Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Echoes #2 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE No. 2, June 2023

Absolutely packed full of enthralling, edge-of-your-seat action as the fugitive criminal Akris escapes into Romulan space, it is difficult to imagine that many fans of Robert Wise’s 1979 science fiction film weren’t extremely satisfied with Marc Guggenheim’s script for this twenty-two-page periodical. Indeed, the Long Island-born television producer so readily captures the classic feel of Gene Roddenberry’s original series, that Issue Two of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes” could easily be mistaken for something originally conceived by the Great Bird of the Galaxy during Paramount Television Service's unsuccessful attempt to produce a sequel television show; “Dancing is illogical. No amount of context makes it more or less so.”

Foremost of these highly nostalgic feats has to be the way the American author presents Admiral James Tiberius Kirk and the iconic character’s interaction with the rest of his bridge crew – most notably Commander Spock. There’s an eerily genuine swagger to “Starfleet's youngest starship captain” in this comic which quite superbly replicates all actor William Shatner’s confidence when he was performing in the role. In fact, so much of the Federation officer’s dialogue and banter is so ‘spot on’ that the Canadian’s voice repeatedly emanates off of the printed page.

Just as impressive though is this publication’s narrative, which shows the fast-thinking Chief of Starfleet Operations outwitting the Treaty of Algeron in order to pursue an “agent of chaos from a parallel universe”. True, some bibliophiles might find Kirk’s omnipotence concerning just how the Romulan’s will react to his Neutral Zone incursion a little too contrived. But the breach via a ‘stolen’ shuttlecraft and subsequent ferocious firefight aboard Base Station Delta V is so well penned that such a minor quibble is arguably easy to set aside in favour of this book’s pulse-pounding plot.

Pulling all this positivity together are Oleg Chudakov’s somewhat cartoony layouts, which do a great job in imbuing all the U.S.S. Enterprise’s crewmembers with some truly memorable facial expressions. The Russian artist’s fleeting side-exchanges between the considerably sized cast, most notably Pavel Chekov and Hikaru Sulu, are particularly well-drawn, as is the illustrator’s wonderful attention to detail when it comes to capturing the look (and feel) of Robert Fletcher’s uniforms and production designer Harold Michelson’s refitted Constitution-class sets.

Writer: Marc Guggenheim, Artist: Oleg Chudakov, and Colorist: DC Alonso