TrekInk: Reviews of Mission’s End #1 & Last Generation #5 + iPhone Countdown Contest

In addition to the Tribbles comic (see review), IDW released two other books last week, with one series coming to an end with "Star Trek" The Last Generation" # 5, and a new series just starting off with "Mission’s End" #1.  See below for reviews of both. Plus we have a special contest giving away all four issues of "Star Trek Countdown for the iPhone/iTouch.

One ending and one beginning
On one hand, it’s the End of History, and Picard is there to either stop it or help it along. Which is it? It’ll all be made clear. Just as Braxton and Data’s roles in this entire kerfuffle should come to light too. At the same time, it’s the end of an era… or the start of the end of an era. That will lead to the end of an era. Oh, who am I kidding? Gary Mitchell? Kirk sweeping a dame off her feet Indiana Jones style? Bugs? What more do you need in a comic?

THE LAST GENERATION #5 REVIEW

This is the fifth, and last, issue of Andrew Steven Harris’ "Last Generation" miniseries. At the end of the fourth issue, the Excelsior was just about to circle a star and use the gravity well to zip back in time to the Khitomer Conference. This issue opens right with that, and Gordon Purcell’s art really reflects the kind of imagery we previously saw in time travel in the Star Trek films and television episodes with distortion, duplication, and coloring outside of the lines.

The Excelsior finds herself at the right time, but the circumstances appear to have changed. The Enterprise can no longer be found. Picard only has two minutes to make his plan succeed, and heads down to the planet to try to make things work out. From there, the story jumps to Khitomer and plays out, but in a rather odd way. It actually took a couple of readings to get what is going on and it really is a clever conceit that Harris has used. The rest of the way through this miniseries, he’s shown us everything that has happened all along the way. Suddenly, in this issue, he is skipping a few segments here and there, playing with the timestream, so to speak. And once you catch on what he is doing, the story suddenly makes a lot more sense than it did previously. However, the payoff on the final page is a bit predictable and doesn’t work as well as the rest of the story.

Drunk vision, concussed vision, time travel vision all look the same. Coincidence? (click to enlarge)

Purcell’s art is, as mentioned, at its strongest at the opening of the story. It also looks fantastic when replicating scenes from Star Trek VI. He’s not tracing these images, but reinterpreting them from the screen. He captures the entire process of the assassination very well in imagery that could fit right into an adaptation of the original movie itself. Bob Almond’s inking and the combination of Mario Boon and John Hunt on the color duties are all forced to work in a tight tandem to bring off the look to these panels and pages.

Overall, the story presented in this miniseries does feel a touch rushed toward the end, but reading the stories back to back plays out quite decently, far better than I’d expected after reading the first issue of the series. Whoever was in charge of gathering cover artists for the five issues also has to be commended. Seeing the lineup, I expected J.K. Woddward’s covers to knock the socks off of the others, but this cover is another example where the "other artist" (Nick Runge) takes a concept and does a brilliant job with his take on the Star Trek VI poster for the "A" cover.

Regular and dealer incentive cover for "Last Generation" #5
(click to enlarge)

Star Trek The Last Generation #5 (of 5) is available in comic stores now. You can order both covers from TFAW or pre-order the trade paperback from Amazon.

MISSION’S END #1 REVIEW

The first issue of Ty Templeton and Stephen Molnar’s look at the USS Enterprise’s (NCC-1701) final mission begins with what appears to be a flashback to an early mission during the five year voyage. It’s stardate 1136.2, the Enterprise is part of a First Contact mission with the spiders of Archernar IV, and as Kirk states in his Captain’s Log, "I look forward to this mission… for the opportunity to observe the Enterprise crew in action. We’ll be out here for the next five years together."

Like any decent standalone novel, Templeton is taking this first issue to show where the story began, flashing back to the beginning of things. Judging from the publicity blurb and the covers, especially cover B, the story will likely play out some years down the road, showing the change of the spider civilization as relates to the Federation. Speaking of cover B, I have to commend artist Kevin Maguire, as he captures the gist of the series’ synopsis in one clean image — Kirk, McCoy, and Spock walking in three separate directions as the Starfleet emblem shatters behind them.

We don’t see him without his shirt… but he’s certainly trying! (click to enlarge)

The story itself is relatively simple and introductory. We see a first contact play out, and get introduced to a few characters that may (or may not) play bigger roles in later issues, including Captain Cassidy, and Kelso. Stephen Molnar’s art reminds me a lot of some of the older DC Comics in its style, and to my mind, this story feels like it could even have fit into that series back in the day without missing a beat. In terms of the art and dialogue, a couple of oddities that struck me during the course of the reading of the issue included Spock wearing command gold and Gary Mitchell calling Kirk "Captain", something I don’t recall from the original episode. Of course, please correct me on my memory for those two, it’s been a while since I’ve seen that episode, and my memory may be a bit faulty.

This first issue presents a neat little story with a bit of a small cliffhanger at the end (one that could play out twenty years later), but presents a very interesting culture, one I’ve not seen anything like in the Star Trek universe to date (but then again, I do not make any claims as to having read many of the novels at all, other than those TNG and DS9 era ones written in the last few years). I like what Templeton has brought to the table, and I’m interested to see where things play out in the next couple of issues of this one.

Regular and dealer incentive cover for "Mission’s End" #1
(click to enlarge)

Mission’s End #1 (of 5) is available in comic stores now and Issue 2 can be pre-ordered at TFAW.

IVERSE COUNTDOWN DOWNLOAD GIVEAWAY CONTEST
As reported with our review of Countdown #3, this series is available on iTunes (for iPhone and iTouch) as well as on Android and Kindle II. Each issue costs $0.99. The comics are converted to mobile devices by iVerse Media, who have set up a special website promoting their offering.

iVerse have also offered us ten ‘download sets’ of the entire Countdown series (all four issues. Winners will be sent codes for free downloads. In order to win it is simple, the first 10 people to type in ‘I WANT COUNTDOWN FOR MY IPHONE/ITOUCH’ in the comments section below. You must use a valid email address and the codes only work in the USA (sorry). Codes will be sent out the morning of April 1st. (NOTE: Codes only work if you have an iPhone or iTouch, you cannot read the comic using only the iTunes software on your computer)

And if you don’t win, you can buy the series for less than four bucks.

Here is a screen shot of what Countdown comic looks like on the iPhone.

Win the entire Countdown series for iPhone

MORE TREK COMICS COVERAGE COMING SOON
Tomorrow IDW release two more comics: final issue of Countdown (#4) and the second issue of John Byrne’s Crew. Look for reviews of both shortly. Also the Trade Paperback for Countdown is officially coming out on April 7th, but Amazon has already shipped it to some customers and should be filling pre-orders in the next few days.

Pre-orders available at TFAW and Amazon.