Dark Droids #5
PART 5
“SCOURGE OF THE DROIDS”
To stop the Sith in control of the Empire, Lady Qi’ra gambled on an ancient device to disrupt their connection to the Force. She failed, and out of the ruins of her plans emerged an evil entity.
It is a scourge to droids in both the Rebellion and Empire and continues to spread its consciousness into any artificial mind it can enter.
As the Scourge’s experiments continue, it spreads beyond droids and into hybroids. First, it came for the metal. Now, it’s coming for everything else….
Writer: Charles Soule
Artist: Luke Ross
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Cover artist: Leinil Francis Yu
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Release Date: December 27, 2023
We’re at the sharp end of the Dark Droids storyline as we hit the fifth and final issue of the series, and a recap that reminds us that all of this rose from the ashes of Qi’ra’s plan to stop the Empire. We hear the voice of the scourge, almost contemplative as it makes the claim that it has never intentionally set out to cause any harm – until now. We see an astromech hack into a ships system and watch as the vessel erupts into flame, and see below as droids begin to attack the biological population – in short, chaos erupts. As it all boils over we swing to Epikonia and the scourge in one of his inumerable droid bodies, working on a man as we see a room of mutilated bodies with droid parts attached. The scourge is clearly running out of patience, and we watch as scourge prime argues with the elder droid – a part of itself of course – who reminds the scourge that it holds the Spark Eternal, and that ‘the only way is through‘ towards taking the galaxy and every living thing with it for victory.
Ext: Space. We see the shuttle carrying D-Squad (consisting of R2-D2, QT-KT, IG-88, 4-LOM, BT-1 and 000) approach the now deformed and corrupted ISD of the scourge, and AJax as it addresses them, telling them the only way to defeat the scourge is through sacrifice. They smash into the ISD, disembarking and splitting up to distract the scourge and try to locate scourge prime. Ajax believes many, if not all, will fail, but to save the organics they must try. Scourge prime is aware of the attack, but his elder ‘self’ informs him that the hybroids – Valance, Magna Tolvan and Lobot – are considered humanoid more than droid and as such have friends, and we swing to Luke, Leia, Chewie and Lando as they battle the droids, and see D-Squad leap into the fray while Doctor Aphra and Sana Starros battling insurmountable odds. Odds that take a turn for the worse as after countless tries, the scourge enters the mind of a biological and we see the awakening, droids everywhere suddenly self-aware….and hungry.
To the confusion of Leia, the droids retreat but within seconds they are swarmed by disc droids who now know how to take over and control humanoids, and in seconds the four of them are taken, with the scourge claiming to ‘know the Force‘. We see Valance, Aphra, Leia, Lando, Threepio and Luke as the scourge claims to be the ‘new Force‘, and for a second you could claim that the Emperors vice-like hold on the galaxy was broken by the scourge, until Ajax Sigma slices through Scourge Prime with his blade, disrupting his hold and destroying the prime scourge body. Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewbacca come back to their senses, and despite hefty headaches they appear fine and we see D-Squad celebrate, Ajax offering the squad a new home with him, to live as visioned droids and show biologicals that they can be trusted, by force if necessary. It’s R2-D2 who puts Ajax straight, telling him they fought together to stop a threat to the galaxy and to themselves, and for Ajax to not become the next threat that D-Squad has to tackle.
So, threat ended, and we roll out of the series back at the colony of the Second Revelation as Ajax Sigma wakes the droid body that holds what was the spark eternal. Ajax explains that it may take a long time, but the droid will go through the three levels of enlightenment – I, we, them, and then a new revelation, the fourth – all, and we finish with Ajax Sigma holding a tiny disc droid in his palm….
Well, that was a ride and a half, ending the series with a tantalising question – did Ajax Sigma – eternally patient as he is – really destroy the scourge, or simply capture its essense to push forward his own future agenda? As a finish to a sizeable series, without the coda at the end it would be somewhat unsatisfying, but that post-credits sting was the cherry on top the whole storyline needed. We know our heroes from across the main titles now go on to new adventures (and for Darth Vader the vast realms of the netherworld of the Force at the end of Return of the Jedi await him), and with Bounty Hunters now concluded and Doctor Aphra just one issue away from completing its second volume, who knows when we’ll see them again. For this series, we can look back at a mini series and a selection of crossovers that not only propelled the scourge storyline forward week by week over six months of comics but also advanced those four main titles as it did so, something Dark Droids arguably did better than the three crossover events that came before it.
There was a very early 80’s, UK Marvel tone to the tale, a twisted and sometimes disturbing story that asked questions and went places other stories have largely bypassed coralled brilliantly by Charles Soule and the creative teams of the main titles and the D-Squad sister mini series. For that, Dark Droids deserves the plaudits, and whatever crossover storyline comes next has some big shoes to fill.
- Soule, Charles (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 128 Pages - 03/26/2024 (Publication Date) - Licensed Publishing (Publisher)
