TrekInk: Review – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #2

khanThe comic book adaptation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan from IDW continues. The second of three issues arrives in comic shops tomorrow and TrekMovie has an early review, plus a five page preview of the comic.

 

 

StarTrek II: The Wrath of Khan (Comic Adaptation) #2
[written by Andy Schmidt, with art by Chee Yang Ong and color by Moose Baumann.]

Previously on The Wrath of Khan: Kirk treated his birthday like a funeral, Chekov introduced Captain Terrell to Khan Noonien Singh, Khan introduced a Ceti eel into Chekov, Dr. Carol Marcus was cut off during a long distance call to her ex, and Saavik failed to understand humor.

Meanwhile, back on terra firma, 27 years after appearing in theaters, the first issue of a comic book mini-series adapting the second Star Trek film, written by Andy Schmidt with art by Chee Yang Ong, aroused mixed feelings among Earthers. Questions were raised. Does the comic add anything to the story? Do we really need a comic adaptation so long after the fact? Are tribbles the solution to early onset of male pattern baldness? These questions and more, may not be answered, but we will take a look at the second issue of the mini-series.

Schmidt’s script continues to unreel the film’s highlights. There are no surprises here, and there shouldn’t be. I see what I expect in this adaptation; McCoy’s outrage on learning the details of Genesis, Kirk and Khan playing cat and mouse, meeting again, and resuming the game. Finally, Kirk and his away team find Chekov and Terrell, and then Genesis, and the tragic death of the Reliant’s captain.

cold
Khan greets his old friend …

By now, Chee’s approach to telling the story is familiar. He put’s his effort into the panels with close-ups, then pans out, and character likenesses fade away. I don’t find this disturbing, but if you judge a comic by the minutea of every panel, you might be disappointed. Taken as whole, though, Chee’s art is fine for bringing Kirk and Khan together again, with all of Khan’s rage, and Kirk’s guilt over past decisions. The script and art suit the story unfolding.

sucker
… and Kirk comments on Khan’s drinking habits.

Chee provides covers for all three issues of this series. Issue #2 Cover A features portraits of Kirk and Khan. Cover B reproduces a publicity photo of Spock.

stiitwok2a_tn stiitwok2b_tn
Cover A: Chee Yang Ong, Cover B: Photo Cover

The retailer incentive cover is the second of three interlocking covers by David Deitrick. Khan appears shaking his fist at someone, presumably Kirk, from last week’s cover. I’m guessing this is the left panel of the complete interlocking image.

stiitwok2ri_tn
Cover RI: David Deitrick

So, is this mini-series something that a Trekkie can’t live without? Well, my Trek experience has been defined by the diversity of Star Trek comics stories and art, so I’m enjoying this series. Your mileage may vary. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #2 will be in comic stores this Wednesday and the concluding issue will be available in July.

 

5 Page Preview of TWOK #2
Here are the first five pages of TWOK #2

 

 

Pre-order before you miss out
You can pre-order issue 2 and 3, but issue 1 is already sold out at TWOK (may still be available at your local comic shop)

TWOK
#1

TWOK
#2

TWOK
#3

sold out

$3.19
(June 17)

$3.19
(July)

 

Mark Martinez is an obsessive-compulsive Star Trek comics reader and collector. You can visit his website, the Star Trek Comics Checklist for more than you ever needed to know about Star Trek comics. And yes, he knows that the IDW pages are incomplete. Blame it on IDW for publishing Star Trek comics faster than he can read them.

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Cool.

I say
Jolly smashing what!!!!

I just saw issue 1 at a comic store today, and wasn’t impressed enough to buy it. I agree that it would be nice for this adaptation to add more depth without altering the story. Perhaps different angles or unseen scenes during the battle sequences, such as the phasers ripping through Big E’s secondary hull.

The way it is now, it’s coming across like someone pulled freeze frames from an old VHS of the movie. My .02.

Poor artwork. Has the artist ever seen the Enterprise-A?!

This adaptation seems to be so slavish as to be pointless, Why produce something that adds nothing?

I’ve had it all wrong; next time i’m roleplaying Trek with my buddies, i’ll be sure to go “deet deet deet” when the ship is hit instead of playing the sound of metal being vaporised and melted by high-intensity photon waves.

I don’t mind that it doesn’t add anything. Most Trek comics haven’t. I’m just amazed at how BAD the art is. IDW has done some amazing work both for covers and the story art. This is just ridiculously bad. Not even the covers are very good.

@4 I know right, the fifth page last box looks kind of distorted. And what’s up with McCoy he looks, so… … wierd, I guess, I’m not sure what.

I happened to be watching TWOK today (I should be doing hmwrk, but…), so it’s a weird coincidence to see this article.

deet deet deet deet
deet deet deet deet

??

