Star Trek: Annual 2023 - IDW Publishing

STAR TREK: ANNUAL 2023, May 2023

For those casual fans of Gene Roddenberry's universe who are unfamiliar with “IDW’s brand-new, flagship Star Trek ongoing series that goes where no comic has gone before”, Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly’s narrative for this thirty-two-page annual was probably a bemusing gestalt of all the science fiction franchise’s past incarnations, what with the likes of James Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Tom Paris, Mister Data and numerous other notable characters all being prodigiously pencilled by Rachael Stott throughout this book. True, “the critically acclaimed” duo do at least attempt to explain just how Montgomery Scott happens to be the Chief Engineer of the U.S.S. Theseus following the Emissary of the Prophets’ return from a Bajoran Wormhole. But the script unrelentingly throws so many other “Starfleet legends” at its audience that only the most diehard of Trekkies won't become confused as to just who is real and who is a holographic replica.

Similarly as perplexing is the publication’s plot, which arguably takes an inordinately long time to explain that the experimental starship’s holodeck technology has become self-aware. This notion is definitely an intriguing one that borrows heavily from Naren Shankar’s televised episode “The Quality of Life” featuring some sentient utility robots. However, in order to pad out this over-sized one-shot, the creative team seemingly attempt to have the audience somewhat wearisomely visit almost every iconic vessel ever seen on the small or big screen – whether that be the warp five capable NX-01 Enterprise, the Napoleonic era H.M.S. Enterprise, or Doctor Cochrane’s Phoenix - before penning this revelation.

Quite possibly this comic’s biggest disappointment though debatably lies with its depiction of “Starfleet's youngest starship captain”, who towards of end of the story is probably the closest it has to an antagonist. Repeatedly insisting that things be destroyed, annihilated, and even threatening to kill Sisko at one point with a phaser, this computer-generated duplicate is obviously a far cry from the genuine Jim Kirk. Yet considering that all the other artificial programs made manifest seemingly behave as per their true-life counterparts it seems odd the writers would choose this particular personality as the adversary. Unless its more than coincidence that this book was produced at a time when “StarTrek.com” would feel it necessary to post an article defending actor William Shatner's role from an increasingly popular bandwagon of ill-founded criticism and derision.

Writers: Collin Kelly & Jackson Lanzing, and Artist: Rachael Stott