{"id":425105,"date":"2026-01-23T14:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425105\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T14:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:08:12","slug":"6-cool-details-we-spotted-in-the-maul-shadow-lord-trailer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425105\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Cool Details We Spotted in the ‘Maul\u2014Shadow Lord’ Trailer"},"content":{"rendered":"

After teasing the next\u00a0Star Wars animated series last year at Celebration Japan<\/a>, today we got our first proper look<\/a> at\u00a0Maul\u2014Shadow Lord, depicting the former Sith\u2019s attempts to build his burgeoning criminal empire<\/a> away from the watchful eyes of the Emperor. From an intriguing aesthetic spin on the\u00a0Clone Wars animation style to fun lightsaber action, the trailer is filled with cool details; here are just a few favorites that we spotted.<\/p>\n

6) A New World \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s not explicitly mentioned in the trailer itself\u2014and despite it giving some heavy Coruscant lower-level vibes\u2014Shadow Lord is actually set on a brand new planet, Janix, with its capital city built inside a massive crater. It\u2019s for good reason, beyond moving us away from a familiar place: Maul is not quite stupid enough to set up shop almost literally under the nose of his former master after Palpatine gave him and his brother Savage a kicking after Maul usurped the rule of Mandalore<\/a> during Clone Wars.<\/p>\n

5) TK Troopers \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

Speaking of another\u00a0Star Wars animated series\u2019 legacy, we get to see a bunch of very specific Stormtroopers in action throughout the trailer. Heavily inspired by early Ralph McQuarrie art of stormtroopers for the original Star Wars, the TK Troopers, as they are known, were introduced in\u00a0The Bad Batch<\/a> as the initial wave of non-clone military forces recruited by the Empire.<\/p>\n

Although they were being trained in secret by former clone commandos before that, TK Troopers were formally inducted alongside the phasing out of the clone army with the introduction of the Imperial Defense Recruitment Bill in approximately 18 BBY, giving us a bit more of a specific timeframe for Shadow Lord\u2018s early-rise-of-the-Empire setting.<\/p>\n

4) The Blade of a Dark Disciple\u2026 \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

While he\u2019s kneeling before a tea set, we get a very interesting glimpse of Maul\u2019s lightsaber in the trailer. Some of the weapon has been modified to make it a dual-bladed saber, using part of Maul\u2019s original lightsaber that we saw him wielding in The Phantom Menace and\u00a0The Clone Wars until it was\u00a0thought lost after his aforementioned duel with Sidious on Mandalore. We actually see Maul use this new saber in\u00a0Clone Wars\u2018 final season, during his duel with Ahsoka Tano at the climax of the Republic\u2019s siege of the Mandalorian homeworld (it was a duel-y time<\/a> in Maul\u2019s life).<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s interesting there is the newly added part of the design already has precedence in Star Wars: the new part of the hilt is the same design as the one wielded by Asajj Ventress in artwork created for her appearance in the early canon novel\u00a0Dark Disciple<\/a>. Funnily enough, neither Maul nor Ventress herself keeps the weapon for long: the former gets a new weapon by the time of his appearances in Rebels and\u00a0Solo: A Star Wars Story<\/a>, with what looks like part of an Inquisitorius saber\u2019s circular guard attached to the hilt, while the latter\u2019s return from the grave<\/a> seen in Bad Batch\u00a0and\u00a0Tales of the Underworld sees her wielding a curved hilt inspired by her original sabers wielded as a Sith apprentice.<\/p>\n

3) \u2026 and a New Disciple Altogether? \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

But all that talk of disciples has us\u00a0very intrigued by another character who appears prominently throughout the trailer\u2014a young, pink-skinned Twi\u2019lek Jedi. Named in ancillary press as Devon Izara (and voiced by Gideon Adlon), Devon is a Jedi on the run with her master, Eeko-Dio-Daki (Dennis Haysbert), and we see her doing a lot of typically ex-Jedi things like helping others and fighting off Imperial forces. But it also seems like, pushed to a moment of desperation,\u00a0Shadow Lord might see her take a turn towards darkness and partner up with Maul.<\/p>\n

