a young Jedi Padawan named Eldra Kaitis has fallen into the hands of a crime lord, Maul seizes an opportunity to test his skills against a real Jedi but also maybe turn someone else to the dark side.”

When last we saw Maul, it was on the Star Wars Rebels season 3 episode where he blackmailed Jedi Kanan and his apprentice Ezra into uniting Jedi and Sith Holocrons to receive a vision. That vision has set Maul off on a new mission for the one who “lives,” which fans speculate could mean another confrontation with the reclusive Obi-Wan Kenobi. For casual Star Wars fans who don’t know, Maul survived The Phantom Menace and was pieced back together during The Clone Wars, where he and his brother became crime lords of The Outer Rim, and eventually challenged his former master, Darth Sidious, for control of The Sith. A canonized Darth Maul novel, Son of Dathomir, was previously released, exploring the character’s fate after the events of Clone Wars.

Rouge One: A Star Wars Story will be in theaters on December 16, 2016. Star Wars: Episode VIII will be in theaters on December 15, 2017. The Han Solo Standalone Film will be released on May 25, 2018. Star Wars: Episode IX will be in theaters on May 23, 2019.