Canon Comic Review: Dark Droids – D-Squad #1

– Spoiler Review –

They’re getting the band back together! As a Scourge consumes the droids of the galaxy in its nefarious plans, R2-D2 undertakes a desperate mission to save his best friend, unintentionally getting a unique Clone Wars-era squadron back together in a delightfully fun Dark Droids: D-Squad #1! It also includes a backup story about Ajax Sigma, a character at the heart of the main story, that attempts to consolidate his history.

We’ll start with the main story, which finds Artoo floating in space, communicator systems destroyed, thanks to C-3PO jettisoning him out an airlock! But Threepio isn’t really home right now, as the Scourge, an ancient evil entity, joined by the Spark Eternal at the end of Hidden Empire, has infected him and thousands if not millions of droids already across the galaxy. Its goal is to consume and consume until there are no enemies left, until it is all its enemies, including those made of flesh, but it’s having a harder time jumping from metal to meat than it hoped. Early in Dark Droids #2, Scourged Threepio decides, while Artoo would be a formidable addition to its collection, he’s too strong willed at this point to try taking over, so he jettisons the little astromech to keep it out of his way. I loved these opening pages of the issue, as Artoo laments his situation for a moment and then sets out to remedy it, this little droid with big ambitious and an important part of the story, floating in space, all alone and abandoned, with artist Salva Espín, colorist Israel Silva, and letterer Joe Sabino creating a great sense of loneliness and the vastness of the problem in front of him. He attempts to move himself through space towards, well, anything, and starts to collide with rocks, having jetted his way into an asteroid field, where he bounces around many of the bigger rocks due to his earlier efforts. A ship happens to be flying through it and he manages to attach his suction arm to it, pulling himself in and finding the pilot is…WAC-47?! That’s right, the little pit droid Artoo once allied himself with in the D-Squad unit under Colonel Meebur Gascon! The Force truly works in mysterious ways.

Having WAC in the story offers a few things: for starters, it gives voice to Artoo or any other binary speaking droids the team will encounter, as WAC sort of translates for us readers in his responses to Artoo and later C1-10P aka Chopper himself; Secondly, he adds a great deal of humor to the proceedings, from him regarding Threepio as a handsome fellow, his self-deprecating humor, to his over serious name drop of the D-Squad unit they were in. The pair end up on Iego, as WAC understands Artoo’s predicament but wants to stick to his shipping schedule for the Rebellion as he already missed his drop with Home One, which is where Artoo was before Scourged Threepio kicked him out, and needs to repair and continue his route. There they find Chopper, who claims he’s on a secret mission and can’t help…only after him and Artoo get into it and WAC breaks them up. He does at least reveal, after hearing what happened to Threepio, he’s heard of a protocol droid causing death and mayhem elsewhere, who looks just like Artoo’s friend. I loved this scene the most out of the issue, as the back and forth between the two astromech series droids, with WAC in the middle, had me laughing several times, and it feels like writer Marc Guggenheim was having a blast with these characters as well.

Artoo leaves WAC and Chopper behind, commandeering a short hauler ship from another droid, acting as crazy as Scourged droids almost with his strong-arm tactics to get the pilot droid to help his cause. When they get to Gallios, it doesn’t take Artoo long to follow the non-droid cries and screams to their source: 0-0-0 aka Triple-Zero, one part of the famous pair of murderbots! If you’re reading this series, you might already know Trip, the torture-friendly protocol droid that Artoo and Threepio have had dealings with in the past. Triple-Zero and his counterpart, BT-1 aka Bee Tee, were activated by Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra to help Darth Vader with his plans to gain back the Emperor’s respect, and they have gone on to mess with Aphra’s life on and off over the years since, causing body counts and gut-busting laughs in their wake. I can’t wait to see how Artoo and Triple-Zero come to terms and team up to fight back the Scourge!

Espín, Silva, and Sabino had a not so enviable task of eliciting as much emotion as they could from a cast of primarily droid characters and it’s very quickly clear they nailed the assignment. What I enjoyed most, as while the Dark Droids crossover is horror-themed and, well, darker, Silva’s color choices were brighter and shinier than anything else we’ve got in the crossover so far. It fit the tone of this issue far better than a moodier palette would, as it deftly avoided coming off as dismissive of the droid-centric story and instead felt both light and funny, yet series at the same time. Sabino’s SFX and words for droids like Artoo and Chopper have so much personality, like the little droids who spout them, making his work the star of the show. Espín does a lot with perspective changes, zooming in on the domes of the arguing Chopper and Artoo, while Sabino’s increasingly frantic SFX for their beeps takes it all to another dimension. The posing of WAC and the RX-series pilot droid Artoo messes with to take over his side elicit some fun reactions and emotions as well, letting WAC’s sad yet funny line about not wanting to be himself land while it’s hard not to tell, without words even, how upset the RX droid is about Artoo’s actions.

