Darth Maul – Black, White & Red 3
What is it ? : Maul is training in the lower levels of Coruscant against some battle droids, when Palpatine gives him a mission to travel to the moon of the planet Dawk and kill a Devaronian fugitive named Coir Cion. Maul questions why Cion needs to be eliminated, but Palpatine scolds him for daring to question him.
Maul arrives at Dawk, and is detected, and Cion is informed so arranges for much of his gang to deal with the arrival and bring him their head.
Maul fights his way through the gang, and cuts off the head of their leader after discovering what Cion had ordered, since he wants a head so much.
On Coruscant Palpatine is shmoozing with some politicians, and when he returns to his quarters he has received a message from Cion, telling him that he will issue a pardon for Cion and pay him well, unless he wants everyone to know who he really is.
Maul arrives at the Cantina where Cion is based and fights his way through the rest of the gang, until only Cion remains, and demands to know why he is of such interest to his master. Cion tells him that he was on Coruscant, and saw a Chagrian making deals with Pirates, so followed him back to Sheev Palpatine of Naboo, and blackmailed him, offering to share his profits with Maul.
Maul has no interest in this, and turns away, and Cion pulls a blaster on him, causing Maul to kill him. As he walks away, Palpatine calls to discover whether he has completed his mission, which Maul confirms he has.
Later when they meet face to face, Palpatine senses Maul's hesitation, and asks why, and Maul asks why Palpatine was concerned over someone so minor. But Palpatine denies being worried and gives Maul his next mission, and as he walks away Maul muses that he wouldn't be able balance the multiple identities that his master does.
High Points : First of all a very minor thing, the building that Maul is using to train in Coruscants lower levels I really like. It's obviously a warehouse, but a high tech one and it really caught my eye, I loved its design, so obviously something real world, but with a Star Wars spin on it.
Beyond that I respect that this story is answering much of the question we've all had as to how Palpatine maintained his multiple identities, and why no one realised that this senator from Naboo was behind everything. To which this issue answers with, some people did realise, and Palpatine had Maul murder them. A simple answer, but one that works pretty well.
Low Points : There's really not much to the story, and most of the page count is taken by the two fights, Maul against gang members outside his ship, and Maul against gang members in the cantina. And there's nothing to really differentiate these fights over so many others that Maul has had, last issue at least had the Remainders come up with tricks and traps, to have different fighting styles, and other ways to make those fights interesting. This issue, not at all, it's just Maul being Maul and murderising loads of gang members.
So what do you really think ? : The idea is there for an interesting tale, for us to see Maul beginning to question his Master, as all Sith in the Rule of Two should at some point, he learns to respect what Palpatine does, so isn't ready to try to take his place yet, but it's a step on the path for Maul to go from Apprentice to Master. But we know he'll never get there, and this series isn't long enough or focused enough to give us an interesting tale which will lead Maul to challenge Palpatine and learn his place as we saw Vader do in the Vader series. So it just comes down to Maul fighting a lot, and finding out some potentially interesting stuff.
Final Words : The whole Black, White and Red was supposed to be horror elements introduced into Star Wars, and Maul certainly isn't being terrified, and apart from him being an efficient killer, he's not providing any horror. I really think that Maul could work as a Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees style stalker killer, using his skills to plow through enemies, but to stalk them, and to appear from nowhere to terrorise them, we could at least get the elements of horror within the stories, him becoming a figure of fear for Palpatine to wield against his enemies rather than just a simple assassin. Alas it doesn't seem like we're going to get any of that.
Score : 7.5/10
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