By George & Josh Bate
Maul – Shadow Lord will soon be the first Star Wars television series of 2026 when it debuts on Disney+ on April 6. Announced at Star Wars Celebration Japan last year, the new animated show takes place between the events of The Clone Wars and Rebels and follows everyone’s favorite Sith Lord turned Crime Lord as he navigates the criminal underworld following the rise of the Empire. Based on footage shown exclusively at Celebration Japan and the first publicly released trailer, there’s a strong possibly that Maul – Shadow Lord may do more than offer a solo outing for Sam Witwer’s fan-favorite character – the series may actualize George Lucas’ shelved plans for the sequel trilogy.
The trailer for Maul – Shadow Lord features seedy criminal gatherings, ominous talks about the changing state of the galaxy, and, of course, Maul himself. However, it’s another character’s surprising inclusion that has had us pondering the full scope of the upcoming series.
The trailer and plot description for the show reveal that Maul takes on a new padawan named Devon Izara (voiced by Gideon Adlon) to assist in his pursuit of revenge against Palpatine, the Empire, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. The trope of masters training apprentices has been actualized, in one way or another, in virtually every Star Wars project, including fellow dark sider Asajj Ventress recently getting an apprentice of her own in last year’s Tales of the Underworld. Devon, however, is different. She is a red-skinned Twi’lek, a description that many Star Wars fans will immediately associate with a beloved character from Legends/EU.
Darth Talon first appeared in the comic series Star Wars: Legacy, which takes place approximately 137 ABY and focuses on Cade Skywalker, a descendant of the Skywalker family who turned to a life of bounty hunting. Legacy went further ahead into canon than any Star Wars project at the time, which allowed writer John Ostrander to reset from the Skywalker Saga and introduce a new Empire and new Sith Order.
Darth Talon became immensely popular over the course of the fifty-issue Star Wars: Legacy run and its successor miniseries Legacy – War. Eventually, Talon caught the eye of Star Wars creator George Lucas, who proposed she feature in a video game titled Battle of the Sith Lords. The now-scrapped video game would have featured Talon team up with a descendant or clone of Darth Maul to face off against Darth Krayt and his new Empire.
Although LucasArts canceled the game in 2011, Lucas wasn’t done with Talon yet. Ahead of selling Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas developed ideas for a Star Wars sequel trilogy that would featured Darth Talon as one of the lead antagonists. “She was the new Darth Vader,” said Lucas. “And most of the action [in the planned sequels] was with her.” In Lucas’ plans, Talon would have been the apprentice of Darth Maul and, together, they would have faced off against our heroes from the original trilogy and, eventually, corrupted the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. The Star Wars Archives: Episodes I-III, 1999-2005 by Paul Duncan even suggested that Rihanna was a possible casting choice, or at least the model of the concept art seen below.
Over time, the sequel trilogy was redeveloped and Darth Talon evolved into a character codenamed The Jedi Killer, who eventually went on to become Kylo Ren, according to Lucasfilm Creative Art Manager Phil Szostak and Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group. But the trailer for Maul – Shadow Lord may offer clues to suggest Talon may soon make her canon debut….
As stated previously, Maul takes on Devon, a red-skinned female Twi’lek apprentice in Maul – Shadow Lord, which is exactly what happened in George Lucas’ scrapped plans for the sequels. Although the trailer doesn’t confirm this, we highly suspect that Maul’s apprentice in the show will eventually evolve into Darth Talon, albeit a reworked version of the character more suitable for canon. Rather than take on Han and Leia though, Maul and Talon will seemingly have their sites on the criminal underworld given the series takes place one year after Revenge of the Sith and before we see Maul as leader of Crimson Dawn in Solo: A Star Wars Story. ‘Talon’ and ‘Devon’ aren’t too dissimilar from one another, and Sith and other dark siders are, after all, known for taking on new monikers as they embrace the dark side of the Force.
If the theory is true, this will be just the latest example of Lucasfilm (and Dave Filoni specifically) integrating key components of Legends/EU into canon. Of course, Filoni did this with Grand Admiral Thrawn when he introduced Timothy Zahn’s antagonist from the novel Heir to the Empire in Star Wars Rebels and, years later, made him the lead villain of the live-action Ahsoka series. Filoni has peppered in all sorts of references to Heir to the Empire since, including the characters Captain Pellaeon and Rukh. Beyond Filoni’s direct work, other characters from Legends have popped up in canon, including Prince Xizor, Zorba the Hutt, Malla, Jaxxon, and Tag and Bink, all of whom underwent alterations to fit more seamlessly into canon. Darth Talon may very well be the next Legends character to make the transition from EU to canon when Maul – Shadow Lord premieres on April 6 on Disney+.