Publisher: Marvel Comics (Paperback – 11 February 2020)

Series: Doctor Aphra – Volume 7

Writer: Simon Spurrier

Artists: Caspar Wijngaard (Doctor Aphra #37-40, Star Wars: Empire Ascendant), Elsa Charretier (Doctor Aphra Annual #3)

Colour Artists: Lee Loughridge (Doctor Aphra #37-40, Star Wars: Empire Ascendant), Edgard Delgado and Jim Campbell (Doctor Aphra Annual #3)

Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna (Doctor Aphra #37-40, Doctor Aphra Annual #3), Clayton Cowles (Star Wars: Empire Ascendant)

Length: 144 pages

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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So I just got through with watching the latest episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and it’s put me in a Star Wars mood (well, more of a Star Wars mood than usual), so I thought I would get a review together for the seventh and final volume of the excellent 2016 Doctor Aphra series, A Rogue’s End.

The Doctor Aphra series is an outstanding comic book series that I have been really getting into over the last couple of years. Spinning off from the 2015 Darth Vader comics, this series features a witty and unique protagonist in its titular space archaeologist, Doctor Aphra, who blasts around the universe bringing chaos and disorder in her wake. This has probably been one of my favourite comic book series of the last couple of years, and it is easily my top Star Wars comic at the moment. Unfortunately, this current run of Doctor Aphra has just come to an end, although a new Doctor Aphra series is just starting up with a different creative team. Writer Simon Spurrier and his artistic team produced an incredible and satisfying conclusion to their Doctor Aphra run with A Rogue’s End, the sensation final volume that follows on from the events of the excellent sixth volume, Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon, and is set just before the events of The Empire Strikes Back.

After saving the Emperor’s life from an assassination plot, archaeologist, scam artist and all-around disaster zone Doctor Chelli Aphra thought that she would finally be safe. Instead she finds herself trapped in the one place she has been running from for years, in the clutches of the most dangerous person in the galaxy, Darth Vader. Vader desperately wants Aphra dead, as she knows his darkest secret, his obsession with Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker, and it is only a matter of time before he finds an excuse to kill her.

Trapped aboard Vader’s Star Destroyer with her young companion, Vulaada, Aphra’s only chance to survive is prove her usefulness and help Vader find the location of the new Rebel base. However, Aphra is nothing if not resourceful, constantly looking for a way to game the system and extend her life. An encounter with a mysterious figure in an ancient temple seems to offer her the best chance of survival, until she finds out that it is her Jedi-obsessed father, Korin Aphra, once again causing trouble.

With the fate of everyone she loves in the balance, Aphra begins to devise another elaborate plan. With the help and hindrance of her ex-girlfriend, Captain Magna Tolvan, and the murderous droids BT-1 and Triple Zero, Aphra sets out not only to fool the entire Empire but to finally bring her affiliation with Darth Vader to an end. Can Aphra pull off the greatest con of her career, or will all her lies and deceit finally bring her the grisly end she has been running from for years?

Well that was another damn impressive and deeply enjoyable Doctor Aphra comic. Spurrier, who has been working on this series since late 2017 (when he cowrote issue #14 with Kieron Gillen, one of the original creators of the character), brings this series to an epic and satisfying conclusion with another incredible group of stories. This seventh volume of the series contains issues #37-40 of the Doctor Aphra series, as well as the Doctor Aphra Annual #3 and material from Star Wars: Empire Ascendant #1. This whole volume was deeply captivating and I loved every second that I was reading through it, especially as it combines and excellent story with some fantastic artwork.

At the centre of this book is an exciting and clever story of survival, deceit and redemption. The four issues of the Doctor Aphra series (#37-40) contain an amazing storyline that follows the series protagonist as she attempts to get out of the most dangerous situation she has ever found herself in. Spurrier tackles these final four issues with the same style that he has employed for most his run, blending together a tale of deceit, double-crossing and survival in the Star Wars universe with humour, fantastic action and a deep analysis of the troubled and complex character that is Doctor Chelli Aphra. This results in an addictive overarching narrative that is not only incredibly entertaining, but which also gets quite moving and emotional at times, especially when Aphra encounters all the important people in her life, many of whom have been damaged in one way or another by her selfish actions. I have to say that I was particularly impressed with Aphra’s master plan in this comic, especially as it not only showed off her skills for deceit and manipulation but it was motivated by a genuine desire to help those she loved, which represents some significant series-wide character development for her. I also appreciated how the whole storyline has some major connections to the events of The Empire Strikes Back, and I liked how it was tied in more to the main plot of the movies.

