Star Wars: Darth Maul's Complete Timeline, Explained

In 1999, George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy began with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, a movie that faced the seemingly impossible task of replacing Darth Vader with a new Star Wars villain. Enter Darth Maul. The first new Sith Lord to appear in the prequel trilogy was an embodiment of pure evil, designed to be terrifying and wielding a fearsome double-bladed lightsaber. Maul quickly found popularity among Star Wars fans, though his role in the prequels was limited. The Phantom Menace ended with Maul's apparent death during a duel with the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Despite being cut in half by Obi-Wan, however, Maul eventually returned to Star Wars. On the orders of George Lucas himself, Maul was resurrected in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which revealed he had survived his ordeal on Naboo, as seen in The Phantom Menace. Maul's survival came at a cost, however. At first, Maul was shown to have lost his mind in the wake of his defeat, and later it became apparent that he had lost his place in his Sith master's grand plan for the galaxy. With no place left for him in the power structures of the galaxy or the hierarchy of the Sith, Maul built his own power base, before the rise of the Empire brought about his ultimate downfall.

Nightbrother Turned Sith Apprentice

Darth Maul was Found on Dathomir by Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith

Darth Maul was born and raised on the planet Dathomir, home to the clan of witches known as the Nightsisters. The males of the Nightsisters' species, the Dathomirian Zabraks, were the Nightbrothers, who served as Dathomir's warrior class. The Nightbrothers, like Maul and his brothers Feral and Savage, were subservient to the Nightsisters, who maintained control over Dathomir through their magic -- their own particular way of manipulating the dark side of the Force. Maul was born the son of the Nightsisters' matriarch, Mother Talzin. He lived with Talzin on Dathomir until Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith, came to the planet and took Maul as his apprentice.

In the comic Darth Maul - Son of Dathomir #3, it was revealed that Sidious had originally intended to make Mother Talzin herself his apprentice, traveling to Dathomir to exchange Sith teachings for her knowledge of the Nightsisters' magic. However, upon arriving, Sidious sensed the potential of Talzin's son and abducted the boy to train instead. As the apprentice of the Sith Lord, Talzin's son was dubbed Darth Maul. The Sith Lord's birth name has never been revealed in Star Wars canon (in Star Wars' old Legends continuity, it was simply Maul), but in Star Wars Rebels, Maul admitted he did once have a real name, though he had forgotten it in his old age.

As Sidious' apprentice, Darth Maul was trained in secret, while the Sith remained in hiding. At this point in time, the Jedi believed the Sith to have been extinct for a thousand years. Sith Lords through the centuries had actively fueled this belief in order to operate without Jedi interference. However, Sidious intended to put the Sith's millennium-long grand plan into action and so Darth Maul became the first Sith Lord since the fall of the Old Republic to reveal himself to the Jedi. The Phantom Menace saw Maul assisting Sidious in escalating the conflict between the Trade Federation and Naboo. This assignment put Maul on a collision course with Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Sidious intended to put the Sith's millennium-long grand plan into action and so Darth Maul became the first Sith Lord since the fall of the Old Republic to reveal himself to the Jedi.

After initially clashing with Qui-Gon in a brief lightsaber duel on Tatooine, Maul confronted the two Jedi on Naboo, where they were attempting to protect Queen Amidala from Federation forces. In his duel with the two Jedi, Maul unveiled his double-bladed lightsaber -- the first time such a weapon had been seen on screen in a Star Wars movie. When the Jedi were separated from one another by a series of laser gates, Maul succeeded in killing Qui-Gon. However, Obi-Wan seized victory from the jaws of defeat. After nearly being thrown down a reactor shaft to his death by Maul, Obi-Wan leaped to safety, grabbed his fallen master's lightsaber and sliced Maul in half. The Sith Lord fell to his apparent demise in the reactor shaft, vanishing from the galaxy for years to come, until the outbreak of the Clone Wars.

Darth Maul Made a Triumphant Return in The Clone Wars

Training Savage Opress, Forming The Shadow Collective and Ruling Mandalore

As acolytes of the dark side of the Force, the Sith are fixated on the material world and upon preserving themselves. This was made clear in Darth Maul when The Clone Wars revealed that even being cut in half was not enough to kill the Sith Lord. Maul's brother, Savage Opress, was sent by Mother Talzin to locate Maul, finding him on the junkyard planet of Lotho Minor. Through his desperation to cling to life and power, Maul used the Force to fashion a new spider-like lower body for himself out of junk. The Force alone held this six-legged contraption together, even as Maul lost his mind, becoming little more than an incoherent vessel for fragmented dark-side visions by the time Savage found him.

