Spoilers for all prior Star Wars media will remain unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord is a 2026 animated science fiction crime drama series set in the Star Wars universe. It was created by Dave Filoni and stars Sam Witwer and Wagner Moura.

The series follows the titular former Sith’s journey in the Mid Rim world of Janix as he works to rebuild his power in the galaxy's criminal underworld, following the aftermath of Order 66 and the formation of the Galactic Empire. It premiered on Disney+ on April 6, 2026. A second season of the show was announced by Starwars.com to be in development on April 2nd, 4 days before the first 2 episodes of Season 1 were released.

Marvel Comics published Star Wars Shadow Of Maul as a Prequel to the series, with the first issue released on March 4th 2026.

Previews: Teaser Trailer, Official Trailer

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord contains examples of the following:

• Actor Allusion: Spybot - who is voiced by David W. Collins - is a spy droid in service to Maul. Collins previously voiced PROXY - a droid in service to Starkiller (one of Sam Witwer's earliest roles in the franchise) in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
• Advertising by Association: The trailer bills the series as "from the creators of The Clone Wars".
• Anyone Can Die: There are only a handful of characters who are Saved by Canon: Maul himself, the First and Eleventh Brothers, Dryden Vos, and Darth Vader. The rest are free game as the series has a rather high body count. By the end of the first season, Deemis, Marg Krim, Chief Klyce, Scorn, Rheena, Blake, Icarus, Rook Kast, Kebris, Spybot, Daki, and possibly Brander Lawson have all perished in one way or another.
• Art Evolution: In general, while the show retains the overall proportions and visual aesthetics of previous animated canon installments as a blend between The Clone Wars and Rebels, textures here are rendered in a style closer to painting with brushstrokes.
  • The Pykes have been given a redesign that sports a combination of design traits from their previous animated appearances (such as three-fingered hands and faces smaller than their large skulls) and their live-action ones (namely, their more human-like body proportions and noseless faces).
• Apathetic Citizens: At least, on-screen the Janix citizens seem to be quietly enduring the Empire's takeover as no one has started any organized resistance.
• Asshole Victim: To Maul, he is targeting people who betrayed him, it helps that most if not all of them are criminals.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Two-Boots is increasingly upset at his partner and their chief for refusing to follow procedure and contact the Empire, finally deciding to go rogue and requesting assistance himself. He understands too late that the Empire's arrival only made everything worse.
• Being Good Sucks: Daki accepts being a fugitive means relying on the kindness of strangers, but Devon has a much harder time, and is introduced resorting to thievery because she and her master were starving. Similarly, Lawson is a good and dutiful law enforcer, but it's often at the cost of his relationship with his son and possibly may have contributed to his failed relationship with his ex-wife.
• Big Damn Heroes: Technically, because the one to fulfill this role is the criminal Dryden Vos who wanted Maul to kill his boss Rintero so he can take over.
• Bittersweet Ending: Season 1 ends with a heavy cost for the surviving characters. Maul, Devon, Rylee, Two-Boots, and Vario have escaped Janix, but Maul has lost most of his followers and is now on the radar of Vader, a horribly powerful threat he has no immediate hope of defeating. Devon has fallen to the Dark Side in despair after Daki was murdered by Vader, but is unaware that her new master, Maul, betrayed Daki to get him killed. Brander has seemingly died getting his son to safety, and their home of Janix remains in the Empire's clutches. Maul is ultimately down but not out, since he got what he wanted the most this season - Devon as his new apprentice.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While Gory Discretion Shot is still in play, Maul doesn't even hesitate to lop the limbs off his enemies or flat out cut them in half.
• Break the Cutie: Maul knows to turn Devon to an ideal apprentice would require this. Rylee Lawson, civilian son of a police officer, is also placed in situations that occasionally border this but he remains kind.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Maul faces off against Marrok and Eleventh Brother^note The Inquisitor who was killed by Ahsoka in Tales of the Jedi.
  • The big one when it comes to Chapters 9 and 10. Maul and the Jedi spend the final Chapter trying to survive the battle against Darth Vader himself.
  • Episode 9 marks the first appearance of Dryden Vos since The Clone Wars episode "The Phantom Apprentice".
