Star Trek: Boldly Go #18 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO No. 18, March 2018

As series finales go, Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrott’s concluding instalment to their “Infinite Diversity In Infinite Combinations” story-arc must have come of something of a huge disappointment to its readers in April 2018, due to its narrative’s nonsensical shenanigans and utterly unfollowable logic. In fact, many bibliophiles may well have viewed this supposed “climactic final chapter of the epic I.D.I.C. saga” as a fitting time to bring the “IDW Publishing” title to a close, bearing in mind just how this particular exploration of the “various corners of the Star Trek multiverse” frustratingly petered out.

For starters, the titanic tussle between James Kirk and his former close friend, Gary Mitchell, actually takes place on board a Federation Starship using a tri-dimensional chess set rather than the cataclysmic physical fisticuffs this comic’s previous edition debatably promised. Admittedly, this surprising plot-twist does somehow allow the U.S.S. Endeavor’s temporary captain to ‘dabble’ in the “no-win scenario” universes this story-line has previously depicted, and resultantly shows Nero’s Romulan invasion of Vulcan failing, Klingon Kirk finally confronting Simon Grayson in the ruins of Khan’s courtroom, as well as Doctor McCoy’s miraculous revival of “Captain Kirk of the Plantship Enterprise.” But just how any of these re-engineered realities actually help the Starfleet officer’s cause against an all-knowing, omnipotent opponent is anyone’s guess, especially when he is shown purposely sacrificing those worlds which contained ‘friends’ he didn’t personally know..? 

Equally as bizarre is Kirk’s conclusion that as he can’t ever beat Mitchell, his only way of besting his foe is to reject Gary’s god-like gift and allow himself to be disintegrated by the combined firepower of the multi-verse fleet his “manipulation of realities” has permitted him to co-ordinate. This moment of self-sacrifice arguably makes no sense whatsoever, as “the most famous and highly decorated starship captain in the history of Starfleet” is currently the only person stopping the homicidal former Lieutenant Commander from literally destroying everything in existence.

Potentially just as perplexed by this final battle’s bemusements as its audience probably was, is artist Josh Hood, whose story-boarding for Issue Eighteen of “Star Trek: Boldly Go” seems as regrettably stiff and wooden as Plant Kirk’s anatomy. Clearly more than capable of sketching a starship-packed galaxy, or a likeness of actor Gary Lockwood, the commercial illustrator unhappily still appears unable to inject many of this comic’s numerous action-packed sequences with any perceptible semblance of animated life, and thus a lot of the tension this publication required to succeed is lamentably absent from its visuals.

The regular cover art of "STAR TREK: BOLDLY GO" No. 18 by Josh Hood