Solo Star Wars Story: SHOCK cameo explained – are they back from the dead? (SPOILERS)

WARNING: Major spoiler ahead for Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Jaws were on the floor in the new Star Wars spin-off when Darth Maul made an appearance via hologram.

Rumours of his return to the big screen had been quietly bubbling away amongst fans on Reddit, but had never been publicly revealed by LucasFilm.

But didn’t Darth Maul die at the end of Episode I: The Phantom Menace? How was he able to pop up here?

After he killed Qui-Gon Jinn, Maul was sliced in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 1999 prequel – and fans were furious that such a promising villain had been slaughtered so quickly.

But as those who have seen the numerous spin-off animated series will already know, this was not the end of him.

Through his sheer will to survive, in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Maul used the Force to grab an air vent on his way down the reactor shaft, and managed to make it to a trash container – and was eventually dumped in Lotho Minor, a junkyard world.

He had his legs replaced by a six-legged apparatus that allowed him to be mobile again, but over the subsequent years was driven mad with rage and despair – desperate for revenge against Kenobi.

During the Clone Wars, Maul was finally found by his brother Savage Opress in the Outer Rim – by which time he had almost entirely lost his mental grip on reality.

He was then rescued and given a pair of cybernetic legs, and his mind was eventually restored.

He became a recurring fixture on The Clone Wars series and also on its successor, Star Wars: Rebels.

Solo is set between 11 and 14 years before the events of 1977’s original Star Wars movie, and earlier than Star Wars Rebels – the animated series in which Maul does finally meet his ultimate demise.

He passes away in the episode Twin Suns, in which he is lost on Tatooine and comes face-to-face with Obi-Wan once again.

The two have another swift duel, in which Obi-Wan finally kills Maul once and for all. In his final moments, Maul learns that Obi-Wan is protecting “the Chosen One” – aka Luke Skywalker.

As Solo ended with Qi’Ra learning that she will be working more closely with Maul in the future, it’ll be interesting now to see how she is inserted into his established timeline.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is out now.