Star Wars Confirms Emilia Clarke’s Qi-ra Was Better Than Darth Maul

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: Crimson Reign #1

The New Crimson Reign Star Wars series suggests that Emilia Clarke’s Lady Qi’ra has become better than Darth Maul, surpassing her late mentor as she’s now taken over his criminal empire and plans to destroy the Sith. While Darth Maul was one of the most formidable and cunning beings in the galaxy, it seems as though Lady Qi’ra is taking what she learned from him and going further, growing beyond the mistakes he made. While Maul never saw his dream of destroying the Sith through before his defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan Kenobi, it looks as though Qi’ra is seeking to carry on his work.

In Crimson Reign #1 from writer Charles Soule and artist Steven Cummings, Lady Qi’ra has gathered her forces following the War of the Bounty Hunters. Having used Han Solo encased in carbonite as bait, the reborn Crimson Dawn marked their return to the galaxy while also eliminating the Hutt Clans (their chief rivals). However, Lady Qi’ra manipulated events so that the Empire did the work for them. Now, the real work has begun as Qi’ra reveals the next stage of her plan to a collection of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy who have allied themselves with the Dawn (including the Knights of Ren).

In this first issue, Qi’ra explains that the galaxy’s balance of power is all in favor of the Sith lords who control the Empire: Darth Sidious and his apprentice Darth Vader. Furthermore, she reveals that the Dawn’s original leader Maul was formerly a Sith himself before he was rejected and cast aside, motivating him to seek revenge by bringing about the Sith’s downfall. As his second in command, Qi’ra learned much from Maul including the mistakes he made such as his inability to let go of certain Sith teachings such as the limiting Rule of Two. Once Maul died without succeeding in his efforts Lady Qi’ra took over the Dawn, now promising in this new issue to be better than Maul and achieve what he could not.

Lady Qi’ra believes that strength in numbers will lead to Crimson Dawn’s success in ways Maul could have only dreamed of. Furthermore, the issue lays out several plans being carried out by the Dawn such as causing their rival crime syndicates to go to war while sending assassins to kill the Emperor, along with the Knights of Ren preparing to break into Vader’s castle on the planet Mustafar. Although many of these pans will no doubt fail (like assassinating the Emperor), the key element is that Qi’ra is going farther than Maul did thanks to her new methods and strategies as far as moving against the Sith is concerned.

While creating the original Crimson Dawn is a testament to Maul, it certainly looks as though Qi’ra is taking the new Dawn beyond what he had envisioned. Rather than just being a criminal empire from which to rule as Darth Maul had formed it, Qi’ra’s Crimson Dawn is more of a coalition of like-minded beings who have all agreed to her master plan to destroy the Sith. While the future of the Star Wars timeline confirms they ultimately won’t be successful, Lady Qi’ra has surpassed her mentor by what she’s already managed to accomplish in the name of that goal.

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Kevin Erdmann
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Kevin Erdmann is one of Screen Rant’s staff writers. With a major in Cinema Studies and a minor in Comics and Cartoon Studies from the UofO, Kevin is pretty sure he’s writing for the right site. While Kevin is a huge Marvel fan, he also loves Batman because he’s Batman and is a firm believer that Han shot first. Disney also shares a big part of his fan patronage. Kevin lives in Oregon with his wonderful wife and sinister cat who is no doubt currently plotting his demise.

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