Savage brought Maul back to Dathomir, where Mother Talzin healed him with her Nightsister magic Talzin restored Maul's sanity, replaced his "spider" legs with two new prosthetic legs and returned to him the surviving half of his original lightsaber. Taking on Savage as his apprentice, Maul set about seeking revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi and building up his own power base, now that he had been cast out of Sidious' plan for the galaxy. After trying and failing to recruit the pirate crew of Hondo Ohnaka to their cause, Maul and Savage were discovered by the extremist Mandalorian sect, Death Watch. Allying with Death Watch in their mission to seize Mandalore from Duchess Satine Kryze, Maul led an effort to recruit forces from among the galaxy's criminal classes. Through intimidation and brute force, Maul and Death Watch enlisted the aid of Black Sun, the Pykes and the Hutts, forming the Shadow Collective.

To take Mandalore from the Duchess, Maul concocted a plan in which the Shadow Collective would attack and overwhelm the pacifistic Mandalorian forces. This allowed Death Watch to pose as the heroes saving the planet, justifying their ascent to power. However, Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla betrayed Maul. In response, Maul challenged Vizsla to single combat for leadership of Death Watch and Mandalore -- a challenge in which the Sith Lord succeeded, allowing him to claim the legendary Mandalorian Darksaber. After claiming the Mandalorian throne, Maul had his revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi, luring the Jedi to the planet via his secret love, the former Duchess Satine. Maul killed Satine in front of Obi-Wan, leaving her to die in the Jedi's arms.

After claiming the Mandalorian throne, Maul had his revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi, luring the Jedi to the planet via his secret love, the former Duchess Satine.

Darth Maul's rule of Mandalore hit a stumbling block when the Sith Lord drew the attention of his former master, Darth Sidious. Sidious traveled to Mandalore in order to depose his old apprentice. A dramatic lightsaber duel saw Maul captured and Savage Opress killed. While Maul had reclaimed Mandalore by the end of the Clone Wars, his rule was short-lived. The Siege of Mandalore brought the Sith Lord's reign to an end when he was bested in combat by Ahsoka Tano and captured by Republic forces. During the chaos of Order 66, which followed shortly after, Maul escaped imprisonment. For nine years at least, Maul continued to rule the galaxy's crime syndicates, revealing himself as the head of Crimson Dawn in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Maul's Downfall in the Age of the Empire

Darth Maul Had One Last Duel With Obi-Wan Kenobi

Though Maul initially remained a powerful figure in the galaxy's criminal underworld when the Republic became the Empire, that eventually changed when he journeyed to Malachor. This planet was an abandoned Sith world, the site of an ancient battle between the Sith and the Jedi, and home to a Sith temple. Here, the young Jedi Padawan Ezra Bridger encountered Maul for the first time in Star Wars Rebels and Maul came to regard the impressionable young Jedi as his would-be apprentice. Having crash-landed on Malachor, becoming stranded, Maul was now destitute and alone, with no sign of the power he had once wielded. He carried a new double-bladed lightsaber (a damaged lightsaber from one of the Empire's Inquisitors) and was driven purely by his need for revenge.

In the temple on Malachor, Ezra Bridger found a Sith holocron. Maul sought the combined knowledge of this holocron and the Jedi holocron owned by Kanan Jarrus. By combining the two, Maul knew he would be gifted the ability to uncover secret knowledge, such as the hiding place of Obi-Wan Kenobi. In a first attempt to combine the Jedi and Sith holocrons with Ezra, who sought to use the holocrons to learn how to defeat the Sith, Maul failed to see fully that which he sought. As the process had been left incomplete, leaving a lingering connection between Maul and Ezra, the former Sith Lord found Ezra and took him to Dathomir to complete the holocron ritual. Then, at last, Maul learned the location of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Maul used Ezra to his advantage one final time in his quest. Luring Ezra to Tatooine by convincing him through the Force that Obi-Wan was alive and in danger, Maul used the boy as bait for Obi-Wan's compassionate Jedi nature, drawing the Jedi Master out of hiding. The plan worked and Maul faced Obi-Wan in lightsaber combat one final time. The duel was brief. While Maul fought with the rage and arrogance of his younger self, Obi-Wan brought the wisdom of his advanced years to bear, tricking Maul into attempting the same move he used to kill Qui-Gon Jinn. Prepared for Maul's attack, Obi-Wan finally killed his old adversary. Darth Maul died on Tatooine, in Obi-Wan Kenobi's arms, after telling the Jedi that the Chosen One of Jedi prophecy would avenge them both -- the lost souls betrayed by Darth Sidious.