Comics The Screaming Citadel (One-Shot, Star Wars #31-32, Doctor Aphra #7-8) (5/5 Released)

Hard to enjoy the art when that's the worst about this series!

 

The story had promise. They fell over their own feet with the subsequent issues.

The art is by far one of the biggest criticisms of this arc, so it reeks of tone-deafness to say, stop criticizing and enjoy the art.

The story is haphazard and sloppy. They had the breadcrumbs of something very cool with the wookie aversion. Then the pay off is, "they are hard to control when we put a symbiotic crab on them." That is just a lazy cop-out.

Even just a small twist in that the Wookiee have a stronger resistance to the crabs would have made for a better story of BK or Chewie wandering around the Citadel and faking being under control, but then when the time is right proving that they never were under the spell would have been better.

What happened to the mutant mob? That story line just fizzled up. Would have been cool to see the Queen trying to make hybrid creatures to "create" a force user through experiments. But what does she want to do with Force Users? Simply suck their life force. Very uninspiring and falls flat to the story.

Even showing the Queen unlocking Rur would have been a more interesting use of pages. Instead, what do we get? Aphra talking to a stone who seems to completely have changed from the Rur we met earlier. Instead, we get a knock of Magic Mirror.

Ugh.

Why did they delegation so desperately want to meet the Queen (the cliff divers). The Queen has done absolutely nothing to make her seem like the Person of Interest all the side characters seem to eager to meet.

If the island is all full of mindless drones, how does anyone leave to spread the tales of how amazing the Queen is?

And her lackeys? From 100 to 0 in a single issue. What seemed like a cool hierarchy in the one shot, turned into beebop and rocksteady with the elegance of a brick screaming through a living room window.

I hope I can enjoy Aphra's next arc back in Gillen's hands.

Not sure I am too excited for the Luke and Leia stranded arc. I am looking forward to Lando/Sana though.


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Are we even sure that there will be an arc in the main comic right after the conclusion of Screaming Citadel? Seems like we're getting a few one-shot stories, #33 about Luke and Leia on the GFFA Blue Lagoon, #34 about Sana and Lando on Coruscant, and #35 about Han and Chewie smuggling for a Hutt.

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I guess I thought they all connected for one arc somehow. I am ok with one shot stories thiugh


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Umm....Threepio is still in the hands of Vader.

 

Why do we care about their reminiscing of Tatooine? The way this series is going, I expect campfire stories over the exhaust port to be a 3 issue arc.


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And R2 tries to rescue him too!

 

That's twice now they've squandered an interesting premise.
Why has the 'life force' gone from something ethereal to a liquid the queen sucks out of a tube?
Why do the parasites need the life force anyway?
Why has Rur gone from homicidal to life coach?

 

I confess, the Screaming Citadel has turned into a massive disappointment. Which, of course, I'm echoing a lot of opinions on.

What I was hoping for from this book was Luke Skywalker encountering a group of Dark Siders other than the Sith and expanding Star Wars lore in a way similar to the existence of the Knights of Ren and the Order Aspectu. Instead, they've been remade as a group of Anzati look-alikes except they don't have the benefit of being actual Anzati either. It also feels like they've retconned the premise half-way.

Part of the problem is also the fact the parasites are inherently uninteresting compared to a group of Dark Siders. We have Luke Skywalker and Aphra basically just enduring a typical zombie story with the parasites and the other heroes jumping in to save them in a bunch of mindless action beats. Given Luke is at a uniquely ignorant point in his history, having him discover things like the Sith exist and other groups of Force users would have been awesome. However, they jump directly into the action with no real development for the characters.

This seems like a story which would have been much better if it had been a "graphic novel" versus a comic book.

 

Isn't "graphic novel" what people who are too embarrassed to admit they read comic books call comic books?

 

Actually no, technically graphic novels are supposed to be self-contained stories written for trade paperbacks versus comic book collections.

In practice, it's a non-distinction but this is just a bunch of running from zombies.

It's basically just needing them to unmask the Queen as Old Lady Smithers to be an episode of Scooby Doo.

 

You know, honestly, Larroca's work on Darth Vader got a fair amount of flak around these parts, but I don't remember it being anywhere near as weak and derpy as it's been here. Is it the crossover rush to blame?

 

I actually liked SOME of the Vader art.

Here...we'll, I can't even say nice try, because I know it COULD be better


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I am in the minority here, but I really enjoyed the fourth installment of the Screaming Citadel...

