Star Wars Darth Maul: Son of Darthomir Review

I never got into Star Wars: The Clone Wars like I should have (I know, what kind of geek am I?) but that was because I watched a few episodes and was kind of interested but they were all just a bunch of Clone Trooper episodes and they were kind of “eh” so I stopped.

Not even when I heard that my boy Darth Maul was in it did I pick it up. I did watch the final few episodes he was in so to prepare myself for his own solo comic, though, which I decided I would check out. Leaving his story wide open like that forced my hand into looking at this four-part series, and today, we’re here to take a look through it all. Spoiler-free, but we’re taking a look through it anyway.

The story begins with Maul being busted out of prison by a part of his Shadow Collective, a syndicate he’s created to be his following and eventually kill Darth Sidious. Here we see Dooku and Grievous send out platoons of Droids to destroy them and they manage to push Maul’s forces off of the planet, igniting the war that would continue throughout the story.

I must saying that seeing all of these characters together in a comic is cool (though I would have definitely preferred in TV form…) and seeing Maul in Grievous go at it was something I previously would have thought ludicrous. They’re all drawn the exact same way they are animated, and even now you could argue that they are drawn better as they are able to show expressions much easier than on television.

The biggest thing that takes a hit from the show being converted into a short comic run is the fight scenes. In the show, I have no doubt that these battles would have looked epic. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still very epic in the comic, but it’s the fact that light-saber battles are often extremely fast-paced and move very quickly, which is something that can be challenging for a comic. For what’s on the page, though it looks amazing, and actually gets better as the comics go on, and we even get more battle scenes.

I really like how the artists were able to great very large worlds and landscapes even if they were only on them for just a moment. Even during battle scenes where the focus is on the battlers there is still heavy focus on the area around them, be it a forest, city, large room, or even a space-ship. The only weird thing that was drawn were the droids, they don’t look like your usual droids and can even change design throughout the comic. At least the Madolorians look the same throughout, which is awesome.

By far the best part about the comic is the story that it’s able to weave. The first issue gives us backstory on what we missed out on in the show, so in that regard it is extremely helpful to anyone who may get lost along the way as to what is going on, or what Darth Maul has his own solo comic in the first place. As the series goes on, the mystery of what Darth Sidious’s endgame for Maul and Dooku is as well as the constant build-up to the inevitable Mother Talzin versus Darth Sidious showdown.

Let me tell you: it was wicked cool.

Darth Sidious takes something of a backseat role in this run as Thanos did in Guardians of the Galaxy. You know the whole time he is calling the shots but he rarely shows up or chimes in, instead allowing his still-powerful henchmen to do the dirtywork for him. Big difference here is that Thanos doesn’t show up in Guardians whereas Darth Sidious does for his built-up fight. There is also the struggle that Darth Maul faces of going head-on against, well essentially, the Empire.

Here is the first story in which we really get to see Darth Sidious step into the role of leader of an army, taking control of his droid army and using it in war rather than hiding behind the shadow of Dooku or Grievous. It’s also the only time we see Dooku and Grievous actually share a role of leadership before Dooku is essentially sentenced to die in Episode 3. It’s really cool to see him be his usual self of saying his normal lines of “everything is going according to plan,” because you know Darth Sidious is a little punk who always has to get his way. Like a child. A lightning-shooting child.

The evolution of Darth Maul actually turns out to become an emotional battle. As he gets closer and closer into Darth Sidious’s final plan, attempting to ruin everything, we see that this is less a move for overall gain and more a personal crusade to eliminate Darth Sidious and his forces in one fell swoop, but mostly kill “the great deceiver,” as Maul calls him.

Thus, Maul as a leader is an interesting one. On the one hand, he has several intelligent forces that are willing to serve under him and follow him into dangerous battles and he pulls several impressive feats against Count Dooku, but on the other hand several of his chief members are killed in the crossfire and he hardly bats an eye. Presumably this is to keep the course but I feel like it would have given Maul some more character to give him time to mourn his losses and consider where he stands rather than arrogantly pushing forward and continuing what ultimately becomes his crusade. It’s great to see him driven and all, but, just a little more character.

Not that we don’t get any character from him. We learn a lot about Darth Maul through Mother Talzin and the conversations he has with her. Their talks are very reminiscent of the talks that Darth Vader would have with Darth Sidious, as Maul takes a knee and listens to Coach Mother Talzin for advice, and her talks are even as cryptic as his, saying that she has everything under control and what not. Just no Force talk.

Which is surprisingly lacking in this story, I can hardly recall the Force being brought up at all. Huh…interesting.

The comics major pitfall is that you can tell from start to end this was meant to be a TV show. From the way that the story just picks right up through the various characters used that are never really given any backstory to even the ending, you know that there is more. I won’t obviously spoil the final fate of Darth Maul, but I’ll just say that some more episodes in this storyline couldn’t have hurt at all. The comics themselves aren’t short, or anything, but they were definitely meant to be made into a TV show.

That said, this is still a very good series that was created for television but was cancelled for very foolish reasons. I loved every second of reading it and is a must-read for all fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars if you’re wondering what happened after Darth Maul was captured. If you’re just a “Star Wars” fan in general I highly recommend it, especially since a lot of evidence is pointing toward Mandolorians being a part of the upcoming Episode VII…

Which may or may not mean Darth Maul. Who knows? Read the comic to see what happens to him and you can speculate if he’ll reappear in some form in the next film.

Also, bonus comment: as my first exposure to a Dark Horse comic, I had a lot of fun with it and I really want to get into more Dark Horse books. But…I no has moneys.

Anyway, next week we take a look at a free comic I found on Comixology, Jeff Loeb’s Wolverine #50, where Wolverine takes on Sabretooth! Hoo-rah.

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