Creation Story
When Marvel regained the Star Wars license from Dark Horse in 2015, Kieron Gillen was given the Darth Vader solo ongoing as his assignment. The brief was challenging: write Vader as a complete character across the gap between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back without contradicting any of the canon Lucasfilm Story Group had locked down. Vader needs a supporting cast to function as a lead, but every canon Imperial he could work with came with baggage.
Gillen’s solution was to invent a character from scratch who could sit in the story’s orbit as Vader’s off-the-books operative: Chelli Lona Aphra, a rogue doctor of archaeology who collected pre-Republic Jedi and Sith artifacts on the black market and had a sideline in reprogramming imperial war droids for freelance use. Lucasfilm’s Story Group approved her as a canon character, which by 2015 standards was a significant hurdle. Aphra is the first new canon character created for the Disney-era Marvel Star Wars line who survived and flourished as a lead.
Gillen paired her with two of the most popular creations of the entire run: 0-0-0 (Triple-Zero), a protocol droid with C-3PO’s shape and voice but designed for torture, and BT-1 (Beetee), an astromech built to murder. Triple-Zero and Beetee debut one issue after Aphra in Darth Vader #4, and the trio operates as a dark-mirror Han/Threepio/Artoo for the rest of the series.
Darth Vader #3 — First Appearance and First Cover
Darth Vader #3 introduces Aphra in two places: on the standard Salvador Larroca cover alongside Vader, and inside the issue as a full character debut. Vader is on Geonosis, searching the ruins of the battle-droid foundries for resources he can use to build his own extra-Imperial army. He finds Aphra at work in the factory, elbow-deep in a droid chassis, and the scene plays like a job interview. Gillen writes her voice as effortless, cocky, unbothered by the Sith Lord in the room. Larroca’s art gives her a practical jumpsuit-and-ponytail design that reads instantly as functional rather than glamorous. The issue ends with her recruited.
Because she is on the standard cover and present across a substantial portion of the interior story, Darth Vader #3 is both her first appearance and her first cover in the same book. That bundled-first structure is the highest-demand configuration for a collectible key and is one of the reasons this issue has held its status as the defining Aphra book.
A Mark Brooks connecting-cover variant of Darth Vader #3 also exists, part of a multi-issue cover arc that assembles into a larger scene when the connecting covers are aligned. Brooks’s Aphra image is widely reproduced in promotional material. CGC census data shows the Brooks variant at a fraction of the standard-cover population, as expected for a connecting variant, and it carries premiums over the standard Larroca cover in high grades.
Issue sales were strong. The Darth Vader series had momentum from its first two issues and #3 rode that wave. Nothing about the initial print run signaled a collector key; Aphra was one new character in a crowded lineup. The key status emerged later, as Gillen and Larroca kept her on-panel and Lucasfilm quietly elevated her profile inside the canon.
Doctor Aphra #1 — First Solo Title
Doctor Aphra #1 shipped in December 2016, about twenty months after her debut. Gillen wrote the launch with Kev Walker on pencils. The book ran 40 issues through 2019, followed by a second ongoing written by Alyssa Wong that launched in 2020 and continued the character’s evolution through the War of the Bounty Hunters and Crimson Reign crossovers.
The solo title matters as a first because of what it is: the first Star Wars ongoing to feature a character created originally for the Marvel run rather than adapted from a film or existing canon, and the first Star Wars ongoing to feature a female lead who is not Leia. The David Aja 1:25 variant is the most sought-after variant on issue #1.
Legacy
Aphra is the model for a specific kind of Disney-era tie-in character: one that originated in the comics, got approved by the Story Group, and grew into her own franchise without ever appearing on screen. She has headlined two ongoing series, shown up across the Vader line, been central to multiple crossovers, and continues to be the subject of long-running live-action adaptation rumors.
For collectors, Darth Vader #3 is one of the few genuinely significant modern Marvel keys: a first appearance that was mid-tier on release and has grown into a staple key as the character’s importance has been confirmed by successive runs and sustained reader demand. The standard Larroca cover is the bundled first appearance + first cover key. The Mark Brooks connecting variant carries variant-level premiums on top of that. Both are the same issue; the standard cover is the foundation.