Kieron Gillen has featured prominently throughout the Marvel's Star Wars titles, and while the writer's stints on both Darth Vader and the main Star Wars series itself were all great, Doctor Aphra continues to be the company's best and brightest title.
Co-written by Simon Spurrier from the fourteenth issue onwards, Aphra follows the eponymous character after they part ways with Darth Vader, and it bursts with energy in every panel. A lot of that comes from the fact that Aphra is just about the best addition to the expanded canon since Thrawn was introduced all those years ago, with creator Gillen having taken the concept of a snarky space Indiana Jones and deploying it to great effect.
Indeed, Aphra isn't just a brilliant Star Wars comic, but one of the best all round books of the year too. And while yes, other Star Wars titles could lay claim to a spot amongst the very best, Aphra is far and away the best sci-fi book on the shelves. Its contemporaries - while great - have no chance of catching it.
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Were there any Star Wars comics we missed? Any that you think you'll now check out? Let us know in the comments below!
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
