TrekInk: Review of Star Trek Ongoing Comic #5

Kirk seeks his long lost brother, stranded on a planet full of insane people… hrm… that was the original. Now there’s just insane people. Right? Lots of crazies with sticks, a meat helmet, and two redshirts! How will they survive? The original Star Trek episode "Operation – Annihilate!" is the latest story revisited by the new Star Trek ongoing comics from IDW. Read the TrekMovie review to see how it plays out…

 

REVIEW: STAR TREK ONGOING #5
Written by Mike Johnson; Art by Joe Corroney; Cover: Tim Bradstreet
From IDW Publishing
Full color comic: 32 pages
Retail: 3.99

Story

The fifth issue of the ongoing Star Trek series from IDW jumps back in time to the aftermath of the Corvette police chase from the recent film. The police officer has returned young Jimmy to his home and indeed, he and his mother are living with her elder brother. Also, Jim’s brother George has run away, picking up on a thread from a deleted scene.

Jump forward a number of years, and Kirk finds himself on the bridge of the Enterprise near the planet Deneva. In the original series, his brother Sam had moved here with his family, only to be killed when everyone went bat guano crazy. In this realty, he ran away from home and vanished. But everyone’s still nuts. And Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have to figure out what’s going on, along with two redshirts, both of whom miraculously survive first contact with "the enemy".

Continuing the tendency of the increasing divergence in the last couple of issues, the overall story plays out in a similar way, but this time is not about Kirk’s discovery of his brother’s body and living family. The story concentrates on the inhabitants of Deneva and their insanity issue. After watching a Denevan ship crash itself into the local sun, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and two redshirts named Edwards and Zahra beam down to the surface to figure out what’s going on.


The classic landing party pose… (click to enlarge)

The storylines continue to diverge, and the interactions between the main three continues to evolve, showing us a different dynamic than the original television series. When Spock is injured, Kirk’s first thought is to help Spock rather than attack the creatures that injured Spock. This shows Kirk’s changes since the early portions of the film. The fact that George Kirk’s family doesn’t play a role in the story shows how the strands of Nero’s interference have changed other bits of reality.

This issue, despite being heavily based on an episode from the television series, feels even more like a new story than the last issue. Better still, once this storyline concludes in the next issue, a completely new story is going to be presented in issues 7 and 8. The final sequence in this issue is a good one and I really look forward to seeing how Johnson plays things out and whether or not they lead into the new storyline at all.

Artwork

Joe Corroney takes over the art duties for this issue from Stephen Molnar, providing both pencils and inks. The opening flashback sequence feels like a deleted scene from the film, and evokes a similar look and style to the "young Kirk" sequence from the "Movie Adaptation", but with slightly more muted colors. The space sequence and the interiors on the planet look good and detailed, but do not detract from the main brunt of the action.

As they have for every issue in the series, John Rauch and Neil Uyetake continue to do the colors and letters. This issue gives Rauch a much wider spectrum of color to work with than the last couple did. As noted, the flashback has a muted feel, especially compared to the bright feel from the "Movie Adaptation". That gives a down feeling compared to the "world is my oyster" feeling of the film sequence that leads up to this scene. The planet sequences have predominantly grey, just as the Enterprise portions are white, but some color is used to break up the panels. Uyetake is also given more opportunity than recently as there are a number of combat sequences and dialogue during the course of the storyline.


Not really the most pleasant welcoming party. Glad this isn’t my neighborhood… (click to enlarge)

Covers

The primary cover continues to be provided by Tim Bradstreet, keeping the style of the primary covers of the first four issues. This one is much brighter than the last and the imagery behind Kirk and McCoy is wonderful to look at. The retailer incentive covers feature a black and white version of Bradstreet’s main cover and a photo of Kirk. There is only a single general cover this month, as Joe Corroney covers the interior art duties for the issue.


Covers for "Star Trek Ongoing #5"
(click to enlarge)

Star Trek Ongoing #5 available now

The latest issue of the ongoing comics arrived in comic book stores today, Wednesday January 18th.

Star Trek comics can be ordered and pre-ordered from TFAW.com, and all are discounted. (Note: Issues 1 & 2 no longer available).

Star Trek Ongoing
#3
Star Trek Ongoing
#4
Star Trek Ongoing
#5

$3.99

$3.99

$3.19
November December January
Star Trek Ongoing
#6
Star Trek Ongoing
#7
Star Trek Ongoing
#8

$3.19

$3.19

 

Not yet
available
for pre-order

February March April

If you can wait, the first volume compiling the first individual issues will be released on March 13th. You can pre-order it at Amazon.

 

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Ummmmm, ok?

First?

I’m confused now. Was his brother Sam or George?

Regards.

His brother is George Samuel. Jimmy called him Sam, everyone else called him George.

The animated picture of the landing party above is just awful. The characters are unrecognizable and downright ugly. “Who the hell are these people?” was my first reaction when reading this thread. So far, from what Iittle I have seen, the artists managed to fairly accurately capture the new timeline cast/characters’ physical makeup, except now…What happened?

The boots are too high, the ones in the movie were like bikerboots, sexy- thoes look like the girls go go boots.

Interesting ideas in this new universe but I am always going to prefer the original prime universe stories.

It does look good though, I might pick the TPB when it comes out but miss the new TOS comics IDW were doing.

I have been reader this since the 1st issue and am enjoying it. For me, any Trek is better than 99% of the other stuff out there but I have only been a fan since TMP came out, so what do I know.

JTK’s brother’s name was George Samuel Kirk, named after their father. Jim was the only person who called him Sam. Why he seemed to be referred to as Johnny in ST2009 is beyond me.

