Doctor Chelli Aphra is one of the greatest antiheroes of the Star Wars galaxy. As the opening scrolls of the movies like to remind fans, the story of Star Wars takes place a long time ago. As an archaeologist, Aphra is interested in the things that took place even longer ago— and turning those things into a profit or military advantage amid the constant wars of the series.
The character debuted in Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca's Darth Vader issue #3 where she was recruited to work for the Dark Lord. An ongoing theme of the series was to depict various characters in the Empire as dark inversions of the main heroes of the Original Trilogy, and Aphra was clearly inspired by Han Solo. But just as Han Solo is a roguish smuggler and a criminal, Aphra has quite a number of redeemable qualities to her— and at times, has even risen to the challenge to become a hero.
10 Hero: Rings of Vaale
In a recent story, Doctor Aphra was recruited to help find a lost artifact: The Rings of Vaale. These two rings are said to be cursed and are from a lost civilization that dates back to the High Republic.
She recruits an old girlfriend who is the only expert in the field, and even rescues said ex from a crime lord’s thugs. Then, she rescues her ex a second time, managing to save the ancient artifacts and trick the crime lord into incinerating himself.
9 Villain: Teaming up with Vader
Doctor Aphra’s first appearance was as a supporting character in the 2015 Darth Vader series by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca, where she helped the Dark Lord of the Sith on several missions.
Plenty of people end up working for a boss who does awful things, but generally speaking, anyone referred to as the “Dark Lord” is not the sort of person one associates with willingly. While she was not exactly able to say no to Lord Vader, she genuinely seemed to revel in working for him and fought hard to get back to him after the Rebels captured her.
8 Hero: Teaming Up with Rebels
In all fairness to Aphra, she worked for the Rebels as well as the Empire. After she was taken as a prisoner by the Rebel leader Hera Syndulla, Aphra helped the Rebels infiltrate the Tarkin Initiative.
There are hijinks aplenty, and having only recently finished serving Vader, Aphra is not exactly eager to let the Rebels become her new masters (despite the story where this happens having the title “Remastered”). She is not on their side, but she puts herself at risk helping them, which is to her credit.
7 Villain: 0-0-0 & BT-1
A mainstay of the 2015 Darth Vader series is that every major hero from the Original Trilogy has a villainous counterpart. Aphra is the dark inversion of Han Solo (and equally inspired by another Harrison Ford character, Indiana Jones). She also has two droids with her, Triple-Zero and BT-1.
Aphra recovered and unleashed the 0-0-0 personality matrix into the world. Now, the protocol droid she stuck it into is essentially an evil, bloodsucking C3PO who delights in the simple pleasure of torturing living things until they are no longer alive. Meanwhile, BT-1 is a blastromech, an assassin droid disguises as an astromech but packing more firepower than some star fighters.
6 Hero: Screaming Citadel
When Luke Skywalker and Aphra travel to a remote place called the Screaming Citadel, they discover an alien parasite species known as the Abersyn Symbiotes. These aliens attach themselves to people and take control of the host bodies, and that are intent on feeding off of people and spreading through the galaxy.
While she is normally at ends with the main cast of heroes, Aphra works with them to help stop this parasitic Abersyn Symbiotes. At the very end of the struggle, she gives Luke the advantage he needs to defeat the aliens' queen.
5 Villain: Treatment of Exes
Aphra has quite a number of ex-girlfriends floating around the galaxy, and pretty much every one of them has a grudge against her.
One of them, Sana Starros, actually has said she wants to kill Aphra. Most of them react with hostility whenever they see her. While Aphra has plenty of enemies, this is especially true of people who once loved her.
4 Hero: Saving Magna Tolver
While Aphra seems to betray, hurt, disappoint, or ruin the lives of her exes, there is at least one woman who Aphra hurt for all the right reasons, saving her life.
The Imperial officer Magna Tolvan was falling for Aphra. When it looked like Darth Vader would learn that Aphra was in fact alive, it put Tolvan and anyone else that Aphra associated with at risk. As such, she used a Bor Ifriem to alter Tolvan’s memories, convincing the other woman she had murdered Aphra in a jealous fit of rage. This allowed Tolvan to survive being interrogated by Vader.
3 Villain: Working for Domina Tagge
One of the most powerful crime lords in the galaxy is named Domina Tagge. She is ruthless, influential, and merciless. She is also incredibly resourceful.
But centuries before Domina was born, there was another dangerous threat menacing the galaxy known as the Null, a group capable of short-range light speed travel. She recruits Aphra to steal a piece of Null tech, something which absolutely should not fall into the wrong hands— and if it is not obvious, Domina’s hands are very much the wrong ones). Despite this, Aphra takes the job.
2 Hero: Saving Artifacts from Ronen Tagge
If the name Ronen Tagge looks suspiciously familiar, it is because he is Domina’s nephew. He is a crime lord who inherited a small fortune from his aunt. Ronen has a particular compulsion: To obtain rare one-of-a-kind objects of great value, touch them, and then incinerate them so that he will be the last person to ever touch them again.
At some point in the past, Aphra retrieved rare artifacts for Ronen, but when she learned of his intentions, she stole them back (while keeping the money she was paid). More recently, she tricks him into incinerating himself, thereby saving all artifacts and art from his mad obsession.
1 Villain: Geonosian Queen
While working for Darth Vader, Aphra traveled to the planet Geonosis and helped the Sith Lord rob a Geonosian Queen. The Geonosians had been wiped out by the Empire in an act of genocide and the queen had been sterilized. As an insectoid alien queen, her genetic imperative compelled her to breed new children, which she could no longer do. To make up for this, she used a machine womb that birthed droids, modifying them to look like the alien Geonosians.
Vader wanted this device and recruited Aphra to help steal it. In doing so, she broke the last shard of hope of the last living Geonosian, thereby making herself complicit in the final stages of the genocide.