Who would dare steal the spotlight from the Dark Lord of the Sith?
A dark star rises in Marvel’s Star Wars comics line.
Today Darth Vader #25 marked the final issue of the villain’s series but one of his supporting characters is spinning off into her own book. Marvel announced Doctor Aphra via StarWars.com, the next comic book in Marvel’s line based on the beloved film franchise.
Part of what made the adventures of the former Anakin Skywalker so wild was Dr. Aphra and her “murder droids” as his unlikely ally. This corrupt archaeologist and her band of droids and crazy Wookies helped Vader in his schemes away from the Emperor’s radar.
As Kieron Gillen brings Darth Vader to a close, he will launch new adventures for the the first character in the new comics canon to get their own book. Kevin Walker will be the artist.
Gillen describes how Aphra became a fan-favorite and now headlining her own book:
“She’s fun! When I was sort of thinking about Aphra, the core of it was, Star Wars is about these archetypes. Archetypes, if you write them very badly, they become cliched. These very powerful, direct characters. You know, you’re not writing Proust. That’s not the point. The point is to be these big figures. A lot of my work was, “Okay, in terms of Star Wars, what sorts of characters fit well into that universe?” And it was, “Oh! The Indiana Jones archaeologist archetype. That’s fun, that makes perfect sense in Star Wars. Let’s do that.” Later, we do the genius detective archetype with Thanoth.
And of course, what makes it interesting in that is the ethical part of it. She has this very fun-loving attitude, she’s very fun to be around, but she’s really bad as a person. [Laughs] My description originally was, “Imagine Indiana Jones, how he goes about problems in that ramshackle kind of [way], but with his ethics inverted.” She became much more than that as she went through, and the push and pull between her and Vader, and she very much became an original person. But that was kind of the core of it, I think. And she’s kind of fun to be around.
The most interesting thing about what we’re doing with Aphra next is, she was designed to be Darth Vader’s foil. You know, she has to do a lot of the talking when Darth Vader doesn’t. Darth Vader will not make jokes. [Laughs] To be even a fun book to read, you need her to lighten it. But when you introduce her as a lead, that kind of changes the dynamic entirely. A) she becomes slightly more serious, and B) everyone else around her becomes a lot more deadly, as well.”
Gillen confirmed evil Wookie Black Krrsantan, Triple Zero and Beetee be part of the cast.
Here’s the StarWars.com link to Gillen’s entire interview.
Doctor Aphra arrives in December.
By Editor