by writer Simon Spurrier; artists Wilton Santos, Andrea Broccardo, Caspar Wijngaard, Chris Bolson;
inkers Marc Deering, Don Ho, Walden Wong, Scott Hanna; colorists Chris O’Halloran & Stéphanie Paitreu; letterer Joe Caramagna
collects Doctor Aphra #32-36
volume reviews one | two | three | four | five | six | seven [complete]
Yikes! After a very solid fifth volume, Doctor Aphra’s next arc loses its way. It’s a good thing I’m invested enough in the character to keep going – this kind of mess early on would have lost me as a reader.
Spurrier simply tries to do too much here – among them, revealing Aphra’s childhood, a Rebel plot to assassinate the Emperor, an unexpected reunion with Tolvan, and the Imperial Minister of Propaganda returns (along with a certain favorite Wookie). Instead of a focused narrative, grounded by sharp banter and emotional growth between Aphra and Triple Zero like last time, this arc was scattered and unfocused – and it didn’t help that the art teams changed multiple times within and between issues, with varying levels of quality. Some pages were really quite awful.
In previous volumes, Spurrier has done a fine job pushing Aphra into a corner – usually double crossing left and right – allowing for a lot of growth while the stakes shift and she has to accept the consequences. But the unnecessary amount of exposition and convoluted storyline didn’t allow any emotional beats to land. (Who enjoys exposition of double crosses? No one?) Tolvan and Aphra’s relationship is still unearned, and even cringy, as a certain famous ESB quote undercuts the whole thing. The stakes disappear as soon as we know a plot is already doomed to fail – assassinating the Emperor, in this case – a fault of many other SW titles and a first for Aphra.
So what could have saved the book is more growth in Aphra, which has been successful in each volume (even if it’s a turn away from redemption), but there’s a disappointing lack of growth or insight here. Even the final reveal, an easy one to have some emotional resonance or at least serve to deepen Aphra’s relationship with her “tiny ward” Vulaada, fell flat.
I’m looking forward to reading the finale of this series…or I’m more excited to start Alyssa Wong’s new run. Could go either way.
Reading Art 