One of the other things that I really loved about this comic was the way that Spurrier wrapped up a ton of the storylines around some of the great supporting characters that have made this series such a treat. In particular, she manages to have some touching final meetings with her father, her ex-girlfriend, Tolvan, and her young sidekick, Vulaada, and this volume serves as a rather good conclusion to their various storylines (although I hope that they do appear in the future series). Her final meeting with Tolvan was pretty great, as the two have had a particularly chaotic and damaging love affair due to the actions of Aphra, and it was nice to see her finally prove Tolvan wrong and do the right thing for her. I also loved some of the scenes between Aphra and her father, and there is one incredible sequence where Aphra concisely recounts some of the adventures she has had throughout the series, and her father finally provides her with the advice and guidance that she has always sought from him. I really appreciated that Aphra finally gets some closure with these supporting characters, and in the three cases above she goes out of her way to protect them and bring them together to ensure that they have better lives. This is a major change in direction for Aphra, whose entire series has seen her repeatedly screw up and destroy the lives of everyone she meets, including those people close to her, something she is keenly self-aware of and deeply ashamed of. As a result, it was rather nice to see her finally step up and take responsibility for several people close to her, and to finally make what she sees as the right decision and leave them behind: “Love is letting go.” I also enjoyed the return of the two murder droids, BT-1 and Triple Zero, who have been highlights of both this series and the preceding Darth Vader series. I felt that both of them are rather well utilised in this story, and quite frankly you could not have wrapped this series up without them. It looks like both of them are going to be major features (in some form or another) of the next Doctor Aphra series, which should be fun.

Another character who Aphra gets a bit of closure within this volume is her oppressive employer, Darth Vader. Aphra and Vader have a complex and lengthy history together, dating back to the 2015 Darth Vader series where Vader forcibly recruited Aphra, and which ended with Vader believing that he had killed her, only for Aphra to trick him. Aphra has spent the subsequent run of her series constantly trying to stay off Vader’s radar, and continuously tricking him into believing that she is dead. However, after the events of Unspeakable Rebel Superweapon, she is firmly in his clutches and waiting to die. I really loved the whole interaction between Aphra and Vader in this volume, as for most of it Aphra is trying to trick or convince Vader to keep her alive, while Vader is looking for an excuse to kill her. This pretty much makes Aphra the most desperate we have ever seen her, as she is still rather traumatised from the events of Vader’s first attempt to kill her, and still gets an interesting array of nightmares about them. Despite this, Aphra is eventually able to turn the tables of Vader, thanks to her cunning, knowledge about the force, pieces she has gleaned from Vader’s past and technical ability. The way she is able to take him down is pretty impressive: “Don’t pick a fight with an archaeologist in a spooky old ruin. And don’t wage war against a tech criminal if you’re half a machine.” It makes for a great sequence, especially when she uses Vader’s own scary reputation against him. This scene also allows Aphra to have a memorable heart-to-heart with Vader, and she discusses the similarities the two of them share, mostly about how they are both living with a massive amount of regret. In the end, Aphra decides against killing Vader, saying, “I’m your biggest fan,” even though she knows that Vader will come after her in the future, even more determined to kill her. She actually has a rather poignant farewell with Vader, saying, “In a funny sort of way, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” which says a whole lot about Aphra’s messed up character, but is a fun and fitting reversal of how Vader ended their partnership in his series.

This volume features some tremendous illustrations from a truly talented team of artists. I really enjoyed the artwork that was featured within this story, and I think that it did a fantastic job of conveying and enhancing the complex and enjoyable storylines that the writer came up with. There are a number of well-drawn and well-portrayed sequences throughout this volume, although I particularly liked the one that made up the majority of issue #40, which featured Aphra facing off against Vader in a ruin filled with traps. There was also a rather good extended conflict between Aphra and Tolvan throughout a Rebel Alliance a spaceship that the drawings helped make particularly fun and chaotic, and which also did a good job of showing off the anger and complex emotions that filled their relationship. Overall, there was some fantastic artwork in this volume, and I think that the artists did an excellent job bringing the great characters and excellent story to life.

