I know it's already obvious to everyone, or should be obvious to everyone, that Maul is far superior to Savage because Maul stomped Savage in their brief clash in Season 5 of TCW, confirming the idea that Maul is far superior to Savage as of Season 5. However, I have noticed that a key piece of information that is not as obvious to many, is that Maul's vast superiority over Savage also extends to their Season 4 counterparts. A few months ago, I unearthed this statement from Star Wars Insider 134:
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This source was published in 12th June of 2012, which was after Season 4 had officially aired, but Season 5 had not been officially aired, the TCW Darth Maul tie in comics i.e. Death Sentence and Sith Hunters, had not been published yet, so it's not referring to Death Sentence/Sith Hunters versions of Maul and Savage. Keep in mind that the subject on Maul's superiority over Savage prefaces itself by saying "VIEWERS OF STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS know that Maul's brother Savage Opress is no slouch when it comes to fighting," i.e. people who watch TCW, it does not say anything along the lines of "Readers of the Dark Horse Star Wars comics know that Maul's brother Savage Opress is no slouch when it comes to fighting," i.e. people who are going to read the Dark Horse TCW tie in comics. Another thing that I'm going to note is that when when Insider prefaces the subject, it says people who watch TCW know that Savage isn't a slouch when it comes to fighting, but he takes a backseat when compared to Maul i.e. Savage takes a backseat as a fighter in comparison to Maul because he is inferior to Maul, and the Insider magazine itself reinforces that intepretation by directly quoting Tom Taylor (who was writing the Darth Maul: Death Sentence mini-series at the time), specifically his statement that Maul's ability makes him a far more formidable foe than Savage.
I know that many take author statements with a grain of salt because people often go on twitter and force authors to say desired words. But Tom Taylor's statement is valid because it is not from Twitter, but is included in the published Star Wars Insider itself that is licensed by Lucasfilm, Lucasfilm could just have just thrown out Tom's statement during the editorial process, but they didn't do that in the final product of the published magazine, they have no qualms with citing his statement to begin with, even though when they could've just thrown it out during the editorial process before finally being published. The Insider itself not only keeps the author's statement, but compliments it by independently claiming that Maul is superior to Savage as a fighter, in the exact same page, only a few sentences, before quoting Tom, which indicates an explicit acceptance and endorsement of Tom's statement of Maul and Savage. To put it more simply, Star Wars Insider states that Maul is superior to Savage in conjunction with the author's commentary.
Your impression is correct, though I think it's a tertiary point, because the quote says Maul is more calculating than Opress and Maul's "ability" is what makes him "far more formidable" than Opress, and the subject prefaces itself with Savage being "no slouch" at "fighting" but takes a backseat when compared to Maul. That being said, this magnitude of superiority is almost a foreshadowing of their brief clash in the first episode of Season 5.
Jun 2nd, 2020 01:58 PM