• Call-Forward:
  • The trailer tease shows an abstract render of the final duel between Maul and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Rebels. It also shows Brander Lawson looking at a holographic Maul, much like Qi'ra's situation after killing Dryden Vos and letting Han Solo off Crimson Dawn's hook during Solo, though this hologram is taken from the identification, rather than a physical interaction.
  • Throughout the first season, Maul attempts to recruit Devon as an ally despite her being a Jedi Padawan, like he will with Ezra in Star Wars Rebels to fill the gap where Savage was. The fact that he was successful shows why he was so eager to do it again with Ezra, and he also succeeds in getting Daki, her former master, killed to expedite the process, which is also why he guns for Kanan the moment he has a chance.
• City Planet: Janix, a planet in the Mid Rim Territories, is described by Matt Michnovetz, the head writer of the show, as "one part Gotham, one part Metropolis and a hundred percent Star Wars with all these different levels and layers."
• Continuity Nod:
  • Brander Lawson says he fears that if the Tactical Defense Force can't get a grip on the Maul situation, the Empire may intervene and use it as an excuse to take over their planet. This theme was previously present in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars Resistance, and Andor, where planets meeting high spikes of criminal/insurgent activity earned them attention from the Republic/the Empire/the First Order claiming to want to help them in their vulnerable state only to further oppress them.
  • The Stormtroopers deployed on Janix are TK Troopers and Conscription Trooper Pilots, which were first introduced in The Bad Batch as the first generation of non-clone stormtroopers and pilots.
  • Maul says "empires can be shattered", a reference to the post-Battle of Endor comic Star Wars: Shattered Empire.
  • The second trailer opens with Maul narrating that the Empire tried to kill him, referring to Rex^note Before he was freed from his inhibitor chip by Ahsoka, Jesse and the 332nd Company's attempt to kill him in the final two episodes of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
• Dating Catwoman: There is a flirtatious tone to former bounty hunter Rheena Sul's interactions with law enforcer Brander Lawson. Lawson doesn't seem completely opposed, but it's left ambiguous if anything did happen.
• The Dreaded:
  • Vario and Deemis are both terrified at the thought of Maul coming after them to the point that Vario has to beg for his life.
  • Darth Sidious is also this for Maul because he still shudders in fear at the mere thought of him. Further exacerbated by Maul's visions from his past in Chapter 8.
  • Understandably, Darth Vader himself for all parties involved once they are familiarized with him. The Lawson family, Two-Boots and Vario wisely decide not to interfere in the battle between him, Maul, Devon and Daki — they continue moving towards the rendezvous point. Even Daki and Maul barely hold their own against Vader's might, culminating with Daki being killed. Maul spends the fight growing more and more distressed as he realizes this is Sidious's new apprentice and the power he is packing, and ultimately concedes he has no hope of stopping him at this time and flees, albeit through sacrificing Daki to the Sith Lord to buy himself time to escape and achieve his other goals.
• Dwindling Party: Part of a Foregone Conclusion, as Maul is seen alone in later canon works, his Shadow Collective here will not last. Scorn dies fighting the Inquisitors while Kebris and a few Mandalorian commandos die after trying to go rogue. Icarus and Spybot die in another fight with the Inquisitors, while Rook Kast and her last commando are killed by Vader in the penultimate episode.
• Enemy Mine: In Episode 9 and 10, Maul and his party team up with Devon, Daki, Rylee, Two-Boots and Lawson, promising to help them off Janix too, after Dryden Vos promises to help Maul escape, since Lawson knew ways to get them out of the city and to the rendezvous point. And aside from sacrificing Daki to be killed by Vader to finish Devon's fall to the dark side, he honors his promise and Rylee, Two-Boots and Vario escape with him and Devon.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Although they are separated/divorced, with Drea working for the Empire that Brander hates, Rylee's parents try to avoid speaking ill of the other in front of him.
  • Surprisingly, when the Lawsons are interrogated, there does not seem to be any torture and both leave the room functional without any lingering trauma. This is in contrast to what Chief Klyce might have gone through, as Lawson sees marks left behind by the room's prior occupant and realizes physical harm is an option. Since Klyce did say she would cover for him, and Rylee really didn't know anything useful about the Jedi he was helping, the Inquisitors may consider torture unnecessary or even a waste of time.
