And trust goes out the window!
Creative Staff:
Story: Kieron Gillen
Art: Andrea Broccardo
Colors: Antonio Fabela
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
“THE SCREAMING CITADEL” — PART 3 The Queen’s parasites are spreading. Things don’t look good for Han.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Screaming Citadel as an arc started off strong in the special but I struggled a bit with the second part of it as things got underway a bit more with its varied focuses. The third installment sets Kieron Gillen into action within the Doctor Aphra framework and it lets him definitely showcase the characters of this series in a great – and disturbing – way. Andrea Broccardo steps in for the art and it’s definitely a different style than the book so far and other installments in this arc and that can be jarring. But there’s just something about it when it comes to the layouts and camera angles with the corridor fights that’s just hugely appealing to me. Even better in a sense is that the queen comes across in a really striking way that helps sell her visually, which is important in this gothic-ish tale.
The chaos of the moment is what certainly helps to keep things moving here as we get Luke and Aphra trying to escape so they can advance their plan for their respective needs. Which is why the arrival of Han and the others aboard Aphra’s ship makes it more difficult than it needs to be, partially since Sana wants to kill Aphra and Leia just wants to chastise Luke for being the worst soldier ever. Gillen’s interpretation of their relationship at this stage is interesting but also feels like it would have worked better way back at the beginning of the Marvel Star Wars run rather than now, some thirty issues in. That said, Leia’s frustrating at trying to wrangle the guys that are playing by the seat of their pants has its moments. When you throw in some murderbots and Sana’s intensity it’s just getting ready to blow.
There are a lot of moving pieces here and it’s hard to pinpoint what the critical areas are. I loved seeing Luke defending Aphra and heading off with her toward the end to achieve their related goals only to get caught up in what the Queen can do. There’s also a lot to like in the blaster battle itself with all the personalities going at it and Sana’s frustration at all the men combined with her distrust of Aphra. The discover of the symbionts within the facility may have an Alien aspect to it that’ll be hard to shake but there’s such a creepy disturbing element to what Triple-Zero is doing with one of them that I can’t wait to see what the real fate of it will be because it could (and should) be a game changer and not something easily fixed. The middle segment of this arc is almost too much chaos when you get down to it but it achieves a lot of things. It just depends on what really matters in the remaining installments.
In Summary:
I’ll admit it took a few pages before Andrea Broccardo’s artwork click for me with this series but when it did I definitely dug it a lot. It just needed to not be in the middle of an arc as it’s jarring from the previous installments as it’s so different. It does serve the needs of this chapter well as she really captures the chaos and facial expressions incredibly well and combined with the color work it’s just wonderfully done. Kieron Gillen’s script keeps things moving and we get new levels of disturbing from our favorite murderbots that have me curious to see what’s next for them. Aphra’s a bit more background this time around, reacting more than anything else, but what we get is definitely fun and there’s a growing humanization to her that Luke is bringing out in some big and surprising ways. More, please!
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 31st, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
