As a lover of the great majority of Lucasfilm Animation’s Star Wars content — you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bigger Rebels fan than me — my excitement for the Maul: Shadow Lord series is pretty high. Yet while I’m eager to find out more about the new characters teased in the show’s first teaser trailer, such as the hotly-anticipated Devon Izara (who may or may not be Darth Talon), there is a Star Wars cameo that feels absolutely essential to what’s being set up for Darth Maul’s latest criminal romp in a galaxy far, far away.
In this animated adventure, coming to Disney Plus in April, Maul (Sam Witwer) is fixated on rebuilding his criminal syndicate on Janix, “a planet untouched by the Empire.” Previously, in Lucasfilm’s 2008-2020 animated series The Clone Wars, Maul had allied with criminal groups such as the Pyke Syndicate, Death Watch, the Hutts, and Black Sun, all under the Shadow Collective, an organization that sought to undermine and defeat both the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
But shortly before Ahsoka Tano defeated Darth Maul on Mandalore in The Clone Wars’ final season, the Shadow Collective disbanded. The period immediately after Maul’s escape from Tano’s imprisonment is murky, but we know he chose to warn his criminal associates to go into hiding. Which is why I’m adamant that the new animated series needs to include one particular Star Wars character: Dryden Vos.
If you were one of the few who sat down and watched Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018, you’ll recognize the name. A near-human with red markings and a truly sick collection of vibroblades, Dryden (Paul Bettany) is introduced in Solo as the leader of Crimson Daw, as a younger Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) and jaded mercenary Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) set foot on his ship, First Light. Demeaning and cruel, Dryden is exactly the kind of piece of work you would expect a crime lord to be.
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for Solo.]
However, it’s soon revealed that Dryden wasn’t really in charge of Crimson Dawn: He was only its face, with his orders coming directly from Maul. After Qi’ra (Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke), Dryden’s lieutenant and second-in-command, kills him and takes over Crimson Dawn for herself, Dryden’s partnership with Maul transfers over to Qi’ra. Apart from a small cameo in season 7, episode 10 of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where Dryden is established as one of the criminal thugs who have teamed up with Maul under the Shadow Collective (two years after his original introduction in Solo), this is the last time we see Dryden.
But what makes Star Wars a fantastic playground to work with is how much creators are able to add depth to characters via asynchronous stories, even long after their on-screen deaths. Maul: Shadow Lord is set only a few short years after 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, making Shadow Lord the earliest timeline appearance for Maul since Ahsoka broke him out of containment during Order 66, when the clone troopers aboard her ship turned hostile against all Jedi — including Maul. With Maul seeking to rebuild his criminal empire in Shadow Lord, it makes sense that he would seek out the people he once collaborated with to defeat the Republic and CIS.
We’ve seen from the teaser trailer that the Pykes will also be part of Shadow Lord, and we don’t doubt that the other criminal organizations will have their roles in the show as well. And we also know from Solo that Maul eventually falls back into cahoots with Crimson Dawn and Dryden. Their exact relationship, and why Maul chooses Dryden as the public face of the organization rather than leading it himself, has yet to be established. We learn from the Marvel comic series Crimson Reign that Maul shared secrets of the Sith with Qi’ra, and even taught her how to fight Force users. Under his guidance, Qi’ra even begins to locate and preserve Sith artifacts. But was this level of involvement something Maul granted to all his apprentices, or was his relationship with Dryden different?
We only got a taste of Dryden, Crimson Dawn, and their connection with Maul in Solo, and given the movie’s poor box office performance, it’s not surprising that Lucasfilm has been reluctant to explore that plotline. But Lucasfilm does love its cameos and crossovers, and Bettany’s portrayal of Dryden left me wanting to know more about him, and about the differences between his reign and Qi’ra’s. As much as fans joke that Maul gives out apprenticeships willy-nilly, what with the number of people he’s tried to recruit throughout Star Wars history, the reality is that Maul only teams up with the best. What made Dryden essential to Maul’s plans, and why was he willing to let him go? Now, with Maul: Shadow Lord tackling Maul’s rise to power, I can’t help but hope that Maul and Dryden’s partnership, from how they met to what makes their relationship tick, finds a place in this show.
Star Wars Maul: Shadow Lord will stream on Disney Plus on April 6.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
