Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Comic Book Lucky Dip - Doctor Aphra #7 (2017)

For a while now, I’ve wanted to get back to doing more regular comic reviews, but the issue has always been one of schedule slippage. I tend to do reviews months in advance and that wasn’t really compatible with the 4-issue test format which intended to always come out before the 5th issue. So we’re trying something a bit different. I have a sizeable collection of comic books at my disposal, so I’m gonna pick one at random and do a recap-review of it. One of the aspects I’ll critique is how easy it is to pick up and read as an individual issue, I will not be recapping any part of the story not contained within the issue. As the late great Stan Lee once said, every comic is someone’s first.


So, what came out of my bookshelf today: Doctor Aphra #7, part 3 of the Screaming Citadel crossover arc. Written by Kieron Gillen, with art by Andrea Broccardo and colours done by Antonio Fabela. Released in July 2017 by Marvel comics.

One of the nice things about Star Wars is the classic opening crawl, utilising this in comic-form provides a good opportunity for recapping the story thus far. Rogue Archaeologist and Title character Doctor Aphra is currently in the Citadel of Kthath’atn… Your guess on pronunciation is as good as mine. I’ll just call it by its other name, the Screaming Citadel. They believe the Queen is key to activating an artefact with the consciousness of an ancient Jedi inside. But as it happens the Queen is a malevolent force and plans to control them. Princess Leia, Han Solo and Sana Starros of the Rebel Alliance are on their way.

We open at the Screaming citadel where Luke and Aphra are running from monsters including a mutant Gungan… Aphra calls in Triple-Zero, her protocol-droid. Luke is ready to stand his ground but the ship arrives, crashing and cutting them off. Aphra is less than impressed with the landing and Triple-Zero explains that Han Solo insisted on flying. Sounds about right.

Sana Starros is ready to shoot Aphra but Luke defends her. Luke explains that he went with her alone and voluntarily, in spite of her being an ex-imperial agent. Leia stops Sana from shooting her, despite Triple-Zero telling them all point blank that she’s not trustworthy and would be best executed. Leia then gives Luke both barrels and… I guess she’s still in that A New Hope phase where she’s a bit stuck up and condescending.

The ship’s not in the state to fly them out, so with the Citadel monsters finding their way through, it’s time to run. Aphra gets them behind big strong doors and gets her other droid, Beetee to seal the door. They’re in some kind of lab with creatures in tubes called Abersyn Symbiotes, presumably the method the Queen uses to control her thralls long-term. Apparently it’s worse than that, they spread like a virus and within a year, most would be dead

She and Luke head off to seal off the other exits and have a moral discussion about the Empire. Aphra’s mother was killed during the Clone Wars and she likes the sense of security the Empire provides. Her rationale is that for low-level people, they’re beneath the Empire’s notice and largely left alone, any peace is better than war. She also thinks Luke is somewhat entitled from what I can read into their conversation, but then Luke reveals that his parents were slaughtered by the Empire.

Right before Aphra opens one of the doors and lets the Queen get Luke, she’s used a mesmeric gimmick to transmit a message to her. She’s able to get Luke to kneel with her psychic abilities but Aphra’s polarised goggles make her immune. Oh and she’s rigged Luke with explosives and plans to blow him up if the Queen doesn’t hold up to her end of the bargain, reactivating a crystal.

The others arrive and a blaster battle ensues but during the battle the Queen takes control of Han. Aphra takes her leave, leaving Triple-Zero and Beetee with our heroes as they reseal themselves into the lab, she tells them that Beetee can blow a hole in the wall. Triple-Zero has a suggestion: Abersyn Parasites cannot be implanted in certain species, and he believes he can take advantage using another droid they found… I guess, to transport one of the parasites. Outside, a wookie, we find out is calls Krrsantan has been beaten unconscious by a Knight of some sort. Leia lures the knight, whilst Sana grabs Krrsantan and brings through another door, which Beetee seals behind them.

Triple-Zero is happy to implant the parasite into Krrsantan, and thanks to being unconscious, they don’t even need sedative. Triple-Zero is a bit of a sadist, I like him. That being said, he makes an interesting comparison to Leia’s stuck-up attitude when people don’t do as she says. The Knight cuts through the door and is face-to-face with a roided up Krrsantan, something he doesn’t really like Triple Zero thinks that will get a bit messy.

So that was Doctor Aphra #7 and it’s fine. When it comes to being new reader friendly the opening crawl certainly helps and there was enough info that for the most part I could follow the story. The cover showing Han being captured in a bit of a lie since we don’t find out what happens to Han after his capture in this issue. The best moments for me were the conversation between Doctor Aphra and Luke and the one between Triple-Zero and Leia. Not sure what Sana adds to this story really, she just seems to be there.

On that note it might’ve been useful for new readers to just have the newer characters introduced in a bubble or something, older comics did that a lot. I realise a few of the newer cast are part of the core cast of this comic, but on top of being new reader friendly in its own right, you’d also want to introduce the cast here to people who are predominately reading the main Star Wars title so a little bit of give might’ve been nice. The artwork is decent visually, matching the look of the films but faces aren’t very expressive which can dampen the mood of a scene.

Just from the basis of being a crossover storyline with lots of hands involved this isn’t Kieron Gillen’s best work as a writer, but as a sampling of him it’s a solid one and I can’t say I’m not curious to see how the event in full played out. It is very much not a standalone story, and the back half of it doesn’t feature Doctor Aphra at all. This makes it difficult to assess whether the book is a good read for a regular issue.

We’ll work on a 1–5-star rating for this format and Doctor Aphra #7 receives 3 stars.

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