Star Wars is a franchise unlike any other. Spanning decades of films, games, comics and more, it’s a world full of rich history, vibrant characters, epic space battles and of course, a certain energy field known as the Force. But not all Star Wars characters are created equal. Some are rugged criminals with a deep past of wrongdoing looking for their next chance to score big, some are reluctant heroes patiently waiting for their perfect moment to do good, and some are simply ordinary people swept up in a story that’s bigger than themselves with no hope of escaping the giant tractor beam they call life.
And then there’s Doctor Aphra, an original Star Wars comic book creation that checks all of the above boxes with luck, style and an awkward sense of grace that has led her to become one of the most interesting and successful characters this side of Tatooine, giving fans what is essentially a space version of the de facto pop-culture archeologist, Indiana Jones. Never heard of her? Well she tends to like it that way.
Debuting in the third issue of the 2015 Darth Vader series and created by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca, Doctor Chelli Lona Aphra is an all around tech geek and rogue archaeologist extraordinaire, bursting onto the scene when Star Wars big bad, Darth Vader, decided he needed his own lackey to help further his evil agenda across the galaxy. Sent out on various secret missions throughout the series, Aphra did what she does best: lie, cheat and steal her way to her prize, all the while avoiding capture at the hands of the Rebels and pretty much anyone and everything in between, her Sith Lord employer eventually included.
After Vader’s botched attempt at silencing Aphra at the end of his solo series, Aphra popped back up in her very own 2016 book, Doctor Aphra, where her mission was simply to survive. Unfortunately, this is something that is unsurprisingly pretty difficult, considering she constantly finds herself in over her head, mostly due to her morally corrupt and questionably sane lifestyle, as well as her tumultuous “friendship“ with two psychotic and sadistic murderbots named Triple-Zero and Beetee-One.
Struggling to make ends meet with her day-to-day job by stealing priceless artifacts, selling them to the highest bidder and then on occasion stealing said artifacts back for kicks, Aphra basically amounts to the anti-Indiana Jones of the galaxy in a sense that she isn’t always in it for the greater good like Indy. Eventually striking up another questionable friendship with Imperial military captain Magna Tolvan, Aphra sets in motion a deep, complicated romantic relationship between the two that permeates her first series and yet again leaves Aphra at the mercy of someone other than herself; a situation that predictably doesn’t end well for either woman.
Now, with the recent 2020 re-launch of Aphra’s series thrusting her endearingly selfish antics and charming misadventures back into the spotlight with a new crew and purpose, the good doctor successfully stands out from the pack as a unique voice that not only holds ties to some of the greatest Star Wars characters of all time, but also gives Indiana Jones a run for his money. Doctor Aphra might not have made the jump from comics to live-action just yet, but she’s an infinitely fun addition to the Star Wars mythos who has managed to carve out a spot of her own in the never-ending story of a galaxy far, far away.