Suvudu Universe

Be Warned! The Following Review Contains Heavy SPOILERS! Character Fates Are Revealed!

 

From the creative team of writer Jeremy Barlow, penciler Juan Frigeri and inker Mauro Vargas, take us on a journey that pits Darth Maul against his former Master and Count Dooku.

This four-part mini-series is the first comic that is part of the new canon and is based off of unproduced scripts for Season 6 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Barlow and crew take us on a wild ride from the prison on Stygeon Prime, to Zanbar, to Ord Mantell, to a Mandalorian asteroid base, and back to the planet Dathomir.

I really enjoyed this story on a number of levels. The first being that seeing it in comic form while not the same as seeing the episodes fully animated does much more service to some of the great visual battle scenes we get. Issue #2 and #4 in particular would be incredible to have seen fully animated on the small screen.

It is fascinating to take a step back and look at what Maul’s story arc in The Clone Wars as a whole. What Maul is doing as a fallen apprentice to Sidious in creating the Shadow Collective and taking an apprentice in the form of his brother feels like a rather inferior imitation of what Sidious did with the Sith grand plan. It seems almost inevitable that Maul’s imitation which was thrown together in haste and with such disparate elements was doomed to fail, yet it is hard not to root for Maul at times.

We know that Maul is a vile figure, but there is a gradient of evil among some of these Force using villains and if Savage Opress was less evil than Maul, Maul is clearly less evil than Sidious. After all an individual taken at a young age and childhood and crafted into a weapon to be used by the Sith in their grand plan cannot wholly be blamed for his evil as an adult.

This arc also continues the mixing and development of mythology in Star Wars regarding the connections and distinctions between the dark magicks of the Nightsisters and the Dark Side of the Force as practiced by the Sith. Where Sith Alchemy ends and magicks begin is something that is interesting. The final episode of “The Lost Missions” for The Clone Wars,
“Sacrifice” gave us a glimpse of a Force technique that Sidious and Dooku practice that could have been learned from Mother Talzin.

The series also gives us the introduction of two very cool new Mandalorian Super Commandos, Commander Gar Saxon and the female Mandalorian Rook Kast. Kast’s armor is particularly awesome.

The biggest revelation of the series is that Darth Maul is actually the child of Mother Talzin and that his resurrection came at a price to Mother Talzin’s ability to have a corporeal existence. The nature of Mother Talzin explains what we saw in the events of J.W. Rinzler’s The Clone Wars Episodes “The Disappeared, Part 1 and 2.” She was attempting to steal the Force out of individuals to return fully to the physical plane of existence.

In the fourth part of this mini-series we see Talzin feed upon Dooku, temporarily possess his body as a vessel, and ultimately re-emerge fully corporeally. It certainly appears that Talzin’s death in this book at the hands of General Grievous  is her ultimate end. The way the green mist leaves the husk of her body and Maul’s reaction to her sacrifice seems to make this clear. Of course as Maul says to Dooku, “Witches don’t die so easily,” so perhaps we may see the return of Talzin in one form or another down the road.

Before the end of the series we learn that the Hutts have already abandoned the Shadow Collective, in the final issue confronted by overwhelming fleets of Separatist ships the Pykes and Black Sun abandon Maul as well. The dissolution of the Shadow Collective leaves a defeated Maul being rescued by Saxon and Kast and fleeing presumably back to Mandalore.

Interestingly the final panels of the series finds Sidious opining that while it was difficult to maneuver Talzin into a position to be eliminated, doing so “erased” Maul’s future and ensured Sidious vision.

Without the backing of the powerful Mother Talzin it leaves me wondering what the future has in store for Darth Maul. We know that there was concept art for a rather monastic looking Maul from Season 7 of The Clone Wars as well as artwork of Ahsoka and Bo-Katan hinting at a continuation of the Mandalorian and Maul story arcs.

It certainly seems like the message from this books is that while Maul is not eliminated totally, he is relegated to a much lower tier of importance to galactic events and no longer poses a real threat to Sidious’ plans.

All in all though the victory of Grievous, Dooku and Sidious was predictable in this series because of Episode III, it was a visually exciting and twisted trip through the penumbra of the Dark Side of the Force and the Magicks of the Nightsisters. If you are a The Clone Wars fan this is a must read story. If you are a continuity hawk this is a must read story. Most of all if you enjoy a good Star Wars tale this is a must read story.