• Evil Versus Evil: It's Maul going head-to-head against the Empire, making it fundamentally a story about two unrepentant Sith Lords fighting over rulership of the galaxy. Complete with a third unrepentant Sith Lord engaging in the climactic battle against his predecessor.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • First and Eleventh Brother may be defeated but never killed, because they will die by Ahsoka's hand.
  • Even though Devon becomes Maul's apprentice by the end of Season 1, at some point she will not be as by the Rebels series he is on his own again and looking to make Ezra his apprentice. The real question is what exactly does happen to her?
• Freudian Excuse: Maul's own reasoning for being so murderous and fixated on revenge comes to light when he's heavily injured following his duel with the two Inquisitors. His downtrodden state causes him to forcibly recollect his haunted past, revealing his torturous upbringing by Sidious, defeat by Kenobi, and years of insanity on Lotho Minor have left him deeply broken and utterly terrified of Sidious, Kenobi, and losing his family again. Indeed, some of his motivation for killing Sidious stems from avenging his own younger self, promising a hallucination of himself as a boy that he will ensure Palpatine will not do to anyone else what he did to him. However, regardless of how tender his motivations are, he's still a manipulative killer with no remorse.
• Godzilla Threshold: Lawson fears a Government-Exploited Crisis on his home planet of Janix because of Maul, except the Empire was going to get involved anyways with Inquisitors since Maul is a loose end to be tied for Sidious, since Jesse and the 332nd Company failed to kill him during the last episode of The Clone Wars, and even if Maul wasn't on Janix, the presence of Devon and her Master would have been enough to bring the Inquisitors as they are Jedi.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: On the good side, you have Lawson and the Jedi who genuinely want to help and protect people. On the bad side, Maul and his Shadow Collective who are unquestionably villainous but still retain some sympathetic qualities. And for the Evil, Emperor Palpatine and his minions, who have no redeeming or humanizing traits and seek only the subjugation of the entire galaxy.
• Government-Exploited Crisis: Lawson expresses worry that the police being unable to apprehend Maul and his criminal syndicate may earn the Empire's attention and have their planet of Janix taken over.
• Greater-Scope Villain: As per usual for a story set during the Empire's reign, the specter of Emperor Palpatine looms over the story. Maul is in hiding because he was marked for death as part of Order 66 by Palpatine, and his long-game goal is to exact revenge on all who crossed him, his former master included. Meanwhile, Lawson doesn't want to report the sighting of Maul to the Empire because he already knows of the Emperor's heavy-handed, tyrannical grip on planets he and his forces come to.
• Handicapped Badass:
  • Daki and Devon are a formidable Master-Apprentice team who managed to survive Order 66. However, Devon suffers an arm injury while being kidnapped by Maul, and Daki takes a hard kick to the ribs from the former Sith and they are both possibly suffering from hunger. For the rest of the season, Devon is seen rubbing her arm in the middle of a fight, and Daki's injury often leaves him unable to exert himself for extended periods of time. Nevertheless, the two manage to hold off multiple Inquisitors, and Daki even lands a blow on Darth Vader himself.
  • Maul himself suffers a kick to the leg, courtesy of Daki. This damages his mechanical leg, and the damage only gets worse throughout the season, to the extent that he's barely able to walk by the final episode. Despite this, Maul is able to hold his own against Darth Vader, as well as fend off both Inquisitors on his own.
• Humongous Mecha: The All-Terrain Armored Cannons from The Bad Batch return in the show, now able to show off their intimidating might much like their All-Terrain Defense Pod and All-Terrain Scout Transport successors.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Brander Lawson shares a resemblance to his voice actor, Wagner Moura.
• Kindness Ball: The series shows that Maul is notably more Affably Evil than he usually is, if only out of pragmatism. His Shadow Collective is in tatters and he must work hard to preserve his bond with his crew and not indulge in mindless cruelty and sadism as before, and this especially comes into play with his quest to recruit Devon as a new apprentice. He has also developed some grudging respect for the Jedi Order, empathizing with them for being hunted down by Darth Sidious and considering them the lesser of two evils compared to his master. It probably also helps that his usual nemesis and living Berserk Button, Obi-Wan, is absent from the series, allowing Maul to have a calmer and more rational approach. That all said, Maul remains absolutely ruthless and savage once he's in a proper fight against his enemies, showing the monster is still there. Indeed, the show seems to illustrate that while Maul may not have had a choice in becoming a monster, and is suffering because he is one, that doesn't change the fact that he is an unrepentant killer who the galaxy would be better off without.
