Reviews

Star Wars: Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir by

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stormblessed4's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

neilrcoulter's review against another edition

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3.0

As with almost all Star Wars graphic novels, Darth Maul is entirely unnecessary and inconsequential. But it's not as obnoxious as most of Marvel's new-canon books have been, and the art is appealing.

The story takes place sometime before The Phantom Menace, and the problem is that it doesn't convey anything new about Maul, Palpatine, or the Sith in general. What you learn from this story is that Maul is an angry young fellow who longs to kill as many Jedi as possible. That's not very new. One doesn't expect a Maul story to be dialogue-heavy, and that's true here. Much of the writing is Maul's internal thoughts, and here are a few representative samples:

"Fear."
"Anger."
"Hate."
"My desire to test myself against the Jedi only deepens."
"For so long, I have watched the Jedi from the shadows."
"Anxiousness . . . anger . . . hatred . . . flowing through me."
"But my rage . . . my hatred . . . has only intensified."

Well, you get the idea. It's a lot of that sort of thing.

The story is rather lightweight, and is not as intense or graphically violent as one would expect from a story about Maul--which is partly relieving, and partly odd and out of place. There isn't a lot of connection to Maul as he appears in the Rebels series, other than a brief visit to the underground Sith temple on Malachor. Its appearance in this graphic novel adds little to the fantastic ambience created in the TV episode.

Against all odds, Darth Maul has become one of the more interesting characters from the prequel era, but there is always one main problem with any story about him: He obviously died at the end of The Phantom Menace in a really stupid way! I can't believe he was the galaxy's greatest killer when he was cut down like that, and I certainly can't believe he survived being cut in half and thrown down a deep chasm. Sometimes Lucas's missteps can't be corrected, no matter how sincerely everyone else desires to do so.