Then there's the Main Event, Maul vs. Mighella. It's a straightforward duel, but the first we've seen in this series, Maul against a single opponent who understands what he is about, how he fights, and who offers him a fight on his own terms, getting in a few licks, too. After three issues of massacres, their confrontation is a refreshing experience. The only disappointment is the recycled ending. Otherwise, it's well-drawn -- a clear, clean fight.

Not that there weren't a few things that could have been better. Mighella's death was one: having Maul slice her in two, as Obi-Wan slices Maul in The Phantom Menace, especially with no effort to exploit the "foreshadowing," was a wasted opportunity. There are only so many ways a deathblow can be dealt with a lightsaber, one assumes, but in four films, we've seen only three dueling fatalities, and two, Maul and Obi-Wan, have been from scything cuts. Would it have been so hard to come up with another way, or some stylistic innovation? One might say that Maul seizing a blaster while battling the bodyguards is another instance of reused action, reminiscent of Luke's attempt in Jabba's palace from ROTJ; but Maul had the brains to bring his lightsaber, which allows for a new twist that makes an otherwise familiar trick novel. (Not to mention that, for Maul, the trick works.) Why wasn't something similar done for Maul's final stroke? And the Sith Sanctuary coda -- whether necessary for the story or not (and I think not, unless as a link, which I shall explain below), and notwithstanding that it's well-drawn, the final panel of the final page, the final Maul pinup, with the gratuitous saber flourish, was -- hokey, a final bum note in a series that had already sounded enough of them.

Duursema's Maul pinups, however, needed no improvement. She added several fine examples to the collection, beginning with the toothy splash page closeup, and continuing right on through the end of the book. Even Maul's torso tatoos reappear, in all their glory, from page 10, which also features the return of his "halo," to the conclusion of Maul's mission.

There were still plenty of teeth, too.

The cover is Maul, and all Maul, with none of the pedestrian air of last issue's. Maul is again starry-eyed, a stellar glint in each orb, and between them stands a bare-chested Maul, saber lit, alert, focused, ready for action, backlit by whatever light-source has appeared on all the other covers in the series. What these covers mean, if anything, remains a mystery. Trying to find some meaning in the starry eyes and brilliant light associated with a Dark Lord in Struzan's covers for this series is maddening, and this cover does nothing to clear up the mystery. Unless -- could it be that Maul's eyeballs, black pupils, with fire-rimmed yellow irises, suggest a black sun? Even if that's it, it doesn't explain the backlighting.

The Story:

The action picks up right where we left off in issue three, Maul's teeth staring us right in our eyeballs, giving us both Maul and dialogue (though not Maul dialogue) from the word go. This is Saber-Swinging Maul, but with a difference, a little surprise thrown in -- as with Mighella, and the Iktotchi. Lord Maul still doesn't display the versatility or the subtlety one would expect in a Sith Apprentice, but he does show a hint of hitherto unseen capabilities. Having exhausted Black Sun's supply of flunkies, in this outing, Maul has to work a bit harder. That includes speaking more of the dialogue: Not counting combat grunts, Maul gets 18 lines in Issue #4, half-again as many as in his chattiest previous issue (for the record, he had seven lines each in issues one and three, twelve in issue two). And it's dialogue that counts, because it is more than "Yes, my master." Maybe not a lot more, but . . . you take what you can get.

The battle between Maul and Mighella is easily the best in the series, because it has some dramatic tension, because the outcome, though never in doubt, is not so easily arrived at, because the opponent, unlike the saber-fodder Maul's hewn through up to this point, has Force ability, and ferocity -- she's a more worthy opponent. And for those who thought The Phantom Menace's duel deficient in patter, here's a battle with dialogue. It's a he-said/she-said about who knows the Dark Side better, but, still, the combatants are talking.

