After 18 years, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul might finally end the feud that began in 1999 with The Phantom Menace. A midseason trailer for Star Wars Rebels, the Disney XD animated series that takes place between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, hints at the long-awaited faceoff between the Jedi and his formerly Sith foe. Take a look:
If you haven’t been keeping up with Rebels or its predecessor, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, you’re probably wondering how, exactly, Maul is alive after being literally cut in half by Obi-Wan at the end of Phantom Menace. Well, turns out that after tumbling to what seemed like certain death—again, in two pieces—Maul’s hatred for Obi-Wan fueled him enough to stay alive and take refuge on a junk planet, where he wore spiderlike prosthetics and subsisted on vermin until he was rescued by his long-lost brother. Then, it was a simple matter of finding some witches to heal him and starting his own interplanetary crime syndicate before his old master, the most powerful Sith in the galaxy, brought it all crashing down on him.
So, you know. Normal Star Wars stuff.
All this has led Maul to the Rebels’ crew and a return to his quest for revenge on Obi-Wan. The show’s midseason hiatus left off with Maul realizing that an older Obi-Wan (voiced here by Alec Guinness–sound-alike Stephen Stanton) has been mostly just chilling on Tatooine since the fall of the Jedi. Both men have a lot at stake in this battle. Maul is still pretty mad about being, you know, cut in half, while Obi-Wan has now lost two loved ones to Maul: his master, Qui-Gon Jinn, and the woman he loved, Satine Kryze. Jedi aren’t supposed to seek revenge, but when Maul just won’t let the subject drop, what’s a space monk to do?
Rebels likes to draw out this kind of tension as long as possible, so it’s a safe bet that they’ll save the Obi-Wan vs. Darth Maul confrontation for the season finale, as they did with the shocking confrontation between Darth Vader his ex-apprentice Ahsoka Tano at the end of Season 2. In the meantime, there are plenty of other familiar faces to look forward to this season, including some from Rogue One (Mon Mothma! Saw Gerrera!) and more of Admiral Thrawn, who was promoted from legendary to canon at the beginning of the season. Thrawn’s ominous TIE Defender also makes that jump as it makes an appearance this season.
Rebels returns Jan. 7 on Disney XD.
