Darth Maul, Issue 5: Darth Maul Faces-Off with a Padawan
Darth Maul engages in a lightsaber duel with Eldra Kaitis
Darth Maul Begins Duel Vs. Padawan
The fifth and final issue of the Darth Maul comic book picks up where the fourth issue left off with Darth Maul facing off against Eldra Kaitis in a lightsaber duel. Amid the battle, we read of Darth Maul’s thoughts, “For this moment, I have risked everything. I’ve been trained for one task. My rage has been honed into a weapon serving one purpose. To kill Jedi. I’ve been ordered to wait to bide my time to ??? my anger. In secrecy, I stalked this enemy. If my master learn to this betrayal, all my training would be for naught. Yet as lightsaber flares against lightsaber for the first time, I know one thing for certain. It is worth it. Eldra Kaitis is a test. She is cunning, fast, strong with the Force. But she is not my equal. She is like all Jedi…inferior. But I need this fight to prove it to myself. That is why she must I here on this desolate moon.
And throughout his internal monologue, Darth Maul’s going through at the first he says, “I you know this is really is what everything has been leading up to this is my my tilos as at work and I am so excited that I’m finally gotten to the point where I’m facing off against the Jedi and I’m so excited to kill this Jedi. He is worried about his master Darth Sidious learning of him going against what Darth Sidious wanted and he is worried that he will be put out of his own commission.
On a totally separate note he knows that she is coming in Fast and strong with the force, yet he he deems her to be in fear you’re just as all Jedi are and so they continued fighting
meanwhile I’m totally elsewhere in the issue we see the bounty hunters seeking out ship to get off world which doesn’t really have to do with Darth Maul so much
Darth Overestimates His First Duel vs a Padawan
In returning back to the fight between Darth Maul and Eldra Kaitis, we see that she surprises him, taking advantage of him. In his inner monologue, he thinks, “I thought she was finished, defeated before the battle had even started. But I misjudged her. I underestimated her spirit.”
He tells her, “Yes. This is the battle I wanted.”
Back to his inner monologue, he says, “The Padawan demands my attention if not my respect. A lapse in concentration, one misstep and she’ll cut me down. She defends, yes, but I can see it in her eyes and her movements, Eldra Kaitis is biding her time, waiting for the perfect instant in which to strike.”
She tells him, “I’m not going to let you butcher me.”
He says to himself, “In this way, she is more like the Sith than I would have expected.”
She tells him, “And even if you did, I’m not the Jedi Knight you want to fight. I’m just a student, a Padawan.”
Back to his inner monologue, he says, “I cannot help but be distracted by the possibilities. She can be turned to the Dark Side. But her survival is something I cannot risk. If she lives, my master will learn of my betrayal. And still, even with the certainty of my actions before me, I cannot focus. Another thrilling prospect dances through my mind. Will all the Jedi am destined to kill the padawans in the night so like present me with such a worthy challenge?”
She then hurls her lightsaber in the general direction of Darth Maul, which he thinks was aimed at him, yet it causes a bunch of rocks to tumble down upon him, surprising him.
Darth Maul Vanquishes a Padawan in a Duel
Yet, Darth Maul emerges out from within this pile of rocks and impales Eldra Kaitis with his lightsaber, killing her. He tells her, “Make no mistake, Eldra Kaitis, you are a Jedi.”
“And just like that, it is done,” he inner monologues. “I’ve killed my first Jedi. The first of many. Her light has been her light has been snuffed. And I feel and I feel…. doesn’t say.
Darth Maul is Taken Off-World By Bounty Hunters
We then see that the bounty hunters are ready to pick him up, with Darth Maul internally monologuing, “I expected the bounty Hunters to abandon me. And yet here they are. It would appear I’ve underestimated them as well. The Force is not strong with them. But the desire for payment is. They need me to return home with them to pay them. I will see to it that they are, too. But I will not be traveling with them.”
There’s is not the only that I have must we pay.
And then we see him going to Xav Xraxus and going to kill her so yeah so basically although he eventually she recognizes that he is that he is Sith and that’s that ultimately is why he chose her now
Darth Maul Speaks with Darth Sidious
The final piece of this entire story is Darth Maul returning to Coruscant in dialogue walking along with Darth Sidious, much as we see him in The Phantom Menace.
2 weeks out and Darth Sidious asks him, “Tell me, my apprentice. Do you feel satisfied? Now that you’ve explained the Padawan, has your bloodlust been sated?”
Darth Maul responds, “You…you knew?”
Darth Sidious says, “Of course. Was it not I who set you on this path? Did you believe you would uncover a secret which I was not already pretty?”
Darth Maul says, “A trial. You were testing me testing my loyalty. And I have failed.”
Darth Sidious says, “Have you? The Sith were born in defiance. U of M brace U of A but embrace the very nature of our order. And so I ask again, are you satisfied?
And Maul, thinking about it for a moment, answers, “No.”
Sidious says, “Good.”
And we’ve NC Mall in her monologuing he says, “At last, I know how it feels taking a Jedi like. I did not foresee this. I expect it to be fulfilled at least momentarily by the ACT. But my rage, my hatred has only intensified. Educate us died and I only feel more empty. An emptiness and emptiness I have been trained to fill in only one way by slang the Jedi. Eldra Kaitis was but the first. Now I must only wait.”
Conclusion
And we see several things here from this issue: one is that he believes he is so much stronger than the Jedi with his Sith powers and that the Jedi have no ability to even come close to his abilities and fighting him. Yet it’s his overconfidence that leads him to falter against her that she’s able to gain the upper hand owing to his overconfidence against her. Ultimately, we see him rising out of that challenge and able to kill her.
We then see that he also doesn’t trust the bounty hunters, yet they come through and he’s willing to recompense them, as he has no interest in double-crossing them.
His main concern is killing Eldra Kaitis and that, even if he were to try to turn her to the Sith, he doesn’t want Darth Sidious finding out. He also kills Xev Xrexus because he doesn’t want her now that she knows he said he’s trying to maintain only secrecy that he is safe but even that he was even there in the first place
What’s ultimately ironic is that his master knew the whole time and that really this is kind of a string that Darth Sidious was pulling on the puppet of Darth Maul, so to speak. He wanted to give Darth Maul a chance to kill Jedi and a taste of what it’s like, which surprised Darth Maul about Darth Sidious’ ability to think ahead and to plan. We also see that Darth Maul has a huge thirst for killing Jedi and that his first chance he got with a padawan did not dampen that thirst, but only increased it.
All of this, of course, leads up to his appearance in The Phantom Menace when he does get to kill Qui-Gon Jinn and tries to kill Obi-Wan Kenobi.
