Star Wars: Doctor Aphra No. 39 review: Dress warm

The penultimate issue of Doctor Aphra puts Aphra and Tolvan face to face once again with one important secret to reveal.

Doctor Aphra has found herself in the hands of the enemy once again — which isn’t all that hard to do when you have managed to make pretty much everyone in the galaxy your enemy.

Things are ever so slightly more complicated, though, when you add in the fact that the person responsible for capturing you also happens to be your ex-girlfriend.

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Tolvan and Aphra have a unique connection … but not because they used to be lovers.

Don’t forget their matching tattoos. (We definitely did.)

They can still hear each others’ thoughts when the tattoos are activated, which brings Aphra closer and closer to figuring out where the rebel base is located, since Tolvan is a captain in the Alliance and has been given this information.

Once she discovers the name of the location — and once again leaves Tolvan behind (can these two catch a break? Please?) — she jettisons the escape pods and escapes with one of her not so beloved murder droids so he can transmit a message to Lord Vader.

“Dress warm” is all she tells him. Which is ironic, since he’s mostly machine at this point and it probably doesn’t matter. But that’s beside the point.

We don’t know what Aphra will do after she tells Vader what she knows. We all know he gets there eventually, but she will either return to his star destroyer to serve him or she will set out on her own mission to find Vulaada and the other Aphra (her father).

Knowing her, she’ll come up with something to get what she needs in order to survive. But since Tolvan and her crew are tracking her, they’re going to follow wherever she goes. Which means the rivalry between these lovers isn’t over. Yet.

Tolvan and Aphra are meant to be — this is Star Wars, where love doesn’t always get a happy ending but when it does it’s magical. We’ve hoped and waited for too long for them to let us down now. The questions now is, who will leave her old life behind to be with the other?

Empire Ascendant will be the epic conclusion to the current Star Wars comic before a new one begins next year, will drop on December 18 — the same day as the first issue of The Rise of Kylo Ren, intentionally being released just before The Rise of Skywalker.

It will also close out this chapter of Aphra’s story. But there is one final issue in this series before we get there. Ready or not, here it comes.

Related Story. Star Wars: Doctor Aphra No. 38 review: The murder droids are back. light

The final issue of Doctor Aphra releases on December 11 wherever comic books are sold.

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