Most of what I mentioned above takes place in issues #37-40 of the Doctor Aphra series, but this volume also contains two extra stories, the Doctor Aphra Annual #3 and the parts taken from Star Wars: Empire Ascendant #1. Both of these inclusions were also written by Spurrier and are really tied into the narrative contained within the main plot of the volume, and I felt that these two inclusions did a lot to enhance my overall enjoyment of A Rogue’s End.

I did quite enjoy the fun story contained with the Doctor Aphra Annual #3, which focuses on some of the great supporting characters from the Doctor Aphra series. The self-contained story in this annual issue sees Aphra try to repay her debt to the monster hunters Winloss and Nokk, who previously saved her life, by providing them with information she is privy to while aboard Vader’s star destroyer. This information leads these two hunters to the Mos Eisley Cantina on Tatooine, where another former associate of Aphra, the Wookie bounty hunter Black Krrsantan, is in residence. This leads into a rather fun story which sees these characters and a rather slimy bartender go through all manner of trouble just for a measure of revenge. This was an excellent and compact story that contains a clever revenge plot, and it’s pretty damn hilarious. I liked how this annual followed the lead of the other stories in this volume by focusing on Aphra bringing together some of the side characters from the series, presenting the reader with a good conclusion to their association and storyline with Aphra. This story featured a different artistic team to the rest of the volume, resulting in a different and distinctive drawing style for the entire issue. I actually rather liked the style that this separate artistic team came up with, and I think that it fit the more humour-based storyline that that Spurrier came up with. Overall, this latest issue of the Doctor Aphra Annual made for an amazing entry in this volume, and I think that it worked extremely well with the other issues featured within it.

This volume also contained material from Star Wars: Empire Ascendant #1, which makes up a small story at the end of the book. This material focuses on the three people that Aphra saved throughout A Rogue’s End, Tolvan, her father and Vulaada. They are all on Hoth when the message that Aphra was composing in the final Doctor Aphra issue is received by the Rebel Alliance. This leads to a rather heartfelt and emotional scene in which the three of them discuss whether their lives where made better or worse by knowing Aphra, and whether she ever did anyone any good. Their musings are interrupted by one of the few other people in the Rebel Alliance who had any dealings with her, Luke Skywalker, who provides some information about a good deed she performed after the last time they saw her. I liked how Spurrier once again examine the chaotic and destructive personality of Aphra through the eyes of the people who knew her best, and it really matches the overall theme of the volume. I also liked the inclusion of Skywalker in this story, and it was a fun call back to the earlier volumes of the Star Wars (2015) series, which featured Aphra working with the main protagonists of the original trilogy. It was interesting to see Luke’s take on Aphra, and it is a bit of a crossover between the idealism of the main cast and the darker reality of the Star Wars universe that the cast of Doctor Aphra find themselves in. I had a good laugh at Tovan’s assessment of Luke as the farmboy who got bumped up to commander after one lucky shot, and I also loved their response to Luke’s glowing assessment of Aphra actually being a good person: “Should we tell him she also saved the Emperor’s life? Better not, nothing crueller than reality to a dreamer.” This short piece of material actually serves as a pretty good conclusion not only to the volume but to the Doctor Aphra series as a whole, and I think that its moving, character-driven storyline helped provide an emotional end to the entire series.

The seventh volume of the amazing Doctor Aphra series, A Rogue’s End, is another extremely entertaining and complex Star Wars story which I deeply enjoyed. Writer Simon Spurrier and his talented artistic team once again take the reader on another exciting and powerful adventure that not only serves as a great story in its own right but which also provides fans of Doctor Aphra with a meaningful and rewarding conclusion to the entire series. This volume gets a full five stars from me, and I would strongly recommend this volume, and indeed the entire series it concludes, to anyone looking for an outstanding and fresh Star Wars adventure.

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