Star Wars: Darth Maul

by Cullen Bunn

[Quirky Cat]

3 ½ Stars.

If you’re looking for a quick read about Dart Maul, this is the perfect story for you. It consists of only five issues, but it does require you to have a basic understanding of who Darth Maul is and what he hopes to accomplish (though I feel like if you’re reading his standalone series you’d probably already know that). The artwork was probably my favorite part about this graphic novel – it was stunning. Particularly the fight scenes.



I actually delayed writing this review by a couple of days, so I could take some time to figure out why I didn’t like this book as much as I expected to (I was anticipating loving it). I think my biggest problem with it is the illusion of risk taking. Darth Maul seems like a pretty edgy character (being a Sith hell bent on killing Jedi and all) but honestly? Nothing new was done with his character. Yes, his quest for vengeance continues, but that’s been done in Star Wars, so it actually isn’t a risk for the series. It’s just more of the everyday for them (which is odd to think about, actually).
If we ignore that bit of disappointment it’s actually a pretty decent book. It was interesting to see Darth Maul try and find a (secret) middle ground between his desires and his master’s orders. Though ironically I don’t think he was my favorite character in this special (trust me, I was surprised by that as well). Xev Xrexus, the woman that runs the auction house was a pretty interesting character. She played the high-risk high-reward game, and while it may not have worked out that well for her, it probably would have worked had there not been a Sith involved (perhaps she should have backed off when she realized what was occurring?). Her audacity was borderline hilarious for me, and really helped increase my enjoyment of the series.
I liked the new character’s introduced (though obviously only for the purpose of this story). They were all really well designed and I immediately believe they were all who they said they were. For example, Eldra, the Jedi apprentice left no doubt in my mind that she would shortly been moved to the rank of Jedi Knight, had her situation been different. (Spoiler warning) I’ll admit I was a bit sad that Darth Maul ended up killing her, as opposed to trying to bring her over to the dark side (though I’m forced to admit that she never would have allowed that to happen, and thus his hand was forced in that direction).
As far as a one-shot goes Darth Maul was pretty interesting. It quickly skimmed the waters of what’s going on between the movies for Darth Maul. I’m sure more could have been shown, and that will likely come out in the future. But in the meantime I’m content with what we’ve been shown.


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