Assisting Aphra on her mission was a new character named Rexa. What can you tell us about her?

Gillen: The original idea for her was she’s like Lobot. I wanted a big, physical character with a Lobot style presence. A Lobot who could break your arm struck me as fun. You’ll see a lot of that in what Si is building in our second issue. The way we tend to co-write is I write one issue and then Si writes different issues and then we weave things together.

The cast that appear in the second issue of the arc are on the cover of issue #15, and they’re an interesting group of oddballs. They’re people who have already appeared in Star Wars and people we’ve created from scratch. Rexa fits in that mix because if you’re doing a Dirty Dozen style set up you want to be like, “Oh, I know that one.” In the case of Rexa, she’s a cyborg, physically imposing woman, killer.

Spurrier: I’m trying to find the exact bit of kit we stuck on her head because it’s not exactly the same as Lobot’s, but it is similar. Found it! Rexa Go: human female with an AJ^3 cyborg construct. I believe it’s an earlier model than the Lobot one.

Gillen: Yeah, Aphra is an archeologist book. So a lot of what we do involves digging up old Star Wars ideas. We look for stuff that is already in the canon or stuff that was in the canon and can be reintroduced. So we make up a lot of stuff, but we also pull stuff from the archives, if you will.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #15. drawn by Emilio Laiso and colored by Rachelle Rosenberg

Spurrier: That reminds me of a brief conversation we had the other night. There’s a tendency when working in a shared universe, especially a superhero universe like Marvel’s, to try and take some sort of ownership of everything you’re doing. So it’s easy to view the elements that juxtapose or crossover in a relatively cynical way. You often do it because it’s good for the book and the shared universe, rather than because it’s creatively exciting.

The sense I’ve immediately got from Kieron and the editorial team is that one of the joys of the new, ever-expanding take on the Star Wars universe is that it is, so far, relatively disconnected. There are all these wonderful little things going on in it, but there are a billion opportunities to make gentle, non-obstructive connections between those things.

So if you assemble a team of rogues there’s inevitably going to be one or two people who have appeared on screen before. Then there’ll be some who seem new, but relate to existing concepts or characters by one or two degrees of separation. As with all things comic related, the continuity should serve as a sort of Easter Egg for people who have deep dived into the canon, rather than an obstacle for people who don’t know all the stuff. It is there though if you’re looking for it.

One character that suddenly found herself back in Aphra’s orbit in issue #14 was the former Imperial Captain, now Lieutenant, Tolvan. It feels like there’s clearly some chemistry and attraction between her and Aphra, but given the fact that Tolvan is an Imperial who’s mentor was Inspector Thanoth I’m guessing she prefers a more controlled, orderly life. Is that a fair description of her?

Gillen: [Laughs] One of the major influences on this arc is the movie Out of Sight, where a criminal is pursued by a law enforcement officer and there is chemistry. When we created Tolvan for the first arc of Aphra this was the sort of plot I was planning for her. I thought when we got to year two that she would definitely be interested. So it is a kind of opposites attract thing, but Tolvan is a woman who’s been treated badly by an evil military organization.

Part of the joy of Tolvan for me is that she doesn’t particularly care about the Empire. She’s a careerist and the Empire is a good career option. If you’ve got a military bent, you’ve grown up in the Star Wars universe, and you want to get ahead what do you do? You join the organization that’s there. [Laughs] So she’s definitely bad, but the question is how bad do you consider her?

Spurrier: There’s a really lovely speech in issue #17 or #18, I can’t remember, about the reason people are attracted to order. I won’t go into it, because you’ll get to it when you get to it. There are a multitude of different reasons though. One of those applies to Aphra, and is something that the series keeps coming back to. Why, given who she is, is Aphra prepared to be a puppet of Vader and all the things that happened to her in the past? One of the alternate answers applies to Tolvan as well.

So they are very opposite, but they are united in the sense that they are drawn to a sort of hierarchal structure for different reasons.

Page 3: Reinventing Grant Morrison as a Super-Violent Star Wars Droid

What else can you tell us about the tone and action of this arc? Based on what you said earlier about assembling a team, it sounds almost like a heist type story.

Spurrier: Yes, it’s very much a heist story. The joke being that the people involved in the heist don’t necessarily know at all times what they’re trying to steal. And when they know what they’re trying to steal they certainly don’t know how they’re trying to steal it.

The cover to issue #15 depicts the team of oddballs, as Kieron described them earlier, that are major players in the heist. One of the thing we’re quite keen on is that they’re all really exciting characters, any of whom could support a story of their own, and none of them are safe, as we will quickly see. They won’t all come out of this.

What can you tell us about some of the heist crew members that we’ll meet?

Gillen: TALK ABOUT THE DROID!

Spurrier: Yes, there’s a droid called Dek-[Nil]. He’s one of Aphra’s creations. He’s basically a repurposed Droideka, one of the old Destroyer droids from the Clone Wars. He’s had a bunch of old probability tech installed in him, which means he sees the world in terms of the skeins of probability and improbability. More importantly he’s had his existential circuits completely rewired. [Laughs] So he sort of dances through life in this dream of wonderful, psychedelic, godly communion. Basically, if Grant Morrison were a droid he’d be Dek-[Nil].

Gillen: Yes, if Grant Morrison was a droid and really liked shooting people. [Laughs] He’s an agreeable, psychedelic, Droideka. And he’s wonderful. That’s Aphra right there. [Laughs] It’s like, “Aphra, why would you build that?”

Spurrier: [Laughs] Because she can.

We can go down a deep hole, which I won’t, talking about the other characters. Couple of tasters: there’s a Defel, which is one of those werewolf like things that shows up in the Mos Eisley Cantina. She’s extremely sarcastic. There’s also a lot of action revolving around Tookas, which are these cute, snuggly beasts. Also, in issue #17 there’s a big, surprise guest appearance. I can’t say anymore about that except that character stays with us until the end of the arc.

EXCLUSIVE: Art from Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #15. drawn by Emilio Laiso and colored by Rachelle Rosenberg

What can you tell us about the places your characters will visit and the people they’ll be up against?

Gillen: Rebels, Imperials, and basically everything else. They go and steal stuff from pretty much everyone.

One of my favorite things to write in any Aphra script is she goes into a place and you get the ¾ splash page of “Cool! Look at that!” Basically Aphra goes to a place and goes, “Cool! Look at that! . . . Let’s steal some stuff. [Laughs]

Spurrier: Usually you get three pages before what starts as a “Cool!” turns into an, “AHHH! It’s going to kill us!”

Helping you bring to life this next phase of Aphra’s adventures is Emilio Laiso, an artist who worked on Marvel’s Rogue One adaptation. He’s familiar with the Star Wars universe, and he’s also great with emotions and humor. What do you guys enjoy most about his work?

Gillen: He’s really great. His work reminds me of Nick Bradshaw. It’s got a lot of the European clear lines. It’s also got a bit of that post Bradshaw cartooning. Everything seems really alive. It’s completely clear, and you get a lot of real nice emotions between people.

My favorite thing is he really gives a sense of place with his establishing shots. When Aphra goes to all these different locales you quickly go, “Oh yeah. I know these places.”

Spurrier: He has to draw quite a lot of difficult stuff. When you have a team of like seven to eight characters running around doing a heist it’s very difficult to expect an artist to not only feature them all, but also leave you room so that they’re all having their little characterization moments. You also want them to keep an eye on dialogue, and all the extremely challenging things I always throw at my poor long-suffering artists. [Laughs] But Emilio’s handled it all with great aplomb. So well done to him.