Spoiler

The dialogue between the Queen and Aphra was very well done. Her comfort (legs extending resting on the bed) and her quips with the Queen and her mind-controlled henchmen are very funny. Also, the shift in scenery to Luke hooked up to that apparatus and then to Han was very entertaining to me. In fact, all of the parts of SW 32 involving Aphra were great IMHO. I actually loved the part where Aphra is talking to Rur. I think it makes perfect sense that Rur is different contained in the crystal than he is in the citadel. The citadel from the first Doctor Aphra arc probably empowered the crystal to manifest itself the way it did. Contained in the crystal, Rur isn't as powerful to do what he likes. And Aphra feeling actual guilt for what she did to Luke is great for her character development.

Rur's last line "That is also untrue" is very interesting. It's untrue that Aphra's only friend is Rur, because she actually has a friend in Luke? Or it's untrue that Aphra is lucky because she has Rur who will seek to destroy her? Love the green light frames.

Doctor Aphra #8 gives us a lot to look forward to. Symbiote-infused Luke versus the Queen. Sana hunting Doctor Aphra with the murder droids. Black Krrsantan still running wild. Han versus Leia. And how Aphra is going to leave with the crystal...will Aphra have to betray Luke again in leaving with the crystal? I imagine the answer is yes. Will Luke still feel that Aphra is her friend in the way she is "rescuing" him, even if she leaves with the crystal?

Then, there is Ashley Witter's variant cover coming up for Doctor Aphra #8 which is one of the coolest SW covers I've seen.

This is great stuff. I love it. {/spoiler]

 

Jedha John Yeah as I can see from your avatar you likely put a high level of importance on seeing Aphra's character get developed. I'm pretty much the same way as Aphra has pretty much become my favorite character in the comicverse. And that is one of the main plusses of this arc is that Aphra has received a lot of good development.

I can totally see where other people are coming from though (who may not care quite as much about the Aphra character) because the main plot has been a little hard to get into with it being about some crazy witch trying to take over people's minds.

 

I suppose this is a good arc for Aphra fans (I swing back on forth-sometimes I like her sometimes I hate the very premise of indy in space) but for fans of the big three this is awful. Luke is naïve, Han is incompetent and Leia is a b****

 

Again, I love Dr Aphra and I care about her. It doesn't mean I liked this arc

 

I agree. I liked a lot of this issue, especially the Aphra development. I have issues with the story overall, but it's looking like they might stick the landing.

And I get the complaints about the art, but there are also panels that I absolutely love (especially focusing on the Queen, Sana, and Aphra.) To me it looks like the artists worked really hard on panels like those, and then realized they had an entire comic left to complete in very little time.

 

I feel like Aphra's development in this arc has just been a little too back-and-forth. There's no one particularly objectionable thing, but overall it feels more like inconsistent characterization than internal conflict.

 

I think my biggest problem is I don't care about Aphra here. I care about Luke learning about the Jedi and facing some Dark Sider magicians.

 

Dr Aphra and Sana are my favorite (especially because we need more asian/black female characters). The next short story could be about their past together

 

Sana: "I want to call you. I want to see you. I want.....I want...."

Aphra: " You're so needy. Look. I'm only around you for one thing."

 

Comic book sales have been extremely weak since the 90's.

The Star Wars brand makes this comic series a big fish in a small pond.

 

I just read the third installment of The Screaming Citadel, Doctor Aphra #7. It must have been done in a hurry because I counted three typos in it.

I continue to greatly dislike the characterizations of Luke, Han and Leia in the Marvel Comics. They show little like or loyalty to each other. Luke seems dumber than a box of rocks who leaves the Rebellion at the drop of a hat every opportunity he gets (seriously, Han sticks around the Rebellion more than Luke does), Han is unlikeable without any of the charm and Leia barely seems to like anyone when she isn't giving out-of-character "we don't kill" superhero speeches like she did during the Rebel Jail storyline. She shouldn't need lectures from homicidal and sadistic droids to learn how to treat her friends. Their "those are the breaks" attitude with Threepio after he was captured is not appealing either.

 

I guess everyone have in their headcanon how the big three should act.

These characters are what the writers make them. You can't say, but that's Out of character when the writers tell you these are how these big three really act. Besides, this is before ESB, so please take that into consideration. I mean, think, isn't Luke "dumber than a a box of rocks" before ROTJ? Yoda specifically tells him if he leave he can maybe save them, (could, not sure), but you will betray everything which they fight for. He leaves. What kind of person does that?