• Last Stand: Both Lawson and Daki make one of these. Lawson makes his last stand against Stormtroopers and while we don't see him die, he does get shot. Daki, meanwhile, makes his last stand against Darth Vader after Maul abandons him, and he manages to score a hit on the dark lord's shoulder before Vader overpowers him and kills him
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Maul and the Shadow Collective are bad people who've killed numerous innocent people even in this series. However, they're fleshed out and humanized considerably more than the Empire whose representatives are treated as the greater threat.
• Living Is More than Surviving: In the trailer, Maul's voiceover states that while people are surviving under the Empire, they aren't living. In the series proper, he tries to lure Devon to his side by insisting that as a Jedi she should be doing more than just hiding and surviving to another day.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: The second trailer's back half is set to a slower, epic orchestral variation of "Duel of the Fates".
• Mythology Gag:
  • Maul is interested in making Devon, a reddish-pink Twi'lek Padawan girl, into his apprentice, referencing George Lucas wanting to overhaul Darth Talon (a red female Twi'lek Sith) into Maul's apprentice in a scrapped video game.
  • Lawson describes Maul as a warrior proficient with a "laser sword", a reference to the working name for lightsabers in the original drafts of the original trilogy (and most prominently seen in The Star Wars), and used by George Lucas himself in a few behind-the-scenes interviews. It would later see use by Anakin and Luke in The Phantom Menace and The Last Jedi, respectively.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The inquisitors once Maul, Devon and Daki prove to be too much for them, never waste any time when fighting, with Marrok bordering on and the Eleventh Brother actually being a Silent Antagonist. Their master, Darth Vader, is even more ruthless of a threat and is so powerful he keeps the three Force-users on the backfoot for the entirety of their duel.
• Ominous Floating Spaceship: From Episode 5 onward, an Imperial Star Destroyer is shown hovering over Janix City as the Empire hunts for Maul, later joined by a second when the Imperial presence escalates.
• Opposed Mentors: Devon Izara is stuck between the Jedi principles of her Master Daki and the temptation of power Maul offers her. Master Daki's death cements her decision to learn from Maul, so she can take revenge on his killer.
• Planetville: Janix has only one (very large and sprawling) city, with mention of there being some greenery outside, and apparently the Empire sending just one Star Destroyer to occupy it is enough to completely lock down any and all means of getting off the planet.
• Police Are Useless: Played with, Janix is a Mid-Rim planet and the police seem established enough without any obvious corruption or brutality. However, despite Lawson mentioning prior experience to working with Jedi, no one is prepared for force users like Maul. Then once the Empire is involved, their superior firepower means Blake is easily able to take over the police force.
• Revenge: Maul's goal, as it was in The Clone Wars, is to avenge himself on both his former Shadow Collective "allies" who stabbed him in the back and abandoned him, and eventually Darth Sidious himself. This also becomes Devon's goal after her master is killed by Darth Vader.
• Saved by Canon:
  • While Maul's plan to topple the Empire obviously won't come to much, Maul himself will survive first to officially lead Crimson Dawn via Dryden Vos, and later Q'ira, as a proxy, then wind up stranded on Malachor with nothing and then die by Obi-Wan's blade on Tatooine.
  • Played With for First Brother, as he will still be around by the time of Ahsoka as Marrok the mercenary, but as an ambiguous form of Nightsister Revenant Zombie by then.
  • Eleventh Brother will also live long enough until the events of Tales of the Jedi mini-series despite Rheena Sul's Taking You with Me at the end of Chapter 8.
  • Darth Vader obviously has to survive until Return of the Jedi, so Devon's quest for vengeance against him is doomed to fail.
• Theme Naming: Every episode of the show borrows the naming convention from both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett live-action shows — a numbered Chapter with a subtitle.
• Villainous Rescue: Dryden Vos is the one to help Maul and his allies escape Janix, risking conflict with the Empire so Maul can help him take over Crimson Dawn.
• Villain Protagonist: Maul, former Dark Lord of the Sith and one of the franchise's most notorious villains, is the show's main character.
• What the Hell Are You?: Maul says this when facing Vader and realizing he's much more powerful than an Inquisitor.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Maul voices what Devon and eventually Rylee both know, Order 66 means Devon has no home, while Rylee is now marked a fugitive for associating with Jedi.