Doctor Aphra: Chaos Agent #1 Review

by Henry Wood

Written by Cherish Chen

Illustrated by Gabriel Guzman - Colored by Mike Atiyeh

Lettered by Joe Caramagna

Edited by Mikey J. Basso, Drew Baumgartner, Mark Paniccia, Robert Simpson & Grace Orriss

After the fall of the Empire, Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra is up to her old tricks but has a new authority on her tail! Will everyone’s favorite rogue archeologist get out of this unscathed, or will she be forced to join up with a new organization to save her skin? With her favorite farm boy in tow, will Aphra finally change or is she doomed to continue to harm everyone around her?

Almost a year after the end of her second series, Doctor Aphra returns with a new creative team anchored by writer Cherish Chen (Radiant Red) and artist Gabriel Guzman (Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows). Coming off of two fan-favorite series, they have a daunting task ahead of them. Much like Alyssa Wong at the start of their run, Chen and Guzman begin with Aphra separated from her previous supporting casts, while emphasizing that this is a new era.

The charm of Aphra is definitely still here and that helps the book while it has to set up a new status quo. The New Republic factors heavily into this new status quo for Aphra and I am excited to see how this will work for Aphra. Without going into specifics, it is, to my mind, a fairly predictable status quo for this era of Star Wars, but there is a lot of potential for both hijinks and character development, so I think there is a lot of promise here.

Luke’s inclusion felt pretty natural here, and Chen does a good job of playing off the established relationship and dynamic between them, while still presenting development. Aphra makes a crack about Luke being a galactic hero, and his reaction to that illustrates how he has changed since they last saw each other. Luke is still ever the optimist, especially about Doctor Aphra and that drives this plot forward. It is still the same central question of the previous run, being “can Doctor Aphra change?” but asking the question in a different environment makes it feel at least somewhat fresh.

My only real complaint about the book is that Gabriel Guzman’s inks can sometimes too heavily emphasize the shadows on characters’ faces and bodies. This, in my opinion, makes the art a little too dark and doesn’t really emphasize the lighter parts of the art and makes everyone seem more sinister than I think is the intention.

Overall, it’s a new start that feels very similar to the previous new start. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, but it does feel somewhat repetitive with what has come before. That being said, there is definitely the potential for an interesting story to be told here and I’m excited to see what Cherish Chen and Gabriel Guzman are cooking up.