With the exception of Khan, whose life has been chronicled in several novels, we don’t usually get to learn more about Star Trek’s movie villains than what’s presented on film. This week, we visit with Captain Nero of the Romulan mining ship Narada, after a particularly bad day in a black hole, courtesy of IDW Publishing, with their first issue of the Star Trek Nero mini-series. See our early review below.
Star Trek: Nero #1
written by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, art by David Messina
Moments after the USS Kelvin hits the Narada, Nero and his crew struggle to repair damaged systems and restore power. Nero wants to find Spock. He tells his crew that Romulus is still in danger. A few crew members are determined to go home, and Nero gives them a shuttlecraft, but makes his own determination fully understood to the rest of the crew with torpedoes. A Klingon battlegroup led by Kor uncloaks, fires on Narada, and boards the Romulan vessel. After bloody hand-to-hand combat, Nero is captured and awakens as a guest of Koth, at Rura Penthe.
The Tipton brothers began augmenting the storyline of Star Trek (2009) in the mini-series Star Trek: Spock – Reflections. Writers Mike Johnson and Tim Jones present the flipside to Spock’s tale in the first issue of a new mini-series, Star Trek: Nero, based on a story by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. Johnson and Jones will be filling in the 25-year gap between Nero’s and Spock’s exits from the black hole. Issue #1 is the setup for a tale of Nero’s incarceration at Rura Penthe. We don’t learn anything significant about Nero except that his penchant for violence has no limits. I hope to learn more in the next issue. The writers have asked the artist to make their point with minimal dialogue and lots of action.
The Klingon welcome wagon arrives
If you’ve visited artist David Messina’s blog, you already know that he enjoys a bit of art with his blood spatter. He gives free reign to blood frenzy in Nero #1. I don’t recall ever seeing so many Klingons impaled with sharp pointy weapons in a Star Trek comic. It’s glorious, as all good Klingon deaths should be. Messina is clearly in his element with a dynamic and violent story like this. I don’t know what’s in store for Nero, but I’m sure that it will be painful, and the artist will make us feel every moment of the pain. I have to mention that Kor appears in a couple of panels and bares only a faint resemblance to actor John Colicos, who made Kor such a memorable character. The review copy didn’t show the name of the colorist for this issue, so if the Klingon blood isn’t sufficiently saturated for your tastes, we’ll have to wait for more information from the publisher to learn who’s responsible.
All chained up and no place to go
Messina’s cover for the first issue, features Nero, and appears to be based on the same grid design as the Star Trek (2009) film posters and IDW’s prequel mini-series, Star Trek: Countdown. Likewise, the retailer incentive photo cover, featuring Karl Urban as McCoy, follows the same motif as the prequel’s incentive covers.
Cover: David Messina, Cover RI: Photo cover
In their never-ending quest to make my life miserable (yes, sometimes these comic reviews are all about me, not your Star Trek reading pleasure), IDW will also make Nero #1 available with a retailer exclusive cover for Toronto’s Fan Expo Canada which takes place the last week of August. Brother, can you spare an exclusive copy for a down-on-his-luck comic collector? And while you’re up, how about one of those San Diego Comic Con Star Trek: Countdown #1 signed exclusive comics with a preview of Nero #1? And don’t forget the hardcover edition of Star Trek: Countdown coming later this year, not to mention the limited edition of same, to be bound in genuine Targ hide, with gold-pressed latinum leaf lettering and a Certificate of Authenticity signed by the President of the Federation … ¡Ay, caramba!
Cover RE: 2009 Fan Expo Canada Edition, back and front
Star Trek: Nero #1, the ordinary edition, will be in local comic shops this Wednesday. Don’t miss it.
The first three issues of the four issue "Nero" comic can be pre-ordered now from TFAW.
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.
I don’t like those photo covers that have characters that aren’t even in the story. What’s the point?
#1- “I don’t like those photo covers that have characters that aren’t even in the story. What’s the point?”
Selling multiple copies?
1. Me neither. So I guess I’m not going to buy ’em!
Kor has forehead ridges. Taking into account certain events in Enterprise and Kor’s appearance in TOS, I was trying to come up with an explanation for why this might be… but I just gave myself a headache.
Great article, Mark. Without blowing smoke, your pieces are always among the most well-written on this site.
Looking good. :D I might look for these at the local comic book store!
Good review, Mike; but FYI, it was the Tipton brothers (Scott & David) who wrote Spock: Reflections…
This…looks…amazing.
I don’t mind that Kor has ridges too much, but geez how old is this guy? He was already a leader of an entire fleet before/at Kirk’s birth and he lives well into the TNG/DS9 era? He seems like he is as old as Sarek, who seemed much more affected by age and died by mid TNG time. Just a thought…
@#3
thats the beauty of comics not being canon.
@#3
but its the alternative timeline so maybe in this one kor ……had forehead.. ridges , like maybe he was not born without them….. and he caught the disease later in life
#7 … Good point. According to Memory Alpha, Kor died over 140 years after the event this comic depicts! It probably would’ve made more sense to use a different Klingon.