Naturally, a young Twi\u2019lek being framed as Maul\u2019s new apprentice has\u00a0Star Wars diehards raising their eyebrows at the potential canonization of a familiar\u00a0Star Wars face from the expanded universe: Darth Talon. A red-skinned Sith Lord with very Maul-esque tattoos, Talon was created by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema for Dark Horse\u2019s 2006 comic series Star Wars Legacy, which was set 130 years after the events of the original movies, where she was one of the two hands of Darth Krayt\u2019s resurgent Sith Empire, alongside Darth Nihil (not to be confused with Darth Nihilus from\u00a0Knights of the Old Republic II, but we\u2019re getting distracted by Sith names<\/a> here).<\/p>\n

While it would be absolutely crazy for\u00a0Star Wars to canonize Talon in some form, making her Maul\u2019s apprentice is actually not without precedent. George Lucas himself previously revealed his keen interest in the character, to the point that one of his potential early ideas<\/a> for the sequel trilogy before he sold Lucasfilm to Disney involved Maul\u2019s return from the grave as the trilogy\u2019s big bad, with a version of Talon as his apprentice. That never happened, of course, but considering we\u2019ve already seen Lucas resurrect Maul and make him a crime lord in Clone Wars, it wouldn\u2019t be\u00a0too surprising to see contemporary continuity have its own spin on Lucas\u2019 idea.<\/p>\n

2) The Die Is Kast \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

Speaking of familiar faces, we seemingly get a brief glimpse of another comics character in the trailer working with Maul: a purple-haired woman wearing Mandalorian armor, seen blasting Maul\u2019s foes with her wrist-mounted flamer at one point. While that description might have some people thinking of Rebels\u2018 Sabine Wren<\/a>, who was indeed briefly a bounty hunter before joining Hera Syndulla\u2019s rebel cell, the timing of\u00a0Shadow Lord makes that a near impossibility\u2014Sabine\u2019s around 16 by the start of\u00a0Rebels, making her a toddler by the time of this show.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, there is another when it comes to purple-haired Mandalorian women that makes much more sense, confirmed in the show\u2019s casting: Rook Kast. Voiced by, funnily enough, Rebels alum Vanessa Marshall<\/a>, Kast was created for the Dark Horse comic miniseries Darth Maul\u2014Son of Dathomir, based on an unproduced\u00a0Clone Wars story arc that would\u2019ve set the stage for Maul\u2019s escape after his defeat on Mandalore. One of the still-loyal Mandalorian Supercommandos that was part of Maul\u2019s Shadow Collective, Kast helped free Maul from imprisonment and eventually made her way back to her animated roots when she briefly appeared in Clone Wars\u2018 seventh season as one of his lieutenants during the siege of Mandalore, where we see her defeated and captured by Bo-Katan.<\/p>\n

1) No One Expects the Imperial Inquisitorius \"Maul\u00a9 Lucasfilm <\/p>\n

Back at it with the familiar faces, but the trailer leans heavily on the fact that, as much as he may have wanted to, Maul has yet to escape the shadow of his former master. Palpatine dispatches more than just stormtroopers to Janix, but also the Imperial Inquisitorius<\/a> to hunt Maul down in the form of two familiar Inquisitors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Briefly seen in the trailer is the bird-masked Eleventh Brother, previously seen in Tales of the Jedi and\u00a0Tales of the Empire<\/a>,\u00a0but more prominent is Marrok, the gaseous Inquisitor introduced (and killed off) in\u00a0Ahsoka\u2018s first season. The character, established at the height of the Inquisitorius as First Brother, isn\u2019t a stranger to\u00a0Star Wars animation, having made a brief appearance in the aforementioned Tales of the Empire.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have much longer to wait to see what other cool connections the show makes: Maul\u2014Shadow Lord\u00a0hits Disney+ on April 6.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After teasing the next\u00a0Star Wars animated series last year at Celebration Japan, today we got our first proper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,202408,5295,202409],"class_list":["post-425105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-maul-shadow-lord","tag-star-wars","tag-trailer-breakdown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}