Last weekend’s Star Wars Celebration Japan featured the reveal of Maul: Shadow Lord, the next animated Star Wars show. In it, the former Sith apprentice will build up his enterprise into the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate featured in Solo and Star Wars Outlaws.
During the event, IGN spoke with returning voice actor Sam Witwer, who explained the show takes place a year after Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Maul ended that show leaving Ahsoka and the Order 66-controlled Clones to die, and according to Witwer, the character’s in a “challenging place.” By this point in time, his mother Talzin and brother Savage have both been killed, and he’s been abandoned or betrayed by the allies he made during the Clone Wars. All that, plus Ahsoka rejecting his offer to kill Anakin and prevent Palpatine’s ascent, has him wondering what to do in life.
“Maul comes from a time of magic… now he’s seeing an Empire he knew was coming, and the magic and color is being sucked out of the universe,” continued Witwer. “How does he feel about that? this different than what he expected and how does he feel that affects him? What does he wanna do about it, and can he? He’s not very equipped right now. So this is a guy who’s trying to figure out what his destiny is.” That destiny, as teased during the trailer at SWCJ, will involve taking on another apprentice teased by Witwer as “quite something.”
Tone-wise, Witwer further said Shadow Lord would have no such redemption play for its title character. “He’s a bad guy in this show,” the actor affirmed. “Our show is bad guys versus worse guys, so Maul is every bit as bad as he was before—in some ways even worse.”
Maul: Shadow Lord premieres in 2026.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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