Doctor Aphra #3: Triple Double Cross

The latest issue of Doctor Aphra has a marvelous back-handed, double-dealing, tomb raiding aspect to it that has a charm all in its own. It certainly has a good mid-arc story progression aspect going for it, but it also has a ton of reveals and surprises. Following a cliffhanger ending, Aphra thinks half her team is dead. In fact, they are very much alive. Aphra speaks candidly and tries to deal with her captors. Her collages below listen on in disgust. This is an important moment. Time for all players to start showing hands. The issue is basically backstabbing after backstabbing as the team scramble to finish their mission and simply try to survive. Both teams manipulate their ways toward the resting places of both rings they seek in separate locations. Okka’s team meeting with supernatural hurdles, and Aphra’s team confronting more traps. by the end, one member of the group gets the upper hand over the others with some clever skill. That or he’s Just Lucky.

There is a very delightful theme to this issue. A lot is learned about Aphra by not just the story, but the art literally mirroring her with others. Multiple times in the issue there is a split/screen mirror effect put in place to show how Aphra is reflected by the other characters. In one panel, Aphra is shown in this style opposite Ronen Tagge as they deal. Another one shows a split Aphra and Okka, both discovering their finds, also split respectively. Finally, a third one depicts Aphra and Detta’s faces split with a jagged line, an indication they are one in the same, although diametrically opposed. The jagged line goes even further down the page as it bisects Aphra and Detta’s mirrored past. Yet before the issue even begins, the cover art has already clued the reader into this theme by showing Aphra screaming in a breaking mirror, her collages reflecting parts of her personae around her to her possible doom.

There is only one glaring weak spot to this issue, and that is the action in the issue. A good deal of it is meant to by mysterious, but a lot of it comes off just confusing and simply doesn’t seem to have much to do with all the character development going on. At one point, giant hands pop out of the ground and attack the characters out of nowhere. In another scene, shadowy attackers appear and are suddenly gone. Traps go off for no reason, and people just fall through pits a lot. It’s not that these things don’t add to the exhilaration of the issue, and it does seem apparent that further issues will offer explanation, but the confusion it causes is more off-putting and frustrating than intriguing.