Canon Comic Review: Doctor Aphra #14 (Vol. 2) – War of the Bounty Hunters

– Spoiler Review –

While Aphra’s last jailbreak didn’t go smoothly, her latest one, with Sana Starros at her side again along with some frenemies, results in lots of humor and shenanigans for Doctor Aphra issue #14 (Vol. 2).

Waking up in Crimson Dawn flagship Vermillion’s brig, Chelli Aphra and Sana Starros find out they aren’t alone: Just Lucky and Ariole are locked up with them! The divergent storylines have finally linked up and it’s goes better than expected thanks to Alyssa Wong’s whip smart, rapid fire dialogue between the two pairs. Lucky and Aphra yelling at one another as part of their professional arrangement, Ariole and Sana comparing sidekick/romantic ex notes, and each one defending the other from any barbs and threats. It’s rich with history and humor, effortlessly merging the two groups and finding them in a mutually agreeable partnership to escape the prison and get their stolen gear back from the bowels of the ship. This meet-up also helps push Lucky and Ariole’s storyline, as they were at a standstill with Crae as he wouldn’t kill them and they couldn’t kill him since they weren’t working in sync yet, but inserting Aphra always produces results, good or bad, as Lucky puts it so succinctly and hilariously, “Crae, no one ‘lets’ Aphra do anything. It’s like trying to stop a hurricane.” Aphra and Lucky ‘agree’ on a distraction to lure in one of the guard droids for Aphra to hack, with Crae and the droid returning to break up the pairs’ fights, leading to Aphra recklessly digging into the droid’s guts and Crae once again beating up on his fractured students. He gets ahold of Ariole right as Aphra takes over the droid, and while Crae knows his students, it’s clear he doesn’t know Aphra (this is where Lucky’s excellent line comes in), as his threat to hurt Ariole doesn’t matter to her and she unleashes the droid, resulting in Crae’s death and their escape. Ever the sentimental type, Ariole is stunned at his death but Lucky pushes him forward, as there’s nothing they can do now, it’s technically why they were there, and it’s not like they wanted to join Crimson Dawn anyways. With the knowledge of Wen Delphis’ potential disregard for their lives and their job for her done, I’ll be curious to see what Lucky and Ariole do next…well, if they make it off the Vermillion alive, of course!

Despite differences or their past, the group unites in their escape, starting first with a lovely armament room where they pick up weapons and explosives, because of course Aphra, chaos, and explosions go together like peanut butter and jelly, followed by scouting the ship for loot and their stolen goods. Aphra’s eager to gain back the necklace she stole, as it’s the sure-fire bet to avoid any reprimands from Domina Tagge, so she spares no expense in scouring every floor and room. I loved the sequence of panels, a full spread splash page, of the group investigating the many spaces of the Vermillion, as it had a fun, Ocean’s Eleven crime-caper feel to it. The group finds themselves still on the prowl for their stuff and the necklace without luck, now back at the room Sana and Aphra tried entering last issue, this time the door wide open. Due to the art, it makes it look like all four of them are clearly visible to the room’s occupants, Qi’ra and Margo, who are placing the necklace amongst her collection, but somehow they don’t notice the interlopers and exit the room. But someone else did notice them, or at least that’s why Qi’ra and Margo didn’t care, as Deathstick drops from the ceiling to fight the group! Considering the damage she’s managed to do to both Dengar and Valance as she worked on bringing them to the Vermillion, Deathstick will be a formidable opponent for the four of them, unless they finally all drop their grievances with one another and unite. And of course, the myriad amount of explosives they planted around the ship should come in handy for a distraction!

It’s always a little jarring to have an art team change mid-arc, but how well Federico Sabbatini’s art meshes with the story and the issue’s events shows the malleability of the Aphra series and the characters’ antics. Sabbatini draws with an exaggerated styling of the characters but it’s really fitting for this humorous and action-packed issue, with a prime example of how Aphra, Sana, Lucky, and Ariole’s manga-like expressions when drooling over the armory’s spoils aide Joe Caramanga’s lettering of their exclamation and really make the panel pop with its intended laughter. The way Sabbatini has Aphra wrangling the reigns of the droid’s wires, like a skilled horse wrangler at a rodeo, expresses her intimacy with droid innards and her reckless, carefree approach to everything she does. As I mentioned earlier, the crew’s sweep through the ship is a fantastic series of panels, from them cutting down guards, hiding from more guard droids, to planting the lovely remote activated explosive presents, the angular fashion of the panels and art give it a movie-montage sense to it. Rachelle Rosenberg’s colors adjust to the new art style, appearing a bit brighter than the last few issues have felt, more vibrant at times, to match with the exaggerated or action-heavy events, though the shaded and subdued lighting of the trophy room where they run into Deathstick was a nice change of pace from the rest of the issue and forecasted a change in fortune. Caramanga provides tons of SFX to the action scenes, while I enjoyed the haphazard way he drew the SFX for Aphra ripping up wires, matching her frantic actions. Of course his collective “Hell yeah” bubble for the group was a highlight too!

Here are a few other things:

• Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first time we’ve actually seen Aphra in an actual armory? And in an inverse to her now famous line, “Those belong in an armory,” she’s actually taking weapons out of the armory?
• Crimson Reign, part two of a Qi’ra trilogy, which Aphra will get roped into, is now out December, not November. Likewise, after the brilliant connecting variant cover from Ario Anindito (who is slaying it on The High Republic comic) came with a new logo for the miniseries, the initial covers have been updated with the logo. The connecting variant seemed to hint Iden Versio of Inferno Squad and Battlefront II fame would somehow be wrapped up in the miniseries’ story!
• If you want to know what happened the last time Sana and Aphra attempted a jailbreak, be sure to check out the excellent “The Catastrophe Con,” arc from the first volume of Doctor Aphra (and really, you should read the whole first volume anyways)!
• Since this was delayed a week, there’s not a lot of overlap or connections between it and latest issue of the crossover’s main miniseries, War of the Bounty Hunters #4, which also released this week.

Doctor Aphra #14 (Vol. 2) is littered with humor and style as Aphra engineers a jailbreak with Sana, Lucky, and Ariole in its latest War of the Bounty Hunters’ tie-in issue.

+ Storylines converge

+ Action and humor delight

+ New art fits right in

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

WAR OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS CROSSOVER REVIEWS

DOCTOR APHRA REVIEWS:
Volume 2: Fortune and Fate – #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 / Arc Review — The Engine Job: #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10
Doctor Aphra (audiobook)
Volume 1: Full Volume 1 Review

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