A long way to go for the story but it still works.
Creative Staff:
Story: Simon Spurrier
Art: Caspar Wijngaard
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
One’s a cyborg with a bad attitude, the other’s a cold-blooded reptile. They’re happily married. They’ve been hired by a mysterious contact to bag an ultra-deadly monster from the heart of an ancient temple. N.B.: For “mysterious contact” read DOCTOR APHRA, who — and this will shock you — is definitely up to something. N.B.: For “happily married” read THIS IS GOING TO GET MESSY.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While annuals continue to be one of my least liked aspects of comics, the Star Wars side has been a bit better in having them be meaningful in what they do. But not always. With this one we get something that’s basically a side story that takes place within an earlier part of the run with series regular Simon Spurrier writing it. He’s gotten a decent handle on the characters so far and with Aphra being the only regular here it’s easy enough to work with. The book has the artwork and coloring done by Caspar Wijngaard and it’s pretty great throughout, though Apha isn’t really here until toward the end of it. There’s a good sense of location design to it and I like the character artwork as it deals with the slightly off-kilter stuff that you get with aliens in the Star Wars universe.
The premise for this one takes us past the outer rim to where there are just number classifications of planets. It’s here that a lot of strange things take place at times and those that want to exist fully out of the Imperial system operate. The focus is on a pair of monster hunters named Winloss and Nokk, a human and Trandoshan pairing that’s definitely amusing. They’re very distinctive in terms of how they hunt monsters as they won’t hurt them but they will acquire them for the right price. A bit of morality, you might say. They’re not high ranked but they’ve been called in by Aphra, who appears as a headshot on a hologram for much of the book interacting with them, to go after a creature that she needs acquired. Winloss and Nokk are definitely an amusing in-love couple that operates as a team as they don’t bicker but there’s definitely a lot of banter that you wouldn’t get from most other relationships.
Aphra has them going down deep into a series of ruins in order to get the oversized creature that needs it very quickly and that has them getting tempted by some artifacts that they come across from time to time and touches of what’s here. It’s not a big archaeological dive like one might get from Aphra but as we get to the gimmick of the book and the time limit and all it makes a lot of sense. There’s a decent bit of pacing to it when you get down to it but the book does feel somewhat overly long as it progresses in getting to said point. But the journey has its moments and the big reveals are definitely comically suited for a character like Aphra. There isn’t any sort of really big payoff in the classic sense since it’s a standalone tale but it provides for an enjoyable read overall.
In Summary:
Doctor Aphra is a fun character in general and this is a fun enough book overall, even if her presence in a lot of it is just a headshot hologram encouraging the journey. It makes for an enjoyable read the second time around once you have the trick of what’s going on but it was fun in the discovery phase too, especially if you figure out the trick ahead of time and enjoy the journey. Spurrier continues to handle the Star Wars world well, though I hope he gets the opportunity to orchestrate something big at some point, what Caspar Wijngaard’s artwork is really great and I hope we see him providing something for a miniseries or guesting on a main Star Wars book in the near future.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: September 5th, 2018
MSRP: $4.99
