The Screaming Citadel was Marvel’s second crossover event and encompassed a one-shot special, two issues of Star Wars and two issues of Doctor Aphra. It was written by Jason Aaron and Kieron Gillen with art by Marco Checchetto, Salvador Larroca, and Andrea Broccardo.
Synopsis
A big, green crystal? Well, shucks Miss Aphra, you must be on the up and up.
The Rebels have set up a temporary outpost on the Outer Rim planet of Horox III. It is there that Dr. Aphra, now in possession of the crystal containing the artificial intelligence known as Rur, an ancient Force user who may or may not have been a Jedi, encounters Luke Skywalker. Aphra knows that her former supervisor, Darth Vader, was after Luke because he is a potentially powerful Force user. She persuades him to accompany her to the Citadel of Ktath’atn, where once a year the Queen grants a private audience to those who bring the most interesting life-forms before her. Aphra believes a real life Jedi like Luke will be a shoe in, and that the Queen will be able to access the Rur crystal for Luke to learn some Jedi-ing and for Aphra to get some sweet, sweet archaeology XP’s. Sure enough, when Luke is goaded into using the Force to defend himself in front of the Queen, she invites them to a private breakfast. The next morning, do Luke and Aphra find themselves treated to a delicious meal of fluffy eggs, homemade waffles, and freshly squeezed juice? Reader, they do not. Instead, the good Queen attacks them with a couple of Abersyn symbiotes in an effort to take control of them, body and mind. Narrowly escaping this breakfast fate worse than cold oatmeal, Luke and Aphra make for their ship. En route they run into Leia, Han and Sana who have since arrived on the planet and met up with Triple Zero and BT (See, Aphra found the Rebels because she called Sana saying she wanted to “talk” and Sana fessed up to Leia that she spilled the beans).
Yeah, yeah. Nothing suspicious about this.
So, all the others are mad at Aphra, blaming her for getting Luke, and by extension them, into this mess. Luke, though, defends Aphra, saying they went into this together and that they are friends now. Leia accuses Luke of naiveté, which is apparently the Alderaanian word for "life-threateningly stupid." Guess who gets proven right five seconds later? Yeah, Aphra betrays Luke into the hands of the Queen; then, Han, ignoring Leia’s warning that the Queen can mesmerize yo a** if you look at her, looks at her and gets his a** mesmerized. Ok, Han’s out and Luke’s out; but the Killbots are still on the job and Triple Zero gets one of the symbiotes and puts it in Black Krrsantan after they get him out of the impound yard. Wookiees aren’t allowed in the Citadel. Why? Because they are wildly and violently unpredictable when infected with the parasites. Meanwhile, the Queen unlocks Rur for Aphra, puts a parasite into Han and straps Luke to a table so she can feast on his sweet, sweet Jedi life-essence which appears to involve drinking blue liquid (it’s not milk) through a tube. Uhhhh. Anyway, Aphra is about to leave, but has a patented Star Wars change of heart, goes back and puts a parasite in Luke so he can battle the Queen on her own terms; she also lets Rur give him some advice, but Luke senses the advice is not right for him and defeats both the parasite and the Queen in his own way. This frees Han and everyone else from the control of the Abersyn symbiote parasites. BT burns the Citadel to the ground, presumably to kill the parasites, although he probably would have done it anyway. Luke has some harsh words for Aphra, and then the two groups go their separate ways. In an epilogue, we see one of the villagers on Ktath’atn searching the ruins of the Citadel. She finds the body of the Queen and is possessed by her life force. The implication is that the Queen may well return to further menace Luke; fortunately, as of this writing, no one has seen fit to make good on this threat.
Review
Look at this cool looking guy! This is who the story should have been about!
