Star Trek: Year Five #2 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: YEAR FIVE No. 2, May 2019

Despite containing plenty of the argumentative action between Kirk, Spock and McCoy which made "The Original Series" so popular following its three season airing on NBC in the Late Sixties, as well as a healthy mix of spaceship combat which perhaps momentarily mimics some of tension experienced between the Enterprise and Reliant at the conclusion of Nicholas Meyer’s film “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, the vast majority of this twenty-page periodical probably didn’t land well with its 8,834 readers in May 2019. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine many of the science fiction franchise’s fans even recognising Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s take on the Constitution-class vessel’s bridge crew as they (once again) face a real life Kobayashi Maru with the Tholians and uncharacteristically turn upon one another in their darkest moments.

Foremost of these disconcerting inconsistencies is Spock’s amazing lack of confidence in his captain’s ability to command. Straight from the comic’s start, when Kirk refuses to hand-over his adolescent Tholian charge to the spaceship he believes massacred its settlement, the Vulcan takes on an infuriatingly patronising political position which directly opposes that of his superior officer; “We should comply. This course of action is extremely likely to result in a diplomatic incident.” It’s almost as if the television episode “Obsession” never happened, within which the starship skipper ably proved his ability to put duty first over his emotions, or perhaps the pointy-eared scientist is finally starting to smart over his friend’s decision to potentially sacrifice him to the gigantic amoeba they faced in “The Immunity Syndrome”..? 

To make matters worse though, the rest of the Enterprise’s supporting cast are equally as misrepresented, with this book’s collaborative pair penning Bones immediately seeing Kirk’s 'humanitarian' actions as that of someone attempting to legitimise their promotion to Admiral, even though the man has already confided in the good doctor his doubts about accepting the rank, and Scotty believing that the best thing to do before the Tholian’s battleship catches up with his beloved vessel and destroys it is to hand over ‘command’ to Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Chekov. Little wonder perhaps that upon returning to the Bridge, the ship’s captain brusquely shoots down the engineer’s bizarre “group effort” to fight the " extremely xenophobic, non-humanoid civilization" and immediately replaces it with another potentially less aggressive solution…

Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly, and Artist: Stephen Thompson