Review: ‘Sana Starros’ #5 – ‘Facts of Life’ Wraps Up an Entertaining Series in Style
Sana Starros had a couple of things to wrap up in its final issue — rescuing Aryssha, Mevera and Grammy while her cousin gives birth to twins and finally lifting the lid on what happened with her and her brother Phel — and it did so tightly with plenty of style and badass moments thrown in, though there were precious few moments with the series’ villains.
All that was left plot-wise was the rescue mission itself and that’s where the issue starts, with Sana, Deva and her crew attacking Cerasus’ Imperial cruiser. The action comes thick and fast with some great moments for Sana. There’s even a quick cameo from a fan favorite Star Wars character thrown in for good measure, though in hindsight it seems random and unnecessary. The cameo was very fun though and I loved it while reading, so I’ll forgive it on this occasion.
We finally get the true explanation of what happened with Sana and Phel and while it is a tad rushed, I ultimately found it satisfying. It raises more questions about Phel’s character, although his story is left surprisingly open-ended. It seems his and Sana’s arcs are not done yet. Perhaps we’ll next check in with them after the events of Return of the Jedi…
Facts of Life is a very fun read that answers all the questions we had going in and wraps up everything quite nicely, while also leaving room to continue this series in future if need be. Not a lot of time is dedicated to the villains, but otherwise it’s a satisfying finale. I would certainly welcome more adventures with Sana and the Starros family.
Spoilers ahead…
Sana Starros’ final issue kicks off aboard the Imperial cruiser with Aryssha in the throes of labor, attended by her mother and Grammy. Aryssha reveals that she handily sliced the childcare droid and commanded it to damage the hyperdrive, stalling the ship long enough for Sana to come rescue them. Even though she’s been the damsel in distress for most of the series, I love how useful Aryssha has proven herself to be throughout the story. She’s retained much of her own agency, despite her predicament in the finale.
This enables Deva Lompop to enact the first part of their plan, which does seem to come together remarkably easily but I can overlook it considering how fun this issue is. Lanitri has infiltrated the Imperials under the guise of a hyperdrive engineer (I’m not sure if Hyperdrive Motivator is her job title or just the name of a part that needs replacing).
Lanitri swiftly manipulates the air control system, redirecting airflow to the command suite and spreading poisonous gas everywhere else, knocking nearly all Imperial troops unconscious (or killing them?) throughout the ship. Of course, Cerasus and Phel are both in the areas of the ship that are unaffected, but it makes it much easier for Sana, Deva and her furry friend (I forget the alien’s name) to board the ship.
Of course, it’s during the approach to the ship that we get our fun cameo. With Jand unavailable for some reason, the infamous Hondo Ohnaka steps in to help! The fan favorite character is well written, acting as a wildcard with some very amusing dialogue retaining his cheery disposition.
Sana gets a cool moment, disabling two TIE Interceptors with one ion shot, but unfortunately Hondo vanishes from the story as quickly as he appears. Hopefully they’re seeding future comic appearances in Doctor Aphra or another Sana Starros story, but otherwise his involvement here is bemusing; random at best, unnecessary at worst. Interestingly, this is his furthest appearance in the Star Wars timeline so far, so it’s nice to see that the notorious smuggler is still alive and well.
Once on board, Deva vents the gas and they make their way through the ship. They quickly find themselves outnumbered by stormtroopers and split up, with Deva heading to help Lanitra while Sana rescues her family. Sana finds them pretty quickly, only to be told Aryssha can’t move while she’s giving birth. Instead, she decides to help out Deva and Lanitra by heading to the comms room and pulling off a pretty awesome trick.
Telling Deva and Lanitra to stop firing until the count of three, Sana redirects audio from Aryssha’s chamber straight into the helmets of every stormtrooper on board, filling their heads with the screams of a woman in labor. Hilariously, it incapacitates the stormtroopers pinning down Deva and Lanitra, allowing them to finish them off with ease. The drawing depicting this is wonderfully creative, taking up a full page as we watch Aryssha’s screams snake their way through the ship.
As if that tactic wasn’t cool enough, Sana is treated to another badass moment. Leaving the comms centre, she is confronted by Phel and takes him out instantly, whirling on him with a quickdraw that shoots him straight in the upper torso without even taking the time to breathe. We know Phel thinks a lot of himself, so to see him incapacitated so quickly hit quite nicely.
It’s here that we get the full truth of what happened when they were teenagers. Phel blames Aryssha for encouraging his big sister to leave for university, leaving him all alone and believes Sana was so concerned with escaping life on Nar Shadaa (who can blame her?) that she didn’t care that she abandoned him.
Then predictably, Sana reveals that she did in fact come back to rescue him from the Imperial Academy on Lothal and he refused to leave with her, choosing the Empire over his family. Her rescue attempt is still a little too late for my liking — I’m not sure why Sana couldn’t have taken Phel with her to Bar’Leth in the first place — but now we see both sides and it’s not as if Sana completely ditched him.
However, the end of the issue hints further that Phel was brainwashed during his time at the academy and clearly his family has no idea. When Sana next meets her brother, she’ll presumably end up discovering this new detail.
With the Imperial forces defeated, Cerasus and Phel are bundled into an escape pod and left to be discovered by the Empire, who won’t look on their failure favorably. Phel seems to be losing his mind as his brainwashing starts undoing itself, while Cerasus swears revenge on the Starroses for taking his ship, his wife and his twin daughters.
Sana heads off with Lanitra and we get a panel flashing back to Doctor Aphra under the tree when Sana last saw her. It suggests that Sana might have found somebody new by the time she next meets Aphra, although we barely spent any time with Lanitra in this series so maybe it’s just a fling to show she’s moving on from Chelli and is her own person.
Aryssha gives birth to twins, the Starroses are safe and Deva commandeers the Imperial cruiser for herself. Everyone gets a happy ending and it would be easy to wrap this series up for good, but the open-ended nature of Cerasus and Phel’s fates does suggest we’ll be revisiting this series eventually.
When it does return, I’ll happily read more adventures with Sana Starros and her family.
Rating: 8/10
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