Backup Story: “The Book of Ajax” Written by Guggenheim, Art by David Messina, Colors by Bryan Valenza, and Lettering by Sabino.

Ajax Sigma was first introduced in Revelations #1 (2022), which was a one-shot teasing what was to come in Star Wars comics during 2023, and has since made his debut in the main Dark Droids miniseries. In the one-shot, we saw him be cut down by Jedi of the High Republic era for leading a revolution, his memory core retried by a droid after Han Solo and Chewbacca buried it (as also later seen in Guggenheim’s Han Solo & Chewbacca comic), him being rebuilt, and lastly a battle with Luke Skywalker aboard a ship after Ajax seemed to commit a massacre. This “The Book of Ajax” was promised to show how it’s all connected, but instead of feeling like a brand-new album connecting the dots, it’s more or less a greatest hits remaster, as it adds some additional context from Ajax’s POV but it doesn’t stitch things together more than what we already saw. In fact, this left me more confused than before we had it, as some of the timing, lack of reference to certain events elsewhere, and missing context makes this feel unhelpful to connecting the dots.

For starters, while it’s not necessary, it would be nice to get some context for Ajax’s Rebellion in the High Republic era and why the Jedi had to be called in to stamp it out, especially with a character like Loden Greatstorm being involved, as it almost feels out of character for the era to be involved in the fight like that. Ajax’s claims about years passing after he was reassembled is a little more of minor quibble after rereading the scene, as Han and Chewie buried it a few years before A New Hope but the lack of specific timeframe leaves one wondering how many years prior. In the Revelations (2022) comic, Luke isn’t alone on Kligson’s Moon, though since it was in a vision, maybe it makes sense he could be alone as this story’s take on the scene might suggest, but the bigger question mark is why Luke hasn’t seemingly mentioned the encounter in any other of his appearances so far, especially if he was with others on the Moon as the vision depicted, as this story makes it clear it happened prior to the events of Dark Droids #1. And lastly, there’s a lot of talk about Symon, the droid who awakens past his programming and digs up Ajax’s neural core yet isn’t happy with how Ajax has been since he’s been rebuilt, but he’s sort of just gone by the story’s end and hasn’t appeared in the Dark Droids miniseries yet. The added context of how Ajax felt, why he makes some of the choices he does, did help this retelling of those previously seen moments, but it didn’t feel like something the main miniseries hadn’t already sort of told us about the character.

Messina’s art was one that really grew on me by the end of the H&C series and it’s great to have him back for “The Book of Ajax.” I liked how the team presented things in the opening pages, as Valenza’s colors are darker here than the main story, giving Ajax and his fellow self-aware droids a rather menacing look, you can sort of understand why the Jedi would be there to shut them down for good. I particularly like the panel where Loden Greatstorm cuts down Ajax, as Messina gives it a gruesome look, almost as if it’s a non-droid being chopped open by the swing of the lightsaber, Valenza opting for a blood-like red to drive the feeling home; Ajax is aware, so he is a person, and the comparison is apt. While not used often, I liked when Messina put in reflections on the shiny surfaces of the droids, like when you can see Ajax’s face in Symon’s, as it seemed to give us a glimpse at how one droid saw the other, as Ajax, though taller than Symon, looks shorter and off-kilter, like how he’s off from what Symon expected from him.

Here are a few other things:

• There’s going to be another Revelations one-shot, though 2023’s version looks to be a series of short stories teasing what’s to come in 2024, but I wouldn’t count out some sort of connective tissue. We’ll see in December!
• Joe Sabino has done lettering in Star Wars comics before, but this is the first time I’ve talked about his work since Ahsoka started, and I cannot tell you how many times I had to go back and correct Sabine to Sabino.
• Guggenheim got an intriguing new project for Marvel coming up: a prequel to the original Planet of the Apes film!!

Dark Droids: D-Squad #1 is already something quite special and has me excited to see what all happens next by the droids for the droids, though the issue’s backup story wasn’t on par with the main story.

+ Droids in focus brings a new dimension to the crossover

+ Plenty of humor

+ Art teams in main and backup story find vibrant emotions or little tricks to give the droids more life

– Backup story doesn’t clarify as much as it could’ve

Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website on Bluesky, Twitter @MynockManor, and Instagram @mynockmanor.

DARK DROIDS CROSSOVER REVIEWS

Click Here For The Rest Of Our Comic Reviews!