You can't keep a good Sith down.
A deadly, agile Sith Lord, Darth Maul was a formidable
warrior and scheming mastermind. He wielded an intimidating double-bladed lightsaber and fought with a menacing ferocity.
The fools who continue to hate The Last Jedi for no reason beyond "girls" love to pretend that the sequel trilogy would have been much better with George Lucas' involvement. They're idiots, of course, but nowhere is that more evident than the ongoing saga of Darth Maul. Lucas has said, well after the fact, that he regrets killing off Maul, not realizing how popular the character would be. Like, yes, George, kids are going to enjoy the dinosaur pony man (even if adults don't), but they're also going to love the pirouetting karate devil. You shouldn't need focus groups to tell you that! The Clone Wars famously had to work around George's waffling on whether or not to bring Maul back to life, but once they did, he naturally grew into one of the most interesting characters on the show.
We were going to say that this figure is from
late in the Clone Wars run, but that's not necessarily true: Maul adopted this look surprisingly quickly after his resurrection, and kept it all the way through the end of the show. Basically, this could be from any point after he first met Pre Vizsla and the Death Watch. He's got his new Mandalorian robot legs, a dark brown undersuit, and a black vest that's open to show off his chest tattoos. Which, it must be said, don't quite match up with the ones we know he has. Utilizing that little extra stripe of color on his torso makes the Clone Wars design distinct from the original, even during high-sction scenes.
The head is new. We've had calm, we've had very angry, and now one with just a slight hiss. His mouth is open just far enough to give a glimpse of his teeth, suiting the quiet, intense way he'd talk. The face is narrow, since this is an untooned Clone Wars character, and the horns on his head are surprisingly sharp - like, you can barely touch them before they start getting uncomfortable.
Most of the articulation is the normal stuff, but why do you need swivel thighs right above swivel/hinge knees? It's superfluous.
You get the feeling whoever was assigned this meant to have the peg going into the shin, rather than into the thigh, because there's no equivalent swivel down there. Perhaps they did it because the angled kneecaps wouldn't allow a joint there? Okay, but if you watch the animation, those are supposed to stay in place, not move with the rest of the leg when it bends. The figure moves at the head, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles. The pauldrons move with the arms, to keep from blocking them.
Maul's first lightsaber got cut in half when he did,
so this is his second one. It's still made from the remaining half of his original, just with a new piece grafted onto the far end. It's done as two pieces, so you can take it apart, though that wasn't a feature of the weapon in the cartoon. A peg on the older half can fit into a notch on the left side of his belt, but it's a loose fit at best.
If you got the "Siege of Mandalore" Ahsoka Tano, this Darth Maul will be perfect for re-creating their epic duel. Or take away his lightsaber and pretend he's participating in Star Wars' second-greatest hallway scene. It's a terrific figure no matter what, and give us a Maul we haven't had before.
-- 11/04/23
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