They dubbed Johnny over Georgie, because they didn’t want to tie their hands. Same reason they threw out the deleted scenes.
.
I think Sam would be quite a bit older in any event. He certainly looked about 10 years older in TOS, when played as a corpse by William Shatner with heavy greying and makeup. “Johnny” was way too young.
.
Would Winona have gone back into space with George, Jr. still a toddler, I think not. Maybe by the time he was 9 or 10…. George Samuel, Jr. went to live with his Kirk grandparents. Winona went back into space, conceived James T., and then went into premature labor during the attack by Nero on the Kelvin. Otherwise the Kelvin was headed back towards Earth, where Winona would have gone out on leave.

Been a long time since I’ve read comics but these new TREK comics are [i]intriguing[/i].

There’s still some art errors that I hope they start fixing soon.

I just finished the issue, and while I thought it was pretty good, one thing stood out: When Kirk called the Enterprise to have the landing party beamed up before the end of the issue, he slapped his Command badge/insignia, a la TNG. Anyone know when they got the upgrade? It wasn’t in the last issue.

#13 Umm, look at the away team. They have communicators.

#14 The panel had the sound effect coming from Kirk’s badge.

Note to the film makers: if a woman works in security, she needs to wear pants. Please, stop treating us like secretaries.

I’m just grateful that Zahra got an upgrade from Yeoman to give us our first female security guard in only issue 5. Baby steps.

What’s also nice is that the composition of the landing party makes sense for a change, although I might also have included a biologist and/or biophycisist for good measure. In fact, since Chapel is a qualified biologist, I would probably have bunged her in to get her off the ship and involved in something where she has some degree of expertise.

I’m ambivalent about the badges. That was really TNG’s thing. I’d be just as happy if they upgrade the hand communicators.

Strangely enough, they seem to be wearing hand held communicators too. It may have been an image that slipped through the editing process.

@ 17 – already in the pilot it was done right. And even in the TOS itself, after it was changed by force, there were women on the ship who wore the complete uniform, and quite a lot of them in command gold, starting from season one.

Now – still no sleeves and no rank, apparently neither matter if you’re a female – it’s not like you’re there for your qualifications or – to actually do your job, silly girl.
Pants? Who needs exposure protection? Better keep that skin well exposed, who cares what happens to you or how it affects your work.

There was no reason for the Abrams movie to not only keep the sexist from the TOS and make it more sexist, but to go on and completely erase the existence of the female first officer from history.
That was a really ugly move.
Not to mention that the only females actually in the movie are those that either give birth to or are only there to serve as a proof that main characters have sex with somebody.

That’s no baby steps, that’s regressing to a fertilised egg.

PS: You want science, reason and logic? As of 09, you’re looking at the wrong franchise.

I for one would love to have Bones and Chapel do their job, but we can’t have that either.
It would rise above the level of target audience.

@19 Oooh I think I’m in love!

I agree wholeheartedly with most of what you say and I’ve been lampooned on other threads for criticising the writers for not only their failure to put in the kind of effort that helped propel NuBSG into the 21st century as far as gender roles went but for regressing even further by leaving out characters like Chapel, Rand, Number One, and T’Pau, and giving most of the important lines to male characters. Even Robau’s crew, unconstrained by the writing of the sixties, was still a predominently male affair.

The change to skirts after the TOS pilot was partly down to petitions by the actresses – you have to remember that at that time the mini was a sign of sexual liberation. I don’t think the same can be said of the short skirts in early TNG (but at least they made them unisex) or Troi’s plunging neckline but I digress. I’m ambivalent about the short skirts in the modern reboot because they are so iconic but I agree that the women with short sleeves should have epaulets or some other way to display their rank. It’s an odd omission.

We don’t know what NuZahra’s fate will be but I’d be quite happy if NuRand were to double as a security escort for the captain as well as his administrative assistant in the new timeline. I think it’s a simple way to include a woman as an action heroine and, as long as they feature an equal sexual split among the supporting crew, we might finally see an all-female secuirty team feature on a landing party.

Wow, Iva, I never even noticed the lack of rank recognition. That’s embarrassing. I’ve been haunting this site for many months, and that’s the first mention I’ve seen. I think you should make a little more noise, respectfully, of course:-/

I think we ought to encourage the return of Chapel, but not as a nurse. In the future, I think there will be doctors, of course, but more specializations, physician’s assistants, and a position akin to orderly or certified ‘health care assistant.’ Already, RNs are doing a ton of the work that doctors used to do. With Chapel’s interest in life sciences (and, in this timeline, if she isn’t diverted off course by Corby love), she might have pursue further ed. and career goals.

I was a little disappointed that McCoy didn’t just recruit Chapel as an emergency draft from life sciences following the attack. As a biologist they can giver her an identifiable niche. As a nurse, she will always be in McCoy’s shadow. I always felt that making her a full MD in TMP was foolish too. As head of life sciences she could have served a similar function but bringing exobiology expertise to the medical table when examining Ilia to provide a different perspective.

I think NuBSG went a bit too far in that it all but obliterated the original female characters and replaced them with new ones (elements of Athena ended up in Duala; elements of Cassiopeia ended up in the Sixes; Serena was pretty much absent; and Sheba sort of appeared in Razor). I would have liked to see an updated Cassiopeia who was allowed to remain a prostitute for at least part of the story if only because of the interesting things they did with Enara in Firefly.

I don’t think it would take much imagination to update the women of TOS but so far, beyond Uhura who is now in the role of love interest, they have displayed only a rudimentary awareness that any women are involved at all.