– Spoiler Review –
As Chelli Aphra and Just Lucky deal with reawakened Clone Wars-era droids, Magna Tolvan returns to the fold to solve the Rebellion’s own problems with the Scourge, in Doctor Aphra #36 (Vol. 2)!
Things have gone sideways in the Tagge’s old warehouse, as the power-cell missing Clone Wars-era prototypes have come alive and are trying to kill Aphra and Lucky. For Aphra, the situation gets worse quickly as Lucky, frustrated with the situation and not wanting to die, grapples himself out of harm’s way, leaving Aphra to fend for herself. It’s a fitting move for Lucky considering Aphra’s past and their history, and I don’t blame him in the slightest, even more so if he wants to get back home safely to his soon to be husband. But it’s not the only time someone leaves someone else behind in this issue…As much as she’s changed over the course of her original series and now this one, especially with the goal maybe bettering herself on her own, not relying on others, to gain back the love of Sana Starros or Magna Tolvan, she’s still Chelli deep down inside…so of course when she sees Teviy, the woman who stole the datastick after they slept together at the club last issue, her first thought is: bait, so she can save her own skin. This isn’t the first time for Aphra, as she saw the potential to save herself by using a Hutt for cover in a firefight way back in issue #13 (2016),* and I love how there’s still these sides to her, despite progress, though this is a slightly different situation. It buys Aphra some time to hide, as she’s completely lost in the facility, as its lights aren’t on. We get some good creepy moments with the Scourge and the droids it controls, the art team making its pursuit of Aphra eerie and writer Alyssa Wong giving us an idea of the entity’s hunger and goals in unsettling dialogue, especially helpful if you’re not reading the main Dark Droids miniseries. A little mouse droid, the Scourge’s favorite vessel for its vectors, bumps into Aphra and the droids know where she is, but despite himself, Lucky saves her and attempts to help her flee, ending up back in the middle of it with her in the process. Their exchange, where she asks for help with finding the exit and says his compass directions aren’t helpful, was a damn hoot as I feel like I’ve had such a conversation before, just in a way less stressful environment, driving or when out hiking with friends/wife.
Unable to slice through the door, either because it’s too old or she doesn’t have the skills, depending on who you ask, the Scourge has them dead to rights. It assesses their viability for assimilation, disappointed they’ll only get one mind buffet of the two as Aphra’s electro-tattoos mark her as the best potential candidate. And then they power off completely!! I love how it was shown, from how Minkyu Jung had their bodies first react like the battle droids at the end of The Phantom Menace, and then they just crumple to the ground, all of it accompanied by some fitting, fun sound FX from letterer Joe Caramagna. They examine one of the droids and find the Tagges installed a backup battery, a very limited one, hence why they were only able to chase them for so long before simply collapsing. Lucky claims the mystery is solved but Aphra knows something was wrong, something was different, and it’s not quite over. Either way, they return to Domina Tagge, who’s waiting for them, and we see her standing next to the droid she was examining last issue, though it was the purple haze to its eyes, signifying it’s Scourged and maybe ready to go with wanton destruction and assimilation. Just when they think they are walking away from trouble, they’re walking right into the next terrible situation!
On a Rebel base far, far away Princess Leia Organa listens to the final transmission of a valuable cargo ship, one full of screams and terror, hints of something having gone wrong with the droids. Who does Leia trust to deal with the problem, to investigate and rescue it, when they don’t have enough resources to spare other than a small team? Why, it’s none other than Magna Tolvan, leading a new crack team! It’s never stated if it’s named Misericorde again, but her current team, returning from a successful raid of an Imperial outpost, is certainly humming about Tolvan’s leadership abilities, as is Leia, trusting only her and her team for the mission. I’d love to learn how her return to the Rebellion went after the events of the Spark Eternal storyline, but obviously overall it went well enough for her to be so beloved by her current team and Leia to trust her implicitly. As Tolvan and the team jet off to find the missing ship, her navigator worries they’ll have trouble locating it, pointing out the obvious about space’s vastness, a comment which finds Tolvan reminiscing to a moment in the past with Aphra! It’s a sweet little moment between the two, as Aphra suggests they disappear forever, and despite Tolvan’s insistence it’s a terrible idea, Aphra knows there’s no way she hasn’t thought about it. Tolvan’s SMILING after this memory, straight up relishing it, a huge change for the woman who started their last conversation with a bevy of insults which cut to Chelli’s core. They ended their last interaction on good terms, but I wasn’t quite expecting this great of a change for her and her feelings towards her times with Aphra, giving me some hope for the two, depending on who Aphra wants to pick in the end…and is willing to pick her back. We