I don’t actually recall that sound from the film. But, I… never forget… a mullet.

Ah well. Super cool!

I believe that on the cover A description, you meant Khan and not Spock.

I’m sorry, I’ve done comic art professionally. The underlying pencils here may be OK, but the inking/rendering is HORRIBLE. The linework looks like VHS screen caps digitized on an early 90’s Mac, then horribly overcolored by a modern “van art” airbrusher.

I’m not a nitpicker – I’m not talking about nacelle proportions or buttons on workstations, or even character likenesses. I’m saying that the entireity of the finished art underneath the overdone color is simply not executed at a professional level.

#5 – spot on. Sums it up beautifully.

Someone didn’t proof read, “life-generating matter OF equal mass, not or.

“Deet Deet Deet”??

#5 – For the money of course!

13. Driver

Yeah, I noticed that, too.

I don’t hate these comics, I’m just totally uninterested. And I do have to agree the artwork is not very good.

nice to see the reliant attacking another ship!

nice to see the reliant attacking another ship!

Artists had limited time. So, the art is poor. They even use Trek II-screenshots of Genesis evolution.

I have really love IDW’s Trek comics, but I took at look at this one and just had to pass. Too Bad. However, I noticed that most of the movies’ comic book adaptations really aren’t very good either…

if u think the art work is bad here u should check out the DC apatations for III and IV

i have to admit i was throughly underwhelmed with issue 1…its nice to finally have a WOK adapation to go with the others but was hoping to see a little more added to it (e.g. expanding on off screen events such as Khan taking over Reliant etc…im guess it will just play out as a straight adaptation foor the remaining 2 issues – no torture scenes etc),…i thought thats why it was in 3 issues as there was gonna be so much extra to fit in!…yet theres actually stuff missing like the ceti eels!

its a bit much to ask us to be impressed with what amounts to a comic version of the photostory we’ve all had for 27 years…there shouldve been some extra stuff put in like the novel…

another thing i dont understand is – why couldnt they release it all in 1 issue – instead of making us buy 3 issues at $4 a pop…the original movie adaptations were 60 odd pages

#19. That’s a joke, right?

OMG I can’t wait to find out how this ends! The suspense is killing me!

23 -i heard that spock dies…but am pretty sure its just a vicious rumour started by angry fans who dont like the new uniforms…besides in issue 1 spock ‘dies’ in the KM test and kirk asks ‘arent u dead?’ so i think that was it….

personally i believe Kirks son will buy it and the enterprise will go boom

Yeah, I wasn’t impressed with the art either. There is one frame of Terrell from Iss. 1 that looks just really bad!

This is horrible, horrible art work. A real shame. They should have gotten Byrne.

The art looks pretty good to me, and the dialogue appears to be true to the film overall.

I’m not a collector, but I wouldn’t mind these three comics. TWOK remains my favorite Trek film.

Doesn’t Khan say “we’re all one big happy fleet”?
He says family here.
I’m not gonna nitpick the artwork, everything that could be said has been done

The artwork sucks.

An adaptation from the same pov and with the same dialog is like pissing in the wind: it doesn’t accomplish anything but make you look like an idiot.

For example, I’ve always wondered about TWOK from the other Ceti-Alpha survivors’ perspectives. Seriously, after all they’ve endured over centuries, they can’t all be convinced that his is the superior intellect.

Well this adaption fits in perfectly with the rest of the crappy movie adaptions that were done before it. I think the idea here was to make these issues the way it would have been done in 1982. Since IDW is releasing a motion picture omnibus at the end of the year maybe we will see crappy adaptions for Inserection, Nemesis and Star Trek 2009 too.

Did this comic have spellcheckers and proofreaders? I count several basic grammatical and spelling errors in the first 2 pages.

30 – i believe its just the original movies in the omnibus- so no Generations onwards

Khan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Ok. I think ill pass on the comic. I have seen Trek 2 so many times i know it word for word. Literly. So as much fun as it might be ill just stick with my Dvd Directers edition and say KHANNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Enterprise looks ridiculous.

It’s like the artist didn’t even bother to look at it and just winged it off of a memory from 20 years ago.

I am surprised how bad the artwork appears….

Sorry, I’ll pass. The artwork looks pretty bad. I’ll spend my quatloos on some more worthy Trek items.

Page 2: Look at Kirk’s quarters. The workstation was at the end of the room. In this comic it looks like it’s along the wall where the entrance and the two reading chairs are.

Page 3: Sulu and Saavik are in the wrong chairs on the E. On the Reliant, Joaquin and the female are also sitting in the wrong chairs.

Page 5: Reliant’s first shots agasinst the secondary hull were phasers. The comic shows photon torpedoes . Admittedly, after the first strike Spock shows Kirk the damage report with hits not shown on screen so Khan’s first pass around the E could’ve also included torpedoes which was shown on the viewer during Reliant’s second pass.

