You wanna fight some Deathstick? This is the only prequel joke I’ll make while talking about Doctor Aphra #15 written by Alyssa Wong, with art by Minkyu Jung and Victor Olazaba, colors by Rachelle Rosenberg and letters by Joe Caramagna.
This issue opens mid battle – both a literal firefight with Deathstick and a bickering argument between Aphra and Lucky. Their desire to blame each other for everything currently going wrong is only equal to Deathstick’s desire to hit them with her poisoned throwing blades. Honestly, I can understand the urge, as I’m sure it must be exasperating to try and intimidate a bunch of idiots as they instead focus on yelling at each other. Deathstick is putting a lot of effort into her whole aesthetic! They should pay attention!
They manage to drive Deathstick off, thanks to the shooting skills (and developing mutual respect!) of Sana and Ariole. But, as always, there’s another problem waiting in the wings: the Crimson Dawn’s guards have arrived at the treasure room, and the team is outgunned. Fortunately, they’re in a room filled with valuable artifacts. Surely they can come up with a plan?
Wong writes Sana and Aphra’s dynamic so well. I love the way that, even though they’re pretty much always furious with each other, they’re so willing to rely on each other’s skills to get them through a situation. Sana says she doesn’t trust Aphra, but when the shit goes down, the second thing she does (after diving for cover) is ask Aphra what the plan is. And Aphra doesn’t let her down– the room is full of weird, dark items, including a Thought Dowser, an artifact so dark that even the Sith didn’t use it.
That’s right: this thing has such rancid vibes that the SITH said no. And Aphra turns it on.
It’s a lot. The art here is really great– the sense of power and darkness is so clear, and it’s a little scary to see! The device allows Aphra to control the minds of other people, even to the point of making them injure themselves. Aphra is torn between amazement and horror– a piece of tech shouldn’t be able to do this–and the device starts to worm its way into her mind. At Sana’s urging, she’s able to put it down, but only after it burns out and injures her arm. Sana has to carry Aphra on their escape, but not before grabbing the data necklace that got them all into this mess. Fortunately, it seems like the rest of the guards are busy, almost as if there’s a crossover event happening elsewhere.
Our heroes make it to the hangar, and it’s time to make a daring escape! Or, because everyone involved in this fiasco is petty, it’s time to hold each other at gunpoint while they quip. I cannot possibly state how wonderful each of these idiots is. Fortunately, it seems as though everyone’s learned a lesson in maturity, and they decide to just go their separate ways and not kill each other. Unfortunately for Lucky and Ariole, Aphra’s idea of separate ways is that she and Sana escape, and she blows up Lucky and Ariole’s ship. Lucky did leave her to die, so you can’t really blame Aphra for being a little bitter.
Aphra and Sana make their escape, and start to talk over their next steps. I appreciate that Aphra says what we’re all thinking: at this point, her and Lucky aren’t really trying to kill each other anymore. It’s more of a…really violent prank war. She also admits that she’s feeling less pro-murder overall, too. Aphra is experiencing personal growth and truly hating it, but Sana seems a little hopeful. Is this possibly a good sign for interpersonal relations in the future?
Before we can find out if this adventure will make anyone a better person, we need to find out something much more important: was there anything of value, or at least some good gossip, on that data necklace?
Hacking in is going to be a little harder than usual, as Aphra’s electro-tattoos are fried from her use of the dark artifact. It turns out that using your tech to replicate dark force abilities? Isn’t really that good for your tech, or for your ability to sleep at night.
Sana points out that Aphra was good at hacking the old fashioned way before the tattoos, so it’s time for some old-timey hacking! For a very brief moment my tech-illiterate brain thought that Aphra was using a cassette tape with the tape pulled out, but alas, it’s just some tiny ipod-looking thing. Using it, Aphra is able to determine that Crimson Dawn has infiltrated every organization in the galaxy– and we see images of the Rebellion, the Empire, the Tagge family, and more. This seems like bad news, especially considering that Aphra just stole from them!
Liz Large is a copywriter with a lot of opinions on mutants.