actually even get some interior narration for Tolvan, something I can’t recall happening since at least the “Remastered” arc in the 2016 series, and even then, it was just getting a glimpse into her dreams. My concern for Tolvan rises due to seeing her memories and getting her narration, even if I hadn’t read the solicitations and saw the troubling covers for what’s ahead, though I’m excited she’s getting a bigger role again already even if Alyssa Wong’s going to bash our hearts a few times with whatever is set to come next. As her team finally locates the missing ship, after listening to the final recording of its crew more than the others like, Tolvan knows, just like Aphra, something bigger is going on, but she can’t quite place what it is, just yet. If Aphra was just good enough for the Scourge to attempt taking over, I can only imagine how tasty of an option Tolvan will be for it…
Doctor Aphra #36 (Vol. 2) had two artists, splitting them to specific characters, while Rachelle Rosenberg’s coloring and Joe Caramagna’s lettering melded the two together. Jethro Morales, who I only previously experienced thanks to The High Republic – The Blade miniseries, was in charge of all of Tolvan’s scenes while series stalwart Minkyu Jung covered Aphra’s escapades (as far as I could tell). I don’t know if this will continue or this was planned to have the two artists, but I do like how their styles, while complimentary to one another, differentiated each character’s situation beyond the events within, like it’s clearly inverse when Lucky abandons Aphra vs Tolvan’s team shouting her name, but the little ways the two art teams bring these to light add so much dimension. For starters, the first scene with Aphra and Lucky, the way Caramagna makes Lucky’s “Aphra…” feel like a disapproving grandmother is a stark contrast to Tolvan’s introduction panel where her team is shouting, in big red letters, her name, in love and support. Rosenberg’s colors provide a harrowing sense of danger to Aphra’s scenes, filling them with shadows where you can’t see anything, hence Aphra ending up lost, while in Tolvan’s scenes, while there are shadows here and there, friendly people are in them or one can see into the darkness still, while most panels for her are bright and cheery, much like her constant smile compared to Aphra’s constant concern and nervousness. One of my favorite Jung moments is where Aphra’s hiding and we can see Lucky high above while three Scourged droids are looking for her. This full-page panel starts where Caramagna wants us to, seeing little Lucky up on the balcony, watching the situation unfold from his sniper’s perch, thanks to his first word bubble for the droids. Readers find themselves seeing how close they are to Aphra after finding the second word bubble, as it leads us across a droid’s arm to her hiding spit in the shadows, just around the corner, and as one goes to flip the page, one sees the final line for the droids, their single sentence split between the bubbles. With nothing from Lucky or Aphra, they’re clearly trying to be as silent as possible in the moment, one to stay hidden, another to keep the surprise of their position. As for Morales, the page full of Tolvan’s memories and her satisfaction about them, was a delight, as his style lends to her absolutely beaming attitude. On their little makeshift bed, the way Tolvan’s holding Aphra, who’s leaning on her, looking up with a loving smile, just bursts with joy that her satisfied, closed eye face in the present after remembering the past is one I could easily feel making as well due to the scene. Even the navigator, Kleb, who has some similar cybernetics to Tolvan, is all smiles when working with her, her mood infectious to the crew she’s with, and it’s such a stark contrast, especially with Rosenberg’s colors, to the following page, which is Jung’s and Aphra being discovered by the Scourge. I sort of hope they keep the dueling artists until these storylines collide, as it would keep up the appearances of how different their lives are at the moment, thus ending with just Jung again once they are intertwined.
Here are a few other things:
- *It’s also the issue where Triple-Zero and Bee Tee responded to readers’ questions, including mine, where they not so subtly revealed they’d break into the Manor, steal anything valuable, and kill me! Still one of my highlights from running the site!
- Speaking of Morales’ work on The Blade, one of Magna Tolvan’s team is an Ikkrukkian, the same species as Porter Engle, who was one of the main stars of that miniseries!
- Don’t forget, alongside the main Dark Droids miniseries, a droid-centric one kicked off this month, Dark Droids: D-Squad! The murderbots themselves will be joining Artoo on his latest adventure, so if you want more of Triple-Zero and Bee Tee, make sure to check it out!
Doctor Aphra #36 (Vol. 2) reveals how well things have been going for Magna Tolvan and contrasts it with Chelli Aphra’s predicaments, promising plenty of potential heartache ahead.
+ Contrast of Tolvan and Aphra’s lives
+ Great to see more from Tolvan’s side
+ Like the dueling artists this time around
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.
DOCTOR APHRA (Vol. 2) REVIEWS:
Fortune and Fate: #1-5 — The Engine Job: #6-10 — War of the Bounty Hunters: #11-15 — Crimson Reign: #16-21 —The Spark Eternal: #22 | #23 | #24 | #25 — Ascendant: #26 | #27 | #28 | #29 | #30 | #31 — Starweird: #32 | #33 | #34 — Dark Droids: #35