Crappy artwork but it has inspired me to watch the movie again. Better than the new film any day!

#13,16 Yes, POOR editing, by someone who doesn’t have English as a first or second language. I give you (twice):

It’s [sic] new matrix…

This is a *pathetic* product, not worthy of approval by Paramount, who owns the rights to the movies. They should demand a burning of the issues and reprinting with this and the many other errors fixed.

#38: “They should demand a burning of the issues and reprinting with this and the many other errors fixed.”

They had their chance already, so apparently they didn’t agree that the flaws were worth fussing over. Every licensed Star Trek product has to go through a multi-stage approvals process. This wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been greenlighted at every stage.

OMG!!!
U people just love to tear things apart- get a LIFE or at least a better hobby.

I love the art work its soft and expressive and isnt just cartoon line work obsessed with the minute details-
something different that feels like an old adaption-
There are plenty of differences it’s certainly not copied from screencaps!

Jeez.

37 – maybe its an adaptation of the alternate reality-verse Trek II where things happen a little different :)

40 – actually i think u might be right – i think its been done to ‘feel’ like its an adaptation done in 1982 and contains differences and ‘mistakes’ like the other adaptations have (esp Trek III)

This looks horrible and whats the point of a complete carbon copy of the original.

I’ve seen the film so often that it jars when they edit out some of the dialogue. They should have done an adaptation of the book instead of the movie so at least we would get to see some of Saavik and Peter Preston’s relationship and we’d care a bit more about the crew of Regula One. I cried when er.. the mathmatician ok I forget his name – Vance I think – welcomes death to end the torture (helped along by some Deltan sexual ju ju). Ok it might have to be toned down for a comic but with the debate about torture being very relevant today, it would have been nice to see this part of the story explored.

Still the best Trek sequence ever. It was the first time we ever saw the Enterprise get seriously battered! I remember watching that scene in the theater with my jaw dropped!

We got Covers A & B of TWOK issue 1 yesterday (my SO is the Trekker, I am a longtime Ricardo Montalbán fan). Nice to have for collection purposes, but I read through it and have to admit I was fairly disappointed, mostly in the artwork. It’s not easy to draw real-life people and have them come out as they really look, but there are those who can do it, and I’m afraid this artist isn’t one of them. Overall there seems to be a “fuzzy” look to the whole thing.

I agree with #43, it would have been great to see the novel rendered into visual form. And if they’re going to concentrate strictly on the events from the film, as opposed to giving attention to the events in the novelization, then I agree with #21 as well: can’t it all be released in just one issue?

I’m glad they paid homage to TWOK, but I think it could have been done better. Dare I say it: the picture above, in which Khan makes the “Kirk, my old friend” speech, unfortunately makes Khan look like an ape!

#45 – The thing that bugs me is that IDW has people who can do amazing work. Pretty much every other series IDW has put out has had really well-done art.

omg, another bad star trek comic! Awful artwork! all the characters are drawn weird. just bad……..sorry guys. just doesnt capture the spirit of the movie at all. but then im not surprised, Star Trek comics always get mediocre artwork anyways.

Not impressed with this artwork at all… because the movie is so written into the DNA of Trek fans the dialogue, speech patterns etc are part of our experience of Trek – seeing dialogue added, missing or rewritten just seems odd – it kind of highlights the pointlessness of this adaption. In some ways it should either be a slavish/faithful adaption or should add something new – these comics don’t appear to do either. I can’t help but hear Horners score at certain points, but with various lines rewritten or in the wrong order it just feels wrong……

This TWOK comic is a mediocre effort across the board: lousy artwork, lazy screen grabs, spotty grammar, continuity errors, odd omissions, weak covers (the one where Kirk looks like Checkov with a tribble on his head is my favorite), etc. It has all the earmarks of a rushed product, probably released when it was in some misguided effort to ride the wave of popularity the new movie has created. Given the target audience for something like this you’d think the publishers would have invested some more care in putting out a better product. An utterly unimaginative money-grabbing effort all around.

Gods, how this adaptation upsets me. This could’ve been AMAZING. In the hands of the right artist, the comic could’ve made the story look all the more epic. This…this has got to be some of the worst drawing and inking I’ve ever seen on ANY comic in at least 5 years. Did any of these people actually SEE the movie? Were they going for something different, like a reinterpretation? They need to throw us a bone here, because while I don’t want to overdose on nerd pills by saying this book is sacrilegious to its source material, I can’t think of an insult more appropriate.

I’ve been buying all of the IDW comics to show support for the franchise (even though I have net sources that could get them all for me), but this one I can’t bring myself to spend money on.