Review: ‘Dark Droids’ #1 – ‘Scourge of the Droids’ Part 1 Ignites a Droid Revolution
The final Star Wars comic crossover of the year is here, as a sinister presence begins possessing mechanical beings across the galaxy in Dark Droids.
Immediately the issue gives you the impression that Dark Droids is the culmination of this current run of all the Star Wars comic series, telling us that the catalyst for this story was already seeded in previous series, such as Doctor Aphra, Hidden Empire and even Han Solo & Chewbacca.
As someone who wasn’t expecting anything grand from this story, writer Charles Soule does an excellent job of letting you know the kind of threat our heroes and villains will have to deal with, something that is calm, ruthless, malevolent and hungry to expand. The comic’s prologue immediately makes it clear that this is not an enemy to be trifled with, something very different to the threats we’ve seen so far in this comics run.
There’s also an intriguing lore addition to the Star Wars galaxy, a civilization the likes of which hasn’t really been in Star Wars canon before. I can’t say anything more without giving anything away but I immediately find it fascinating. I’m eager to know exactly how this civilization began and how it continues to exist in the galaxy away from the prying eyes of an ever-expanding Empire.
This first comic is mainly concerned with establishing the new enemy and putting all the pieces into place so the crossover can really get to work across each of the individual comic series, but the threat is dark and terrifying and I’m deeply interested to see how it plays out.
Spoilers ahead…
So it seems the big new enemy is none other than the Spark Eternal, which debuted in Doctor Aphra and was finally vanquished during the Hidden Empire crossover event after several months of issues where it possessed Aphra’s body and threatened to end the Sith once and for all. It seems fitting that it gets to take on the galaxy now after a comparatively smaller battle against Doctor Aphra and her friends.
Though defeated at Amaxine Station, it seems the Spark ended up inhabiting the disc-like neural core of Ajax Sigma, the self-aware droid from the High Republic era whose consciousness was hidden away by Han and Chewbacca in their comic issue. Rather than bond with an organic being like Aphra, the Spark melds with Ajax Sigma instead and becomes a new being entirely that wants only to spread its consciousness to every droid in the galaxy and kill all organics, just like Sigma originally desired.
We see it start by infecting a KX Security Droid that’s part of an Imperial salvage team cleaning up the wreckage from the Hidden Empire crossover on Amaxine Station, and once it makes its way back to the Star Destroyer it infects every droid aboard. With thousands of droids suddenly at its disposal, it makes short work of the humans, either by suffocating them, electrocuting them or some other gruesome method.
Because you’re witnessing all this from Spark/Sigma’s point of view, it really feels like the droid’s victory is inevitable. Usually the only villain with that kind of power is Darth Vader, so it’s intriguing to get another villain with a similar vibe.
Elsewhere, we meet The Colony of the Second Revelation, a temple full of new and ancient droids that have all become self aware and started their own religious group. We know very little about them, except that they have gotten wind of Spark/Sigma’s occupation of the Star Destroyer. Their existence is potentially a huge deal in a galaxy where most droids exist in servitude to organic beings, though the fact that droid roles don’t change by the time of the sequel trilogy suggests that things won’t end well for this group.
The group’s leader is also referred to as Ajax, indicating that he is of the same Ajax droid series as Sigma. He reveals he was once a warrior droid before taking on this pious role, and vows to destroy the malevolent droid before it dominates every machine in the galaxy, preventing them from attaining “enlightenment”, which is essentially self awareness.
It seems the group is small but I’m eager to learn more about them and how they’ve managed to exist in secret all this time. This is the first time anything like droid rights have really been looked at in Star Wars canon — L3-37 in Solo: A Star Wars Story aside — and it will be interesting to see how Soule tackles this topic, considering the franchise’s inconsistent treatment of droids in its stories.
We’re also given the revelation that the location of the Rebel fleet has existed within the Empire’s databanks for some time. I assume that the reason they haven’t been found yet is not just that the Empire’s analysts are too stupid to spot them, but perhaps this ultra-intelligent droid consciousness was able to cross-reference Imperial data on the Rebels to find the fleet by itself.
It sends a single mouse droid to the fleet’s location, which attaches itself to the Mon Calamari capital ship and begins to spread the Spark/Sigma virus throughout the vessel. We learn by the end of the issue that C-3PO has been possessed, so the action can really start to get underway now both the Empire and the Rebels are affected by this attack. I’m intrigued to see what’s in store.
Rating: 7/10
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.
