TrekInk: Review of “Spock Reflections” & “Nero” Comic Collections

Two trade paperback collections illuminating the lives of characters from the feature film Star Trek (2009) arrived in comic shops recently ("Star Trek: Nero" and "Spock: Reflections"), giving readers an opportunity to revisit lessons learned about Vulcans, Romulans, humans, loyalty, logic and revenge. We have a summary review of both below

New comic collections bring together Star Trek 2009 movie backstory

In late January IDW released the trade paperback for "Star Trek: Spock – Reflections" and just this past week they released the trade paperback for "Star Trek: Nero". Both are collections of the issues from series originally published in 2009, and both offer backstory related to the 2009 Star Trek movie. Neither collection has new material, but they include all the covers from the series (and of course there is no advertising).
 

Star Trek: Spock – Reflections trade paperback
written by Scott and David Tipton, layouts by by David Messina, inks by Elena Casagrande, Federica Manfredi and Arianna Florean, finishes by Federica Manfredi, colors by Ilaria Traversi, color assists by Chiara Cinabro and 2B Studios, lettering by Chris Mowry, Robbie Robbins and Neil Uyetake

Looking back at IDW Publishing’s Star Trek comics for 2009, the most appealing mini-series for an original series junkie like myself, was "Spock – Reflections", the four-issue examination of Spock’s past, his family and friends, and what might have been. Using a clever framing story of Spock in the TNG era (set after Star Trek: Generations) on a journey from Romulus to Earth, we have Spock ‘reflecting back’ on various times in his life, starting with his childhood through to TOS movie era. Along the way we see Spock with his father Sarek, the original series crew, Capt. Harriman and even Capt. Picard.

Home, sweet home?

It was a pleasure to read the story again in trade paperback. David Messina orchestrated the art and together with a poignant story arc by the Tipton brothers, created a portrait of Spock that every Trekkie should read. The story meshes nicely with the character of the older ‘Spock Prime’ from the feature film, as intended by the writers, and can inspire you to watch the movie again to see the connections.

For more details on the the individual issues contained within "Star Trek: Spock – Reflections", see the TrekMovie reviews: Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #3, Issue #4

Cover art by David Messina

Spock Reflections was released January 20th, and is available now at comic shops and bookstores. (If you have difficulty finding it, IDW has already ordered a second printing) It can also be ordered from Amazon.

Star Trek: Nero trade paperback
story by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, written by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, art by David Messina, colors by Giovanna Niro, letters by Neil Uyetake

Before the film, Star Trek (2009), there was the comic book prequel "Star Trek: Countdown," which introduced us to Nero. The same creative team is responsible for "Star Trek: Nero," which tells the story of Nero’s Nero’s lost years. It is a bloody tale of rage and vengeance against Spock after dropping down a black hole in the film, set in the years between the Narada’s attack on the USS Kelvin and when Nero captures Spock. In "Star Trek: Nero" we see the story of Nero’s time in Klingon prison, much of which was based on the scenes from the movie which were deleted.

All chained up and no place to go

Writers Johnson and Jones take us deep into Nero’s madness and throw in an a big original series era surprise along the way. Meanwhile, David Messina has a glorious field day with edged weapons and Klingon blood spatter, throwing in an epic space battle for good measure. This trade is just fun to read.

 
Cover art by David Messina

For more details on the the individual issues contained within "Star Trek: Nero", see the TrekMovie reviews:  Issue #1, Issue #2, Issue #3, Issue #4

"Star Trek" Nero" was released this week, and is available now at comic shops and bookstores. It can also be ordered from Amazon.

Comics vs. Trades?
Reading Spock – Reflections and Nero in trade after buying and reading the individual comics, my usual course of action, made me think about the eternal debate – comics versus trades. In comic book forums around the net and in comments here at Trekmovie, two basic types of comic book fans emerge, the "longboxers" who buy individual issues, read’em, bag’em, board’em and box’em, and the "bookshelvers" who tend to prefer the trades, read’em then line’em up neatly on a shelf and lord have mercy on publishers whose spines don’t coordinate.

The longboxers often remind the bookshelvers that not buying individual issues could mean no trade published for lack of interest. To date, IDW has published a trade for every one of their Star Trek comic series. But I was curious if this is a policy, so I asked IDW’s spokesperson to clarify. Here is the response I got:

Q: If orders for individual issues of a Star Trek mini-series were really low, would IDW think twice about publishing the mini-series in trade paperback?

A: We choose our series carefully, doing our best to make sure we’re creating stories that fans want to read. And while we might not hit the mark every time, we do always collect our series in trade paperbacks. Trades help expand the audience reach of a series by appealing more to certain fans more than single issues, as you pointed out. Also, they are available in comic and book stores, while single issues are almost exclusively sold in comic stores.

I also had a question about IDW’s digital comics.

Q: Now that IDW is publishing digital comics, might we someday see digital only individual issues followed by a trade paperback collection?

A: That’s an interesting idea. The digital field is still very new, and constantly expanding. It’s definitely helping to bring a new audience into comics. However, there’s no denying the appeal of paper-and-ink comics, so I don’t think we’ll see an end of single issues any time soon.

So, did you buy the individual issues as they were published or did you procrastinate and wait for the trades to come out?

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.