STAR WARS: DOCTOR APHRA #13
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Penciler: Kev Walker
Description:
Doctor Aphra’s had a plan to auction off an artificial Jedi intelligence in order to make some major credits. Unfortunately, things haven’t exactly gone according to plan… Darth Vader is back, and our rogue archaeologist is less dead than he thought he had left her. less
I have loved the Doctor Aphra series and it’s well worth reading. But as much as I have loved it I have to say that issue #13 doesn’t quite fall into that category. I like the issue, I just didn’t love it. It certainly is a good issue and writer Kieron Gillen continues to maintain the level of quality of the story. Vader is back and his battle with the ancient Jedi consciousness Rur is the standout moment of the issue. Artist Kev Walker also continues the high-quality art and again especially during the Vader/Rur fight.
The reason this issue didn’t earn the highest marks from me is that the book is a wrap-up issue. It concludes everyone’s storylines, sends them on their way and gives the reader a glimpse of what is next. While that’s all fine and good it just doesn’t elicit the excitement and action of what came before it. There’s a perfectly good reason to do this and honestly outside of a mini-series most books don’t go to this level to tidy up the house before moving on is such a definitive manner.
On the plus side, it is nice to see a conclusion to the many different plot lines Gillen has been juggling since Aphra first acquired the Rur crystal, running through the crossover The Screaming Citadel and wrapping up with a semi-confrontation with Vader. “Semi” meaning to simply hide from Vader. This is where the one single disappointment lies in the final two issues with Vader. With Vader distracted by Rur and then becoming a goal for Vader, it left no time for a final face-to-face with Aphra. Vader only senses her presence and ultimately abandons any confrontation chalking it up to being able to “losing some of the smaller fish” in light of a bigger prize. With all the storylines being wrapped up nicely this is the one that’s left unfulfilled and it would have been nice to see a final moment between the two.
But seeing the final punctuations on the stories of Black Krrsantan, Triple Zero and BeeTee, Vader and the Emperor was a nice touch. Gillen tops off the stories with Aphra on a vacation but not before we see her, mirroring Han Solo, by doing the right thing with all the artifacts she has been collecting. She may be a “scoundrel” of sorts but still maintains a sense of right and wrong at the appropriate times. Gillen sets-up Aphra with a clean slate moving forward but quickly reminds us of Aphra’s self-preserving side by shooting first and asking questions later, just like Han.
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #13 is not a bust and for some will satisfy the curiosity of how the smaller players are moving on. But a final Vader/Aphra scene would have gone a long way to elevating this book to a higher level that the majority of this series has been on from the beginning.
The last issue of Doctor Aphra ended with the ancient Jedi Rur possessing the body of a droid determined to destroy Aphra’s chance of selling him to the highest bidder on the black market. Writer Kieron Gillen kicks off Doctor Aphra #11 in a high intensity, chaotic fight to stay alive. This issue is all action from page one. Gillen has a unique challenge here by addressing some universal understandings of how and why certain Star Wars characters behave. When Rur is on the attack he goes against almost everything we believe about the Jedi. He’s aggressive, angry and vengeful which plays more like a dark side mentality. Gillen pulls it off but you never really see Rur as a Jedi. It is consistent though because Rur gave Luke pause and concern back in the “Screaming Citadel” storyline when Luke was contemplating training under him back in Doctor Aphra #8.
Gillen also tackles the notion that droids protocol’s make them what they are but Aphra is none too shocked to discover that Triple-Zero and Beetee are behind much of the chaos. They try to play dumb and Gillen makes this comical but Aphra can see right through it. Vader’s killer droids have always been blood thirsty but conniving and underhanded feels less like protocols and more like sentience. That said, if these are protocols then they are meticulously planned which by the end of the issue seems a lot more plausible. More on that later but again good writing by Gillen. As stated previously, this issue is non-stop action and at times the pace is so frenetic that it can get a bit confusing. This was a definite issue I had to go back through a second time.
