In the Jan. 21 episode of “The Clone Wars” (7:30 p.m. Central Fridays on Cartoon Network), the Nightsisters send Savage Opress off to the Outer Rim to be trained by one of his brothers. We see in the Nightsisters’ crystal ball that his brother looks suspiciously like Darth Maul.
Indicative of how often “dead” characters come back to life on TV shows, most viewers have already moved past the question of whether it was actually Darth Maul. Most of us realize that if that image wasn’t supposed to represent Maul, it would be too cruel of a tease; therefore, it is obviously Maul. Even Obi-Wan sounded like a modern TV viewer earlier in the episode when he confused Savage Opress with Maul, immediately saying something like “It’s Darth Maul! But I thought I killed him.” (In the real world, his first reaction should’ve been “Hey, that guy looks kind of like Darth Maul, whom I killed.”)
I think it’s cool that “The Clone Wars” is bringing back Maul. In reading “Star Wars” books and comics between Episodes I and II, I was always a bit disappointed that Maul is killed off at the end of “The Phantom Menace,” because he could’ve terrorized our heroes for years. Maul was a cool-looking, mysterious man of few words like Boba Fett, who is killed off in “Return of the Jedi” but then resurrected in the “Dark Empire” comics with perhaps the most famous Expanded Universe line: “The Sarlacc found me somewhat indigestible.”
Although some of my fellow fans at “The Phantom Menace” premiere cheered when Obi-Wan slices Maul in half, I wasn’t the only one who hoped for Maul’s resurrection. One of the coolest theories I heard between 1999 and 2002 was that the clone army would consist of Darth Maul clones. And in “Old Wounds,” a chapter of Dark Horse’s 2005 “Visionaries” graphic novel, writer/artist Aaron McBride imagines that Maul, now fitted with a prosthetic lower half, seeks revenge on Obi-Wan. “Visionaries” was a project where the writers could dream up any story they wanted without having to fit it into the “Star Wars” timeline, so officially, that yarn never happened.
Apparently George Lucas liked Maul, too, because he’s resurrecting him in “The Clone Wars.” The question is how. Paging through the decades of “Star Wars” literature, I’d say there are three possible answers: He’s either a ghost, a cyborg or a clone.
We’ve seen Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin come back as Force ghosts in the original trilogy, and in the Jan. 28 episode of “The Clone Wars,” Qui-Gon’s ghost visits Obi-Wan on a world that is some sort of super-powerful Force conduit (more on that in coming episodes). Also, Luke fights the ghost of Exar Kun in the “Jedi Academy” novels, setting the precedent that Dark Siders can return as ghosts, too.
The two most famous cyborgs in “Star Wars” lore are Darth Vader (“He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil,” as Obi-Wan says) and General Grievous, who serves as a sort-of proto-Vader. Well, imagine that Darth Sidious was experimenting with cybernetics even before Grievous, and that could explain Maul. As “Old Wounds” showed, it’s a tempting possibility.
Ultimately, though, the first two theories are unlikely. I don’t think Maul is powerful enough to become a ghost. And both Vader and Grievous are alive — albeit barely — when they are fitted for the mobile life-support systems that become their new bodies. Maul, notably, is not — a lightsaber to the gut did in Qui-Gon, and we can assume it killed Maul, too. (However: The corpse falls out of view into the shaft and we never actually see the dead body lying on the ground. In movies and TV, the lack of a documented corpse often means the character isn’t dead).
As such, cloning is the likely answer to how Maul is resurrected. Remember, the lightsaber duel in the Theed generator complex takes place around the same time that Sidious secretly gets the Kamino cloners to start making a clone army for him. (Obi-Wan learns about the clone order in “Episode II,” but the Kaminoans tell him Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order, so Obi-Wan doesn’t know that Chancellor Palpatine maneuvered the whole thing).
Ultimately, the Kaminoans find Jango Fett to be the ideal DNA donor, but it’s not hard to imagine that they first experimented on DNA taken from Maul’s corpse. Perhaps, for whatever reason, the Maul DNA didn’t make for good cloning material. But the Kaminoans produced one experimental clone, who — as Mother Talzin says — lives in the Outer Rim; notably, Kamino is also located in the Outer Rim. If this Maul clone isn’t entirely stable, mentally or physically, it would explain why Sidious hasn’t used him in his war games and also why he would make an ideal teacher for Savage Opress.
And, if you’re wondering, it has been established that clones of Force-users can use the Force. Two famous examples are the resurrected Emperor in the “Dark Empire” comics and Joruus C’baoth in the “Heir to the Empire” trilogy of novels. Interestingly, the Emperor clones are physically unstable and the C’baoth clone is a bit crazy, further solidifying my Maul clone theory.
Since Season 3 of “The Clone Wars” is taglined “Secrets Revealed,” I think we’ll know the answer to the Darth Maul mystery within the next few months. Perhaps the story will even tie in to a flashback of how Sidious manipulates Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas into ordering the clone army for him. And perhaps Peter Serafinowicz will return to voice Darth Maul, just as Liam Neeson has voiced Qui-Gon and Daniel Logan has voiced Boba Fett.
(On a side note, I find it interesting that David Prowse always felt — rightly or wrongly — that James Earl Jones got more credit for being Darth Vader than he did, and yet in every other example from “Star Wars,” the physical actor gets more credit than the voice actor. We associate Ray Park with Darth Maul, of course, and Jeremy Bulloch with Boba Fett. I had to look up Serafinowicz’s name on the internet when writing this. And can anyone name the Boba Fett voice actor from the original trilogy, before Lucas redubbed the lines to sound like the clones? The answer to that trivia gem is Jason Wingreen. … Yes, I had to look that up, too.)
Are you glad to see Darth Maul return to the “Star Wars” galaxy? What is your prediction on how “The Clone Wars” will explain his resurrection? Share your thoughts below.