Doctor Aphra Volume 1 collects the first six issues of Doctor Aphra by Kieron Gillen with art by Kev Walker (and a back-up story with art by Salvador Larroca).
Synopsis
A scene from the Young Doctor Aphra Chronicles
Having faked her own death to escape the wrath of Darth Vader, Dr. Aphra is on the Cosmatanic Steppes in the Outer Rim. She has managed to secure another valuable artifact and, being a certified and credentialed doctor of archaeology she expects to get top dollar for it at the...archaeology broker (?). Well, that doesn’t pan out because it turns out that her doctorate has been suspended and is currently under review! That’s right, the first action packed issue of Dr. Aphra is literally about her encountering a problem with her credentialing. Turns out her very own father dropped a dime on her about the possibility that she might have cheated (she absolutely did). He did this to get her to help him in his years long pursuit of the Ordu Aspectu, an ancient Jedi sect shrouded in mystery. Mr. Aphra believes the group benevelontly pursued universal immortality but were perseccuted by the orthodox Jedi; Dr. Aphra notes that others believe it just as likely that they were seeking immortality only for themselves and were murdering Padawans to get it. Their first stop is Yavin 4, where a group of Imperials led by Captain Tolvan are investigating the former Rebel base. With Black Krrsantan creating a distraction, they sneak into the main Massassi temple and use some crystals (those things can do everything!) to find the location of the Citadel of Rur, the headquarters of the Ordu.
Black Krrsantan takes care of business
On arrival there, they find the long dead corpses of ancient Jedi. Captain Tolvan and her troops show up as they explore the ruins, searching for the computer core in order to be able to restart it and access the Citadel’s records. Ever faithful Black Krrsantan holds the Imperials off while Aphra and her dad get to the core. Then he decides he’s had enough of this crap and heads back to the Ark Angel II and leaves (BT and Triple Zero were already on board, having gone back to get a crystal modulator). Now at the core, the Aphras discover the body of “Immortal” Rur. With a well placed crystal, they reactivate the core and a ghostly green presence emerges demanding to know when it is. It calls itself Eternal Rur and declares the corpse on the floor a false shell. According to Eternal Rur, thousands of years ago Regular Rur was working to create a copy of his intellect to preserve his knowledge; but what he was actually, and unintentionally, doing was moving his sentience (into a crystal, I think) and leaving an evil ghost in his body. This gave Eternal Rur control over machines. Anyway, long story short, he killed all the Jedi when they came to inspect the Ordu’s work, Regular Rur managed to dislodge the crystal shutting him off but the droids continued to act on their orders and killed everyone else. So, when Eternal finds out it’s been thousands of years since he was deactivated, he gets pretty upset and takes control of some droids to try to kill everyone. Dr. Aphra destroys the core and grabs his big, green personality crystal. They hook up with Tolvan and escape in her shuttle as the Citadel explodes. After leaving Tolvan somewhere in the Outer Rim, Aphra and her father drop off the Rur crystal at Quarantine World III (the same place we first met Aphra when she was stealing the 0-0-0 matrix). In the end, Aphra gets her doctorate reinstated, meets back up with Black Krrsantan and the Killbots and, in an unshocking non-twist, reveals that she is still in possession of the Rur Crystal, having delivered a fake one for safe-keeping.
