Creative Staff:
Story: Kieron Gillen
Art: Marc Laming, Will Sliney
Colors: Jordan Boyd
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
Doctor Aphra has a troubled past full of parental drama and war. But what about her Wookiee shadow, Black Krrsantan? Find out just how this Wookiee warrior is as frightening as they say…and then some!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Annuals are always dicey propositions for me that date back to far too many years of buying them from the Big Two and getting some weak stories and untested artists. While there have been blips of brilliance along the way, that wariness is ingrained now. With my digital subscription including them automatically, and it having a higher price, I’m even more wary. But, sad to say, Star Wars is where I won’t blink and just hope for the best. It helps that series regular writer Kieron Gillen is telling the tale here and he weaves things from the Darth Vader series into this as well, but the really big plus is that we get an issue of largely fantastic artwork from Marc Laming that just nails it in terms of creature design and layouts. Will Sliney fills in for the last few pages and you can tell the difference and that just made me adore Laming’s work all the more. I’ve loved what sliney has done over the years but it’s almost a jarring piece here.
Taking place just before the current arc in the main Aphra series with her auction, this one shifts back a few weeks with its larger structure while spending time within that doing a bigger flashback piece. The general idea is a fun one in that Aphra has lured a couple of undernet journalists to come interview the infamous Black Krrsantan about his story so that it can be sold outside of the usual Imperial holonets. There’s appeal there as they push that they don’t favor Imperial or Rebel factions but just the truth itself, but the two here in Dix and Dath are pretty much comedy pieces. They’re fun to watch and Gillen has them delivering some great dialogue but it’s an important and needed push outside of the Star Wars norms to have characters like this in here with their banter. It’s jarring but it’s intended to be so as there’s a kind of straightforward aspect to much of the franchise’s characters and their dialogue style.
What makes this work beyond them is that we do get Krrsantan essentially narrating his story from when he used another Wookie as bait on his homeworld to trap some slavers that were coming to find someone to bring to the pits elsewhere as potential gladiators. Krrsantan wanted to go, volunteered in fact, but only wanted to do so through the Xonti Brothers as that’s where he felt he’d get his best training. The story shows us his evolution over the course of this, including a neat nod to Cylo and his connection there, and it’s pretty fun to see how he survived the initial trials against so many others, gained his enhancements that have given him an edge, and still takes time in the pits in order to keep himself capable of it all. Combining that with the way we see him interacting with the journalists in the present period does wonders for giving him a whole lot more personality.
In Summary:
While not a critical story for enjoying the Doctor Aphra book, this annual serves to expand on the character of Black Krrnsantan in all the right ways and it helps to set up a little bit more of the current arc with how it all came to be. For my money it’s worth it just for Marc Laming’s artwork as that opening hunt sequence could make for a great cinematic moment alone. I really enjoyed his visual design combined with Jordan Boyd’s color work to really give it some weight. There’s a great lived-in feeling to so many of the scenes, from forest to bar to starship, that it really does work wonderfully. The main group from the Aphra series get their time in the spotlight here but it’s really a Krrsantan story and it’s one that definitely helps to make him a lot more interesting to watch as the series moves forward. Good stuff.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 23rd, 2017
MSRP: $4.99