Doctor Aphra (2020) #38
TRUTH TO LIARS
Tasked with investigating malfunctioning droids at a Tagge warehouse, Doctor Aphra and Just Lucky came face-to-face with the scourged droids. After disbaling one of them, Aphra used her connection to the Spark Eternal, a component of the mysterious scourge, to find out just what the void is going on!
She discovered Magna Tolvan, off on a separate scourge-related investigation, was overtaken by the evil entity. The scourge is moving in to cyborgs!
Now Aphra must turn to the one person she always comes back to….
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artists: Minkyu Jung
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Cover artist: Romy Jones
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publication date: November 15, 2023
There are a number of emotions and states of mind that you could attribute to Doctor Chelli Aphra, but regret is likely not one of them, though that’s the prevailing mood that opens the pages of Doctor Aphra #38 as Chelli’s on-off-andonagain partner Sana Starros silently prepares the two of them a hot drink somewhere on Corellia. Aphra’s face says it all; regret etched into her features as Starros stares back implacably, clearly not impressed. Aphra is well aware they’ve parted for the last time more than once, but believes they keep coming back together because Starros loves her, but Sana disagrees, explaining that she needed to get away from Aphra because she needs someone ‘who could look beyond herself‘, and Chelli’s words have just proved Sana right.
Both fractious, the conversation almost ends right there, but Aphra explains the situation with Magna Tolvan and the scourge, and how to be at her best, Aphra needs Sana by her side. Thankfully she agrees, and we cut to Epikonia and the galactic relay hub where we see Magna doing the work of the scourge, operating on humans and realising – the scourge through Tovan that is – that it’s not working, that it’s forgetting things when it splinters into so many minds. We see Tolvan take a buzzsaw to the stricken human tied to the table, and then see what appears to be the prime body of the scourge, with numerous biological and droids arms connected to a hybrid body.
Near the city on Epikonia, Chelli, Sana and Just Lucky watch, noticing there are no people around and Aphra explains how they know where Tolvan will be, thanks to an assist from Leia Organa who had trackers placed in their clothing when Tolvan and her people were working for the Alliance. Aphra has brought EMP emitters to handle the droid threat, explaining how they’re a last resort that will even disable her own electro-tattoos, and they make their plans to kill a lot of droids. With Just Lucky spotting for them they take out enough droids to make it inside and discover the missing people, many dead, and spot Tolvan with Lobot and Beilert Valance beside her. Clearly not being held against their will, they realise this has just become a smash-and-grab to save Magna, and throw in their first EMP, leaping into the cyborg fray.
We cut to later in the Ark Angel IV, Tolvan on a medbed, woozy as she wakes but they see thorugh the ruse; she’s still controlled by the scourge but Aphra is ready for it, connecting and entering its mind using her own intimate knowledge of the Spark Eternal to root around for what she needs. The realisation of what the scourge is doing is overwhelming, but she pushes on, coming back to reality to explain how the scourge grows but fragments, unable to process everything it experiences. If it consumes everything, then nothing can hurt it, and Just Lucky states the obvious – they need to stop it before it figures out how to jump from droid to cyborg, and then the chilling truth – it already knows how to do it, and we turn to a final panel of Domina Tagge aboard her own starship as the issue ends.
When the final pages and panels of Dark Droids arrive, it may well be this issue that is the one folks point back to as a key turning point in the story. Yes, the situation is very grim indeed, but Aphra’s relationship with the Spark Eternal and her understanding of its ways combined with her ability to essentially enter it’s mind gives our hero team a backdoor into the scourge, and that could well turn out to be a very handy way of taking down this galaxy-spanning threat. Great art and action as always, and with the simmering relationship of Aphra and Starros laying silently in the background ready to erupt at any moment, this makes for another engrossing read.
