Star Trek #400 [Part One] - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK No. 400, September 2022

Considering the sheer scope of Gene Roddenberry’s fifty-plus year-old science fiction franchise, “this collection of minis” by “IDW Publishing” may well have pleased some Trekkies out there, particularly as it’s opening storyline set at the very end of the original series’ movie run does such a good job in wrong-footing the reader with its conclusion. But by the time “this monumental issue” hits its mid-way stage, the quality of its penmanship is debatably somewhat deficient at best; “I needed a new differential octolithium re-compilerizer, and you needed a new phase-inducted piromactal teravertarium battery!”

To begin with however, Chris Eliopoulos’ “Captain’s Log” definitely delivers a thoroughly enjoyable summary of Captain James Tiberius Kirk’s adventures aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, and then rather cleverly hands over the baton to Hikaru Sulu commanding the U.S.S. Excelsior. Proficiently pencilled by Luke Sparrow, this nostalgic trip down memory lane contains many of the programme’s pivotal moments, such as the death of Spock, and then rather neatly leads into the senior helmsmen’s own adventures at the end of “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.

Similarly as successful is “Soldier On” by Declan Shalvey, which rather surprisingly provides an intriguing flashback to Petty Officer Miles O’Brien’s time on the planet Setlik III during the Federation/Cardassian War. Featuring both Captain Maxwell and the U.S.S. Rutledge, as well as a young Elim Garak, this reasonably straightforward tale of resupplying, sabotage and Obsidian Order obstinance is engagingly drawn in a quirky, somewhat cartoony style by Seth Damoose.

Closing out the first half of this “equal celebration of IDW’s Star Trek comics past and future” with a shockingly short, though still disconcerting yarn, is the five-panel long “Meanwhile…” Written by Mike Johnson and illustrated by Angel Hernandez, this brief glimpse of the Kelvin Universe’s Scotty shows just how unrecognisably dissimilar the “miracle working’ engineer has become from his former-self once Simon Pegg embodied the character on the silver screen. Perfectly happy to lazily sleep on the job and leave the Constitution-class starship’s repairs to an equally snooze-happy underling, this Montgomery Scott is a far cry from the decidedly dedicated incarnation played by Canadian actor James Doohan.

The regular cover art to "STAR TREK" #400 by Louie De Martinis