Review: Sana Starros #2 - All in the Family Lifts the Lid on Family Secrets

The second issue of Sana Starros takes some time to explore Sana's relationship with her aunt and grandma, the latter of whom lifts the lid on what exactly they're searching for. It turns out the Starros family is full of smart and resourceful people. Even though their star has fallen since the High Republic days, their good genes remain.



While Sana chats with her family, cousin Aryssha spends her time getting information on the stolen family heirloom and delaying her awful husband to buy some time for her family. The action is fairly light in this one -- bar one fun space sequence -- which is surprising considering the cover art shows Sana fighting with the bounty hunter Deva Lompop, a scene that never actually takes place.



It's not the first time a Star Wars comic cover has teased misleading content, but I was still surprised. Luckily, there's so much to learn about this family that the conversations we get in the quiet moments are still fascinating.



The surprises keep coming too. A fan favorite character from Sana's past pops up in some flashbacks, and it's a very pleasant surprise. Everything in this story seems geared towards teaching us more about Sana Starros, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.



Spoilers ahead...







The issue picks up with Aryssha, who is doing her best to keep her husband happy while also getting as much information on the family heirloom as she can. She manages to download something just before she's discovered by stormtroopers and her husband escorts her back to their room, and I bet it's the location of the artifact.



Aryssha does a good job playing dumb, using that mask to delay her husband as much as she can so that her family can catch up and rescue her. It's a good way to endear us to the character. It would have been easy to make her a simple damsel in distress waiting to be rescued, but instead she's being useful. No character is wasted so far.







Meanwhile, Sana and her family get into a dogfight with a bounty hunter chasing Mevera, who apparently screwed over some clients of hers on a smuggling job. Hilariously we learn he also has beef with Sana, whom he believes stole his girlfriend, but a flashback reveals it was actually Doctor Aphra using her name as an alias. That was a brilliant touch, injecting a bit of levity into what is a light-hearted but ultimately serious story. I didn't expect to get any Aphra backstory in this series but it looks like we're going to delve into her relationship with Sana a bit more.



We've known that the two women were an item in the past but the Doctor Aphra series has never really elaborated on it, other than tell us they were both students at the University of Bar'leth. A later flashback in a dream shows a scene where Aphra tells a story to a Gungan and a Cerean about how she and Sana met, and it's a genuinely sweet scene. Their relationship in the present day is a bit more cynical so it's nice to see them together in this context.







After the space battle, Thea tells Sana everything about the family heirloom. It turns out one of their ancestors named Avon was a child genius who studied crystal theory, and discovered how to use crystals to increase energy output. Realizing that some would try and use her technological breakthrough for ill, she locked away her research in a data cube and stored it in the family vault. Thea found it when she was younger and unlocked it herself, but at some point the Imperials seized it for themselves. She needs to recover it so the Empire can't benefit from Avon Starros' research.



The research itself sounds relatively boring, but it's easy to imagine what the Empire might end up using it for -- it's not clear when this series takes place yet but they're surely building one of the two Death Stars at this point -- and it ups the stakes considerably.







Sana and her aunt Mevera bury the hatchet over a bottle of booze. Mevera seems a little quick to get over her issues with Sana, but the younger Starros still harbors some hard feelings over something her aunt did to help her brother Phel. The issue still keeps Phel's crime a secret, so hopefully we'll get to see the man himself soon so his secret can spill out into the open. Mevera explains she loves all her family equally, no matter what bad decisions they make, and that seems to calm the waters between them.



The morning after, they arrive at a space station built into an asteroid somewhere to see the Shani bounty hunter Deva Lompop, whom I believe we last saw in an issue of War of the Bounty Hunters. They are admitted to the party by a Gran flanked by two Gigorans; as someone always eager to see more Gigorans in Star Wars stories, this was a fun inclusion for me.



While Thea speaks to the Gran, Mevera mentions that the Starros matriarch once spent time working as a sniper for Enfys Nest! While we have no way of knowing if she was part of the Cloud-Riders during the events of Solo, it was a fantastic name drop that connects the Starros family to the rest of the Star Wars galaxy in a big way. Honestly, I love everything I learn about this family.



By the time the family meet Lompop, the issue comes to an end. I'm looking forward to a more action-heavy issue of Sana Starros next time, but we learned so many juicy details about the Starros family here that I was perfectly fine taking a break for All in the Family. This series is knocking it out the park so far.


<p style='text-align: center;']Rating: 8/10</p>






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