This was another one of those stories that was hard to summarize, because so much stuff happens and so much of it is fairly insane. First off, this story is pretty severely lacking in subtlety. There’s no mystery to it. For example, you find out at the end of the first issue, 1/5th of the way into the whole story, that the Queen is a soul sucking monster. Maybe don't cash that check so soon? Give us a little mystery. Then again, when the title of your story is The Screaming Citadel, I guess subtlety isn’t really the name of the game. That’s not the only problem here; Luke, Han, and Leia all come across rather poorly. I know Luke is supposed to be kind of naive, but he comes off just plain stupid in some parts. I mean, he leaves with Aphra, a known associate of Darth Vader, without telling anyone else because she shows him a green crystal and tells him there’s a dead Jedi in it. My weird neighbor used to have a green crystal on his patio table, does that mean I should have gone inside the house when he invited me? No! I definitely should not have done that! And then there’s Han. At one point Han is landing Aphra’s ship and damages it. The only time Han Solo crashes a ship is when it’s on purpose, and this didn’t seem to be on purpose; not long after this, he completely ignores Leia’s warning about looking at the Queen and immediately gets hypnotized. As for Leia, she actually calls Han and Luke incompetent at one point and ends up getting a management lesson from Triple Zero. Now, Leia has been a leader in the Rebellion since she was a teenager, so this feels somewhat out of character for her. Maybe she is just burned out at this point and still dealing with Alderaan; but if that’s the case it would have been nice if her motivations had been set up a little better in the text.
So the queen likes to do some vaping before her amateur dentistry? Normal.
All that said, the story isn’t completely without merit. Triple Zero is entertaining as always, and he has at least one line where I laughed out loud. At one point Sana refers to him as “Creepio”, which I enjoyed. Despite the flawed setup and execution, there are some genuinely good moments that pass between Luke and Aphra that result in some real character development. I certainly understand the appeal that the writers probably thought was inherent in pairing the naive farm boy with the self serving opportunist, but I can’t help but think there might have been a better way of carrying it out. The art in the series is perfectly serviceable, my only real complaint about it is that, at this point, Salvador Larroca has gotten into the habit of drawing our main characters’ faces by taking images from the films and copying them. This, in conjunction with an almost photo-realistic coloring process is exceedingly creepy and kind of takes you out of the story. Finally, it’s only natural that one would compare this crossover to Marvel’s previous effort, Vader Down. Vader Down was the culmination of a year’s worth of stories in two series that leads to repercussions in future issues of both. The Screaming Citadel comes on the heels of Aphra’s first storyline and just doesn’t have the same sense of being a narrative apex like Vader Down does.
Notes
BT burning the whole thing down? That's how this story should have started!
I didn’t get into it in the Aphra Vol. 1 review, but these Abersyn symbiotes first appear there. In the flashback story, Aphra’s professor has a cache of them and they are used by Aphra to blackmail him into awarding her the doctorate. That collection was destroyed by the Empire, so the ones in this story came from somewhere else.
One of the alien guests at the Queen’s reception says he is from the “Vandalae System." I’m going to go ahead and call that a Seinfeld reference.
R2-D2 and C-3PO do not appear in this story. C-3PO is still a captive of the Empire after being captured by SCAR Squad during the events of Last Flight Of The Harbinger. R2 took off in Luke’s X-Wing to rescue him during the Yoda’s Secret War storyline.
The crystal containing the intelligence known as Eternal Rur was, of course, obtained by Aphra in her debut solo storyline. It doesn’t take Luke long to realize that this Rur is not a Jedi when he gives him advice.
In addition to being collected in its own trade paperback, the entirety of The Screaming Citadel is also supposed to be included in the hardcover Doctor Aphra Volume 1, which is set to be released 10/02/18.
Comic Pack Wish List:
Two of the Queen’s minions, Bombinax (image 3 above) and Vespinax (image 2 above, standing beside the Queen), would make very cool figures and could easily be utilized in displays and dioramas unrelated to this particular story.
Score:
This is not a great story. If you are a big fan of Gothic horror, you might enjoy it just because that’s basically what it is. As I said above, there is some good dialogue and really nothing wrong with the art. I struggled with whether to give this 1 or 2 Skulls (there’s no way it would be higher). If I could I would give it 1 and ½, so I’m just going to bite the bullet and say: 2 Skulls.