Mighella proves to be indeed a "Witch of Dathomir," as Maul puts it, a Nightsister, no less; and it's interesting that Maul recognizes her for what she is. Even the Emperor, the Official Sources imply, was unaware of the Witches, let alone the Nightsisters, prior to the establishment of Imperial facilities in the Dathomir system. Dathomir was, we had been led to believe, a backwater, its inhabitants all but an unknown. Yet Maul knows the planet, and the nature of one of the planet's many clans, seemingly by sight. How curious.

And Maul's most interesting Expanded Universe opponent (so far), has some very curious weaponry, which adds considerably to the confrontation. She's armed with Force Lightning, for instance, which has a curious effect on Maul, that is to say, very little effect at all. This has no canonical value, of course, but the reader can't help comparing this incident to the later incident aboard the Second Death Star. How is it Darth Maul survived when Vader doesn't? Is Maul's survival due more to his robust physical condition (after all, unlike Vader, he was not dependent on vulnerable life support machinery), or to the lesser power of the Nightsister using the Force Lightning?

Then there's that blade of hers, single-edged and of a length approximately right for a katana, but straight, more like a double-edged ken, and resistant to lightsabers, up to a point. Has such a weapon ever shown up before? It obviously has an energy component, as evidenced by it's enveloping silver nimbus -- perhaps a shield of some kind? -- in addition to its fixed, very material blade.

There's not much left to the story, such as it is, after Maul's victory. Once he's killed Mighella and dealt with Master Lex, Maul returns to the Sith Sanctuary, bringing the series full-circle. But why spend two pages showing us that? We're not much enlightened by Darth Curious's questions: We know Maul has succeeded in smashing Black Sun; it's easily enough inferred from his continued survival that his wounds were not incapacitating, let alone fatal. But . . . Sidious does mention "... one more threat to our security." Perhaps this coda is a link to the forthcoming Darth Maul novel slated for January?

The final issue also resolved a couple of matters that have cropped up in the course of the series. Marz and Duursema spared us Prince Xizor; Lex turned out to be neither Xizor in disguise, nor his stand-in. And, as expected, there was no explanation of how Black Sun could have survived with its executive level and central authority both eradicated. Unless there's a survivor: Might Oolth, Master Lex's aide, have survived? We saw no body, and, it's axiomatic in comics, if there's no body, you can't be sure. If he did survive, he might be the nucleus about which Black Sun will reform. Master Lex did make a point of saying Oolth's ledgers, at least, would be essential "when Black Sun recovers from this."

The Prospects:

The series is now complete, so we're out of prospects. Or are we? Will the Darth Maul limited series be linked to the Del Rey Darth Maul novel, Shadow Hunter? If so, will Maul's mission be to plug the security leak posed by the Neimoidian Hath Monchar? If it is, will it present any greater challenge to Maul than smashing Black Sun, a task which appeared to present him with little difficulty? In a few weeks, we'll know.

Overall, how did Darth Maul measure up? The last issue independently finished with a bang, and was a good read; but taken together, the four issues of the series disappointed because of the writing. Not unlike Saving Private Ryan, Darth Maul had no plot, only an instruction -- defeat Black Sun! -- fleshed out with graphic combat. The combat was exciting, but not enough to carry a series alone; when it let up, the series sagged. What it needed was enough plot to give the fighting significance, and enough insight into the title character's mind to justify the attention afforded him. It never delivered either. We got great art, and a gallery's worth of Maul portraiture, but no real story. If there had been more of the kind of storytelling we saw in the execution of the Vigos, had there been insight into the character, such as was suggested by Maul's meeting of the minds with the Iktotchi Vigo's bodyguard, this could have been a great series, instead of a mediocre series with great art.

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(Dexter's passion for Star Wars, still undiminished nearly a quarter-century later, began in May 1977, when a late-night showing of A New Hope set his young imagination ablaze. An avid action figure collector, he has been known to lurk about local toy shops at ungodly hours, in hopes of beating the competition to the latest wave of Hasbro goodies. When not tracking down the latest resculpt of Darth Maul or Qui-Gon Jinn, he devotes his free time to pondering the most efficient use of his dwindling free storage space. His other passions include his library, and writing.)