Doctor Aphra #10: Explosions Love Aphra and Vice Versa

This issue does well by starting with and maintaining a tense hostage situation right of the bat. The storyline in this series has already been pretty on edge, but this adds fuel to that drama fire. On top of that, only Aphra knows how unstable the contested engine really is. This issue is suspenseful and nail-biting. It has lots of shooting and action and explosions. Unfortunately it doesn’t not do too much to really move the plot along.  It’s not a poor or boring offering, but feels a bit like pretty filler material. It does not live up to being a prelude to the War of the Bounty Hunters series much either. Frankly, it feels like just a regular Aphra story, but without much plot line progression. However that might not be the issue’s fault all that much as it is suppose to tie into the larger crossover event and it has to do it mid-arc. That is certainly tough to maneuver.

A large chunk of this issue involves the character Just Lucky who has been having parallel adventures in Canto Bight in previous issues of this series as well. Lucky started out as a sniper for Aphra who betrays her and basically leaves the main story. As the series progressed, his own story and background is played out and the audience learns he is really a good guy forced to do bad things a s a victim of circumstance. So far, and through most of this series after betraying Aphra, his story has been completely unrelated. Most of this issue remains the same. However, the two storylines look like they are finally going to convene. The issue ends with Lucky and his partner headed to the same place as Aphra and Sana. Hopefully the series going forward will have a more cohesive storyline. Sadly, Just Lucky is not a strong enough character to stand on his own yet.

One of the things most exciting about this issue is not the story, or even Aphra at all. It is the very last page. It shows Aphra and Just Lucky’s profiles opposite of each other, making it look further like they will meet soon, but the really neat bit is the very bottom triangular patter showing Durge. Durge is an Expanded Universe character from the early 2000s. He was one of the few Clone Wars characters that never made it into the CGI TV series, which would remain canon. Since then he has been a sort of forgotten, but still much-loved character for those who know him. The next issue of Aphra has been reported for months to have Durge recanonized as part of the Doctor Aphra part of the “War of the Bounty Hunters” event. It would seem they decided to preview the character a bit a little early, making this issue his real first new canon appearance and not the following one where he will be on the cover. Things like that usually end up adding surprise value to an issue nobody expected it too have. Even though this issue falls a little flat, the surprise look at Durge certainly is a treat.