A collection of characters to be sure.
Creative Staff:
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Luke Ross
Colors: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
A Jedi Padawan has been captured by sinister forces…and Darth Maul is determined to find her?! This early tale of the galaxy’s deadliest Zabrak continues!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of this series delivered some fun things for me with what it wanted to do, even if it didn’t quite give me what I was hoping for. The power dynamic between Sidious and Maul is an area to explore to be sure and seeing what Sidious was sending him off to do before the events of the prequel films is pretty open, since Sidious had to be working a long game here with a lot of levers to pull. Bunn brought some fun to it and after so much time with Maul on Clone Wars and Rebels it was easy to “hear” his voice in it. Luke Ross definitely pushed everything up several notches with the visuals for it all and that’s only reinforced and seemingly doubled here, especially on Smuggler’s Moon with all of its detail.
With Maul searching for the Padawan that he can toy with while not getting into any trouble over out here in the outer rim, his quest is taking him to some interesting places. Thankfully, he’s smart enough to not do this entirely on his own as he’s lined up some patsies that know that’s what they are. At the same time, with two of them being Aurra Sing and Cad Bane, well, you know that they’ll be around for some time to come. Still, it’s fun to see these personalities operating together on the Moon to get information about Xev and her upcoming auction all while trying to hide who they are. Or, more specifically, Maul hiding who he is because even out here using a lightsaber would reveal himself too much. The physical action is pretty solid and the interrogation scene afterward with the FE-B3 droid is pretty fun even if you do feel bad for the droid overall as things are not going to go well for him.
With the information at hand we get to explore the space station where Xev is running her show and it feels strangely old school 1980’s Star Wars in a way, particularly because of the bright coloring early on, and I love that feeling contrasting with Maul and his entourage. Everything is pushing toward the setup there to gain the Padawan and it works well to highlight the wariness of Maul’s crew. Pairing that with a flashback scene to Sidious taking a younger and malleable Maul to a Sith temple where things went bad before (is this the one from Rebels season two?) gives us a little more of the master/apprentice dynamic that’s been sorely missing from the character. It adds a little more historical context and continues to make me wish for some better overall storytelling out of the Star Wars universe to make the Sith more engaging and cohesive, something that I keep hoping the new expanded universe will do. There are some nice touches here, especially with Ross’ artwork, so it adds a little more to Maul overall.
In Summary:
Going through this story at the same time that the character has now met his final fate in Rebels is an interesting contrast in itself. Cullen Bunn is doing a solid job here, though i continue to feel like this is going to click better as a whole rather than with individual chapters. There are a lot of curious pieces and I love the overall expansion with the seedy side of the galaxy and how Maul fits into these areas and I also quite enjoy the arrival of Sing and Bane, even if it just feels too overt in some ways. While I like the inclusion of known characters part of me really wishes for more original and new creations to be seeded to truly expand the universe. It’s a solid book with great artwork that has me keen to see what’s still in store.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 22nd, 2017
MSRP: $4.99
