Star Wars’ next animated series, Maul – Shadow Lord, will be taking fans into a… well, shadowy period of the former Sith apprentice’s life. While Star Wars has chronicled the larger timeline of Maul surviving Order 66 and the fall of the Republic, and popping up in the Imperial Era as the leader of yet another major crime syndicate, Crimson Dawn. However, how Maul left the ways of the Sith behind and built a new criminal empire (following the fall of his Shadow Collective/Death Watch syndicates) is a story that has yet to be told… until now.
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Today, Star Wars is getting a jump on the San Diego Comic-Con hype by releasing a first-look photo of Maul from the Shadow Lord animated series. As you can see below, the character is looking more fearsome than ever in his latest iteration:
The image may be more revealing than it initially seems. Maul is clearly ready for some kind of battle, but the location is very interesting. The animation of the reactor or furnace he’s standing in front of, and the visible distortion from the heat, makes it seem like this could be the most sophisticated version yet of Star Wars’ signature animated series style.
Maul will once again be voiced by actor Sam Witwer, who has been bringing the character to life (vocally) since the Clone Wars series brought the character back from the dead in the late 2000s. According to Witwer, Shadow Lord is “[a story] about bad guys vs worse guys. This isn’t going to be a show where you find out Maul is a real teddy bear, man … We’re not doing that. But is he as bad as Sidious or Vader? Actually no. From the Sith perspective, this guy has flaws … [there’s] humanity that seeps in at various points because of things that have happened to him.”
That is a somewhat loaded statement. Star Wars canon has established that Maul went through hell as Darth Sidious’ prisoner, following the events of the Clone Wars episode “The Lawless”, but the full extent of his torture and eventual escape hasn’t been shown onscreen, which could make for those kinds of dark but humanizing moments Witwer eludes to. There will also be the inevitable rubbing of elbows with other dark side Force users, criminals, assassins, slavers… generally a lineup of characters that could arguably make Maul look less evil by comparison. Finally, we know one arc of the series will see Maul beginning his search for an apprentice (which eventually leads him to Ezra Bridger in Rebels). Scenes of Maul playing off of another, more innocent (or not?), character could be fun. Surely, he will be looking to fill the void of losing his brother, Savage Opress, in battle with Palpatine.
“Maul will question whether creating the Empire was a good idea,” Witwer teased. “[Maul’s] like, ‘Is that what [Sidious] had in mind? This is a little scary.’ Maul comes from a time of swords, sorcery, magic and knights, and now all of that color of the universe is being sucked out of this mechanized Empire. And Maul’s like, ‘Is this right? Is this the universe we were trying to build?’”
Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord is being developed for release on Disney+ in 2026.
More to come…
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Image Courtesy of Disney+
