Announced at Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025, Maul: Shadow Lord’s first public teaser dropped today, setting the mood for the ex-Sith Lord’s newest appearance. Debuting April 6 with a two-episode premiere, Maul: Shadow Lord will follow the character’s rise in the underworld, finding a potential apprentice to help him, and the Inquisitorious’ attempts to hunt him down. Find out about the new cast, learn about the luscious animation, and more below!
Given we know the end of Maul’s story thanks to Star Wars Rebels, and some brief glimpses of his time since the Clone Wars in stories like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Crimson Climb, how he rises before he falls sounds like an intriguing era to set a new show. Especially with the backdrop being the Empire’s slow and immutable conquering of the galaxy, for now, how does someone like Maul not only take over a criminal organization, but evade the prying eyes of his old Master? Maul: Shadow Lord might only show the beginnings of such a process, as its first season is only 10 episodes long and the presence of TK Stormtroopers sets it around the same time as The Bad Batch’s first season). However, they’ve promised it’ll be heavily serialized, so for those worried about filler, which usually isn’t filler but important character-building episodes though I digress, it seems this show will grab viewers and take them on a non-stop ride. Even more non-stop about the show is its release schedule. Not only do 2 episodes premiere on April 6, but 2 episodes drop every week so the final two hit on May 4 aka Star Wars Day (Star Wars Explained put together a handy graphic)! While it’ll be great for fans to get a halfway point of binge and weekly drops, it helps Lucasfilm clean their slates ahead of The Mandalorian and Grogu’s release at the end of May.
It was interesting to see how many other character names we got to learn already thanks to the official site’s article about the show, as well as revealing the voice actors who were joining Sam Witwer’s Maul for Shadow Lord. Gideon Adlon (The Walking Dead: The Final Season, Blockers) stars as Devon Izara, a Padawan on the run following Order 66. According to the Databank, she’s conflicted, and it’s clear in her dialogue in the trailer. Imagine thinking you were going to save the galaxy, be a big hero as a Jedi Knight, only to see the galaxy crumble and you’re forced to be on the run, barely able to save yourself. This vulnerability will be interesting to see Maul exploit, especially if Devon’s Master, Eeko-Dio-Daki, winds up dead. Will she join Maul? And if she did, where has she been? Will she become Darth Talon, as long as been theorized after the initial Celebration-only trailer? And if this show gets a second season (or more or a spin-off), will we get to see more of this transformation, maybe eventually leading to her being an important player in future stories, much like Talon was? Or will she be a new character with a new story to be told? Devon’s character is the most interesting in the series for me, as she has such potential and we know, if she’s a favorite of Dave Filoni, now co-President of Lucasfilm, she’ll be in stories for years to come.
Eeko-Dio-Daki is voiced by Dennis Haysbert, who you’ve likely seen or heard in a billion things over the years, and I like how Daki looks to be a new species. I’d hope he’ll survive, maybe be chasing after Devon, trying to bring her back, but we’ll see! Maul’s enterprises, as well as all of the underworld’s on the planet Janix, will have detective Captain Brander Lawson to answer to. According to Executive Producer Mitch Michnovetz, Janix has been a stable, yet slightly chaotic place:
It’s got a functioning democracy and law enforcement doing a good job of policing their own community. It’s a rich environment for crime and gangsters, but so far there’s been a very peaceful accord between all of them in the interest of business.”
Maul will be an interesting wrecking ball for the established order, as will the Empire. Captain Lawson, and his droid Two-Boots, are the subject of the upcoming prequel comic miniseries: Shadow of Maul, which starts in March! Lawson is voiced by Wagner Moura, who I most recently saw chewing up some scenery in the first season of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, while he just received an Oscar nomination for the film The Secret Agent. What a day! Droid cop Two-Boots is voiced by Richard Ayoade, who unfortunately endorsed a transphobic author’s work and hasn’t really ever addressed it. Other new characters to Shadow Lord are: Looti Vario, voiced by Chris Diamantopoulos; Rylee Lawson, voiced by Charlie Bushnell; David W. Collins’ Spybot; and Icarus, voiced by Star Wars Rebels‘ Steve Blum! But there are also returning or familiar characters, starting with Rook Kast, also voiced by a Rebels alum, Vanessa Marshall! She first appeared in Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir and later in The Clone Wars‘ final season, and she’s got more work to do by Maul’s side, it seems! Also returning is Marrok, voiced by A.J. LoCascio, an Inquisitor we first met and saw die as a puff of green smoke in Ahsoka. Maybe we’ll get more background on him here, including like exactly what he is?
Otherwise, holy wow, is this show a gorgeous thing to look at. It seems the animation teams wanted to push themselves, as while it looks like The Clone Wars‘ animation, there’s just a higher sense of fidelity, even more so than TCW‘s final season or The Bad Batch, with a more painterly feel to it. This is how Executive Producer and Vice President of Lucasfilm Animation Athena Portillo, who has been behind much of the animated series we’ve known and loved over the years, had to say about the process to bring Shadow Lord to life:
“Cinematography Lighting & VFX Director Joel Aron really took it up a notch with going back to the practical ways of capturing brush strokes by painting them on glass, shooting them then strategically placing them in shots. He even went back to establishing matte paintings on canvas. There’s always different challenges with every show that we do, but this one in particular raised the bar. We also wanted the animation body mechanics and the facial to be more fluid from our previous work and animation director Keith Kellogg worked closely with CGCG and our internal animation team to upgrade the performances of our main characters.”
Regardless of your interest in the show, there’s no denying this thing is going to be pretty as hell. Check back to the Manor as we learn more about it and see us here for reviews starting April 6!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him and the website on Bluesky.