Star Trek: The Next Generation: Through The Mirror #4 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION: THROUGH THE MIRROR No. 4, May 2018

It is hard to imagine many of this weekly mini-series’ readers being particularly impressed with the plot developments found inside the J.K. Woodward painted cover for Issue Four of “Star Trek: The Next Generation: Through The Mirror”. True, David and Scott Tipton’s narrative does deliver the U.S.S. Enterprise and its bridge crew to precisely the co-ordinates Mirror Lieutenant Barclay wanted, whilst Inquisitor Troi additionally manages to suppress all warnings on an antimatter radiation leak simulation designed to cause the Galaxy-class starship’s occupants to obligingly abandon their vessel at the Martorelles Array.

Yet what initially appears to be about to produce a promising phaser-filled confrontation between Captain Picard and his doppelganger’s command, either in outer space or within the confines of their crafts’ capacious corridors, disappointingly soon manifests into a bizarrely unbloody, dialogue-driven plan for this title’s main adversaries to teleport an “empty warship” over to their home dimension and “save us the problem of dispensing with over a thousand hostages.” Hardly the sort of sense-shattering shenanigans promised by “IDW Publishing” when they advertised that this particular comic’s story would see “the fate of a galaxy hanging in the balance!”

Instead all the collaborative creative team can offer is the utterly illogical premise that the I.S.S. Enterprise’s senior officers would all willingly transport themselves over to the incredibly vulnerable “high-powered deep space listening post” simply to provide their bald, goatee-bearded leader an opportunity to laboriously thank them in person for going “against our very nature” and remaining “loyal to me”. Such a contrived state-of-affairs is then made all the less convincing by the ‘brother authors’ suggestion that the savage invaders would subsequently dally about even longer simply so their captain can subsequently see their prize’s response to the “false emergency” which they've manufactured; “Speaking of which: Commander Data! When will the evacuation begin? I’m rather keen to see it for myself.”

Similarly as unspontaneous is the pair’s penmanship for “Ripe For Plunder”, which having spent the best part of three instalments tracking Emperor Spock to his “sort of austere retirement” depicts the Mirror Soong-type android simply sitting down at a small lantern-lit table talking to the elderly half-Vulcan. Indeed, the coldly calculating second officer even goes as far as to reassure his wizened prize that he has not come to kill him. Such a politely-spoken, non-threatening stance seems highly unlikely considering Data has supposedly taken “considerable effort... to find you here”, just killed a number of pointy-eared scientist’s bodyguards and actually requires the denounced ruler’s help “to use the transporter as a means to travel across to this alternate universe”..?

Writers: David Tipton & Scott Tipton, and Artist: Carlos Nieto