Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord is now streaming on Disney+, giving one of the franchise’s most fearsome villains the spotlight. Even though many fans think Maul’s Star Wars arc is already complete, Shadow Lord has threaded the needle in terms of its story focus, picking up with Maul after the final season of Clone Wars and Order 66, as the former Sith apprentice tries to get back to his gangster ways, reclaiming the underworld empire he lost when Ahsoka Tano and her Mandalorian allies arrested him.
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However, in just two episodes of Shadow Lord, Star Wars creative head Dave Filoni has introduced (yet another) Star Wars continuity retcon, which tweaks some of the backstory of a major criminal organization.
Crimson Dawn’s Star Wars History Just Got More Complicated
The 2018 film Solo: A Star Wars Story featured the villain Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), a ruthless and conniving crime lord who was part of a vast criminal syndicate named “Crimson Dawn.” At the end of the film (SPOILERS), Vos’s “girlfriend” Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) betrayed and killed him, taking over his operation. It was revealed that Crimson Dawn’s true leader was Maul, who approved the succession out of admiration for Qi’ra’s bloody initiative.
After Solo, Crimson Dawn’s role in the Star Wars franchise grew through the Marvel Comics line of Star Wars content. A trilogy of crossover story arcs (“War of the Bounty Hunters”, “Crimson Reign”, and “Hidden Empire”) were released in the early 2020s, chronocling how Qi’ra took control of Crimson Dawn after Maul’s death, and transformed the organization into a vast network of spies, assassins, and influencers of business and politics, generating wealth and information with one main end goal, known only to the top leaders: killing Emperor Palpatine, and freeing the galaxy from the Sith. Obviously, Qi’ra doesn’t succeed; the Empire crushed Crimson Dawn, but Qi’ra still aided Leia and the Rebel Alliance in discovering the Death Star II’s existence, setting them on the path toward ultimate victory.
How Maul – Shadow Lord Creates Another Star Wars Continuity Change
In the first episodes of Shadow Lord, Maul is tracking down former members of his “Shadow Collective” criminal empire, whom he feels betrayed and deserted him during the Empire’s rise. One group that gets mentioned is Crimson Dawn, which is said to have been operating since the Clone Wars era. That’s a bit of a departure from the common understanding amongst fans, which is that Crimson Dawn was a criminal organization that rose during the dark times of the Republic’s fall, when law and order were at their weakest.
There is merit to the new Crimson Dawn lore that Filoni is introducing in Shadow Lord – it’s just not very strong merit. Crimson Dawn has been described as starting as a band of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and pirates, who went from world to world, taking what they wished and brutalizing any natives who got in their way (like those who would eventually form the resistance group, Enfys Nest’s marauders – aka the Cloud-Riders). There is loose information in Star Wars reference books that the group was the head of the Five Crime Syndicates that existed during the end days of the Republic, alongside the Hutts, Black Sun, and the Pykes. But no major piece of Star Wars content has really ever explored that.
Now, Maul – Shadow Lord has established that Crimson Dawn was not only around and active before the Empire, but had a pivotal history with Maul, prior to him taking over. If nothing else, Filoni has layered in new and deeper motivation for why Maul makes the moves he makes, and why he is where we find him in Solo.
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord is streaming on Disney+. Discuss the show and all things Star Wars with us on the ComicBook Forum!
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