‘Darth Vader’ Comics Suggest Crimson Dawn Was More Successful Than The Sith

A Force To Be Reckoned With

By Culture SlatePublished 3 years ago • 3 min read

SPOILER ALERT FOR DARTH VADER #15

Revenge seems to have been Maul’s prime motivation through all these years. When he was cut in half on Naboo by Obi-Wan Kenobi, his hatred and desire for revenge kept him alive. A decade later, he wanted revenge on his former master, who had seemingly tossed him away and taken on a new apprentice to take over the galaxy. Over time, Maul’s strategy changed and evolved. The most recent Marvel’s Darth Vader #15 shows that the former Sith Lord has come to rely on power by numbers, quite in contrast to the Sith’s Rule of Two.

In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul seemed little more than a brute who was just a cold-blooded enforcer of Sidious. The Clone Wars, Rebels and various comic books slowly changed this picture and turned Maul into a clever tactician, though still driven by his lust for revenge. Together with his brother Savage Opress he created the Shadow Syndicate, a crime organization that incorporated Black Sun, the Pykes and even the Hutts. Maul humiliated Kenobi by killing Satine Kryze in front to the Jedi and proclaimed himself the leader of Mandalore. This finally earned him the attention of Darth Sidious again. However, Maul’s hope for revenge on his former master were short lived. Sidious killed Opress and took Maul as his captive. With the help of his Mandalorian fighters, the Zabrak escaped and returned to Mandalore, hoping to lure Anakin Skywalker there, whom he sensed as Sidious’ new apprentice. This plan failed as well when Ahsoka arrived on Mandalore instead of Anakin, nearly killing Maul and leaving escape as his only option. From then on, Maul decided to move back into the shadows, incorporating the crime organization Crimson Dawn into his collective. He set up Dryden Vos as its public face while he pulled the strings behind the curtains. When Vos was killed, Maul took on Qi’ra as his second in command.

The multi-issue crossover event War of The Bounty Hunters continues with issue 15 of Darth Vader. Crimson Dawn, now led by Qi’ra, has taken the still frozen in carbonite Han Solo from Boba Fett, and tries to auction him off to every major crime syndicate in the galaxy. Even the Empire was invited. Darth Vader, who has now set his sights on Luke Skywalker, wants to get a hold of Solo as well. Believing that Sidious has now chosen the young Jedi as his successor, he wants to use Solo as a bait to lure him in. However, before he crashes the auction party on the planet Jekara, Vader and the assassin Ochi of Bestoon encounter a group of Crimson Dawn members. With the help of Vader, Ochi is ultimately able to defeat them. However, one of the agents of the crime syndicate hints that Crimson may be much larger than everyone thought.

Despite his failures to kill Kenobi and Sidious, Maul’s desire for revenge never went away. Instead, he changed his strategy. While he thought of himself and Opress as the true Sith at the beginning of the Clone Wars, he would later abandon this position and his belief in the Rule of Two. It is still unclear what happened to Crimson Dawn after Maul’s demise and how Qi’ra managed to rebuild the crime syndicate. It seems unlikely that Han Solo’s former girlfriend alone could consolidate such a massive organization in just the few years between Maul’s death and the end of Empire Strikes Back if not for Crimson Dawn’s strong foundation. The former Sith would have learned from his past mistakes and build his organization not only on his Force powers, but also on the sheer numbers of his subordinates. If the words of the Crimson Dawn agent are true, Qi’ra will have continued Maul’s strategy of secretly building a network of countless agents and assassins throughout the galaxy.

Although Maul did not live to see it, the former Anakin Skywalker is finally giving credence to his work. He sees Crimson Dawn as a big enough threat to do something about it. Crimson Dawn may now become the Star Wars version of the mystical hydra where a new head emerges from every head Vader cuts off. Hopefully, we will learn more about the crime organization in future comics in War of the Bounty Hunters, and in the upcoming Crimson Reign.

Written By Gerald Petschk

Source(s): Screen Rant

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