Doctor Aphra (2020) #19
ETERNALLY YOURS!
The trap has been set! DOCTOR APHRA and SANA STARROS are ready to steal the ASCENDANT’S GREATEST TREASURE!
But their search for the SPARK ETERNAL will lead them somewhere they never expected…
…back to the place where Aphra’s archaeological adventures began!
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Minkyu Jung
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Vc Joe Caramagna
Cover artist: W. Scott Forbes
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: March 23, 2022
UPC: 75960609724101911
This issue takes both the reader and Aphra back to Bar’leth University as they search for the last and final piece of Sith-making Ascendant technology. Hot on the heels of their old friend and new adversary Kho Phon Farrus, Aphra and Sana find themselves in a race against time to locate the tech before Kho, and stop them from becoming an all-powerful and murderous faux-Sith with a huge Aphra sized chip on their shoulder.
As always Aphra’s motivations are somewhat questionable. She seemingly wants to avert disaster but you never can be too sure with our moral trainwreck of an archaeologist. It’s just as likely that her visage of altruism is a tool to manipulate the slightly less awful Sana Starros into helping her. It would definitely be on-brand and I can’t help but feel the inevitable betrayal and heartbreak will be here very soon. This one will sting as Sarah Kuhn’s audiodrama Doctor Aphra and Alyssa Wong’s previous work on this run have really done their best to make me care about the Aphra and Starros relationship. Maybe that’s the point? Perhaps we’re being shown what it’s like to be Aphra’s “friend”. At one point in the issue our two “heroines” are contacted by the wonderfully despicable Domina Tagge looking for an update of their quest and it reminded me that Aphra has talked her way out of certain dearh and promised Domina this tech. The very fact that I’d forgotten this shows how unwieldy and exhausting Aphra’s web of lies can be and I’m sure none of us are going to know where we stand until the final issue of this arc when the true machinations of Chelli Lona Aphra are laid bare.
This issue also follows Kho Phon Farrus on their macabre quest to obtain the “Spark” by breaking into the office of Sava Nos at Bar’Leth University. This story is effectively intercut with the first time, years earlier, that they’d broken into Nos’ rooms as a distraction so Aphra and her cadre could break in simultaneously from a different point and steal half of the Sava’s collection. Aphra used Kho and this is obviously the birth of the resentment between them. It’s the backstory we’ve been waiting for and, while Kho still remains laregly an enigma, adds the context to really sell this arc. There was an interesting moment when, in the flashbacks, Kho was trying to register with the university and was refused because their name was different to what was on file. This is either a tease at a larger back story or an acknowledgement of Kho’s non-binary gender status. Regardless, it’s interesting and worth noting.
I remain respectively guarded about the Ascendant technology until we have fully seen what it is and what it can do. I am all for the expansion of the galaxy and Star Wars as a whole but this is a big one! It reminds me of the Sith artifacts that Soule peppered into his Lando and Darth Vader (2017) runs as well as the Acolytes of the Beyond from Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath trilogy.
I believe the last issue in this arc is the next one so hopefully all will be revealed soon!
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Doctor Aphra (2020) #19