Review
Captain Tolvan
Kieron Gillen followed up Darth Vader by giving us a series focusing on original comics character Dr. Aphra. It was a pretty bold move and goes a long way toward remedying the oft repeated complaint that much of the new canon is focused on the main characters and the events immediately surrounding the Original Trilogy. Rather than just sending Aphra off on another adventure, we get some fairly significant character development as she confronts her own past and her continuing conflict with her father. Furthermore, we also get some tantalizing glimpses into the ancient history of the Jedi in the new canon. It’s not much, though; in fact it’s a little frustrating that we don’t get more solid information. Dr. Aphra is well known to be inspired by Indiana Jones, and this particular story bears some striking resemblances to The Last Crusade. Aphra is pulled into her father’s world against her will, we learn that his obsessive quest after the Ordu Aspectu alienated her from him at a young age, the death of her mother is mentioned, father and child must escape an ancient structure as it is being destroyed, an extremely old person/entity is encountered, and both quests involve a search for immortality. Aphra, however, is not Indy. At the end of The Last Crusade, Indy and Henry are reconciled after learning to let go of what they were after. At the end of this story, Aphra is still lying, cheating, double-crossing, and chasing profit. This isn’t a criticism, mind you. I applaud Gillen for not taking the amoral, self-serving Aphra and turning her into a conventional hero just because she is the star of her own book.
The Aphras investigate the Citadel of Rur
With the exception of a back-up story drawn by Salvador Larroca in the first issue, the art in this story is provided by Kev Walker. At this point, Larroca had migrated over to the Star Wars title. I guess that’s a good thing, considering his art was the best thing about the Yoda’s War arc. Walker’s art isn’t bad; the layouts are good, most of the action is presented coherently. My only real complaints are that Aphra is sometimes made to look too childlike, kind of pouty in some panels (maybe this was an intentional way of conveying her state of mind being around her father); and the designs of the ancient Jedi and Ordu Aspectu members are fairly uninspired. I do, however, really like Captain Tolvan’s design. It’s the kind of thing that sets her apart from the garden variety Imperial officer; and you can’t help but wonder what happened to her.
Notes
Look! Kryptonite is canon in the SW universe now!
The main plot of this story is an homage to a Legends story called Blind Fury! written by Alan Moore with art by John Stokes and published in Star Wars Monthly 159 in the UK in July 1982. In it, Luke encounters the disembodied and computer bound remains of Rur, High Shaman of The Terrible Glare, a group that had been destroyed by the Jedi thousands of years earlier. He wants to continue his revenge against the Jedi, and when Luke tells him there are no more Jedi, Rur destroys his tower in a fit of rage. So, it’s actually more of a re-telling than an homage. Sadly, from what I can tell, Alan Moore would do nothing else of consequence in the world of comics.
So, what’s the deal with the Ordu Aspectu? Per the above synopsis, we get conflicting reports. By the end of the story, the facts seem to be that they were a splinter group of the Jedi who, after some conflict, were allowed to pursue their quest for immortality while allowing the Jedi to regularly inspect their work. I don’t think the entity calling itself Eternal Rur is truly the consciousness of Original Rur ( or even Famous, Original Rur). It may be a corruption of his consciousness or possibly just the darker elements of it, or even something altogether different.
There is obviously some connection between the Ordu Aspectu and the Massassi. Whether they had a direct connection or affiliation prior to their respective extinctions, or it was just a case of the Ordu making use of their crystal technology remains unknown as far as I know.
Aphra’s alma mater, the University of Bar’leth was previously mentioned in the Lando mini-series. Her professor was Korin Pers’s replacement after she was ousted.
On names: If it was revealed prior to this, I don’t recall, but Aphra’s full name is Chelli Lona Aphra. Lona was her mother’s name. As a child she was known as “Little Boop”. Her father’s first name has not been revealed.
Captain Tolvan is mentioned as having been in charge of security on Eadu. Was her presence there during the Rebel attack what led to her having the cybernetic replacements?
Comic Pack Wish List:
Tolvan is a must, Aphra’s dad would be good too. I’m pretty sure I’ve put him down on a wish list before, but let me say again we desperately need a Black Krrsantan figure.
Score
I would give this book 3 and ½ Bantha skulls, but Nomad says we can’t score on halves. So, if I have to round, I round down to 3 skulls. I guess because of the frustrating lack of any real substantive insight into the Ordu Aspectu and their ancient Jedi counterparts as well as the fact that this whole Rur thing is going to go on for a lot longer that it probably should in future issues. Nevertheless, this is fine start to the series and it comes with a high recommendation.
