Darth Maul (Theed Hangar Duel) - SW [S - P3] - Basic (’03 #25)

Darth Maul is a weapon forged by the hateful energies of the dark side to ensure the victory of the Sith over the Jedi order. A creature of pure evil, Maul has no personality beyond his ultimate devotion to his master, Darth Sidious.

By the time the Star Wars “Saga” line came around, Hasbro realized that they needed to keep certain main Star Wars characters in the basic figure line at all times. These popular characters always sold through, but sometimes it wasn’t possible to release an all-new version of these characters to keep them in the line or even tweak them to make them relatively new. So Hasbro conceded that “straight repacks” were going to be the answer. They even advertised this by likening to what Kenner did in the vintage Star Wars line by re-releasing the same figures in every film’s specific packaging. OK, so maybe that was a good analogy, but the choices of action figures Hasbro chose to enter into the line again were good, and others were not so good. One such introduction into the line was Darth Maul (Theed Hangar Duel) (‘03 #25) figure. Originally part of 2000’s POTJ Masters of The Dark Side two-pack, collectors have believed for a while now that the Darth Maul figure in this multipack would make a great single-carded basic figure at some point. Here is our chance.

Darth Maul is not bad. He appears a little too bright however. In the film, he has more of a muted and darker red skin color but the action figure is almost neon is brightness. He comes with only nine points of articulation which is hardly an upgrade from the figures we received in the Star Wars “Saga” line, but we have to remember this is a sculpt from 2000. Hasbro did however include ball-jointed shoulders with Darth Maul. Interestingly, they do little to improve the figures pose-ability or much else. In fact, we think the awkwardly angled arm actually inhibits the aesthetics of the character. Still, in all fairness Darth Maul looks quite natural when posed with his included lightsaber. And the lightsaber has its own accessory too: a removable blade for extra play value. Darth Maul’s lower body is quite frustrating. For a character that is so agile, athletic and moves like martial arts expert, it’s quite annoying to not do much with him as far as posing him in dramatic ways in your collection.

Darth Maul looks alright, but we expected a little bit more from Hasbro here. He is a hugely popular Star Wars character, so it’s likely that fans will gobble this up regardless of its faults anyway. Again, we have to remember this is just a filer figure in the Star Wars “Saga” lineup. This is probably the most updated and best looking version of Darth Maul that we have now, so it’s a fair choice to include him to keep this popular character constantly in the basic figure line. To help add a little bit of an extra premium, Darth Maul (Theed Hangar Duel) also comes with a clear Star Wars display stand. The figure really doesn’t have difficulty standing on his own, but the stand definitely helps with any posing issues you may encounter. The clear stand is a pretty cool extra. While we understand the need for Hasbro to keep some of their “greatest hits” in the basic figure line, we hope that they just add them sporadically. Otherwise the line is going to look a little too repetitious.