Kor had ridges in DS9, didn’t he?
Kor inconsistencies? Hasn’t everybody figured out after the Delta Vega disaster that these writers are more interested in Easter Eggs than consistency?
And yeah, this comic looks good. It looks great, in fact. But we have to vote with our dollars don’t we? I’ll buy it if they let me bring in my used ST tickets for a discount, proving I’ve already paid for this. What a tragic plot hole.
Are we sure it’s the same Kor?…anyway the ridges make less sense than his age…we are to assume Admiral Archer is still alive in 2258..how old does that make him…. @ 146!!!!…McCoy was almost 140 years old in Encounter at Farpoint!…. age matters not ….
I liked the way Enterprise episode Affliction explained the ridges, or the lack of them in TOS…anyway I thought everything new in the timeline would only those events after the Kelvin destruction?!??…
No, it’s not the same Kor, but someone thought it would be funny to have a Klingon who happens to share the name with the most famous Trek Klingon.
Of course it’s the same Kor, superbrain.
Meh. It’s probably Kor’s father. I mean it can’t be the same IKS Klothos either, can it?
@Andrew
Thanks for catching my improper attribution. The Tipton brothers are back in business.
Grrrr, I just lost my entire post so here goes again.
Clearly it is the same Kor, with him being alive in DS9 it is more then easy to imagine him being alive at this point, as a young officer recently starting out on a command. As for having ridges, Dr Phlox in ENT makes a reference to prosthetic ridges for Klingons when talking to the Klingon Doctor/Scientist. Thefore, it is logical to suggest that he is wearing prosthetic ridges, perhaps just before it became socially acceptable in the Empire to be without ridges.
As for those attempting to play the Alternate Reality card, one must remember that Kor’s appearance happens shortly after the Nero Event and therefore not affected by that incursion, as Kor would have been born well before Nero’s incursion…and thus not affected by the alternate reality.
Come on guys, for Trekkies you sure lack some imagination to explain these things…its eeeasy!
This ridge thing only became a problem when they did DS9:Trials and Tribblations, because they chose to comment on it since the differences between Worf and the TOS footage were so conspicuous. Then Enterprise wasted a couple of episodes building in an explanation for that one episode into canon.
First, Worf should have never been used in that DS9 episode. Second, Enterprise should have never tried to answer the question. What was once merely a cost and technical limitation of the 60s, requiring a fanon explanation at most, has now become canon – the process by which pandering to and satisfying only the hard core fans. It is this kind of catering to the obscure minutiae of Trek for the original fan base that Abrams tried to avoid due to the alienating effect it has on the uninitiated audience.
Seriously, step back and think about enjoying a story about how forehead ridges came to be in any other franchise for a minute. It was a waste of storytelling.
Ummm…
If you recall, at the beginning of the article, this takes place shortly after the Kelvin hits the Narada – in 2233, or whatever the hell year it was. At any rate, it was in the TOS era, not TNG. So Kor could (and most likely would) still be alive.
the best way to have dealt with the ridges thing was to just ignore it imo….i mean why not adress why Romulans have ridges in TNG and not in TOS?…why do all the sets and SFX and landscapes etc look like the 1960s in TOS yet everything looks futuristic in the movies etc…?…why did Kirk have straight light brown hair in TOS and thick curly jet black hair in the movies (I-IV) then a lighter brown (in V, VI and VII)?
just my 2c..dont mean a thing
Maybe Klingons and Romulans are like potato chips — some have ridges and some don’t.
The DS9 episode had fun with the Klingon differences. The Enterprise episode decided to go to extremes (incredibly uninteresting and not very entertaining extremes, by the by) to explain something I imagine most fans had no need to know, when the throwaway line by Worf was more than sufficient.
Oh and #13, ‘the Delta Vega disaster’? Really? Hypberbole much?
Spock and McCoy on the front of STAR TREK NERO. Uh yeah. Good move.
#21 “why not adress why Romulans have ridges in TNG and not in TOS?”
You are so right. I agree, we have to ignore the matter. As sean said, there was no need to explain the thing in Enterprise.
25 – im not certain if Nero and Co have slight ridges or not…sometimes they look like they do…other times not
anyone know for certain?
Why do Klingons have cloaking technology pre TOS? They didn’t have cloaking technology until the TOS movie era.
So Kor doesn’t look like John Colicos. I guess the artist recast him! ;)
On a side note unrelated to the article, when logging on to this site has anyone been redirected to a site called netseer.com? It has become really annoying.
29 – Yes, a number of us have, and it is very annoying.
#27 “They [klingons] didn’t have cloaking technology until the TOS movie era.”
How do you say that?
Re: 31 — How do I say that? Easy.. The Klingons did not have cloaking devices in the Original Series. Only the Romulans had them.
During the TOS episode where the Enterprise went on a secret mission to steal a cloaking device from the Romulans, I think they mention that only the Romulans had that technology.
The first time we saw a Klingon ship use a cloaking device was Star Trek III The Search for Spock.
#32
If they mention in TOS that only romulans had cloaking device, ok (I don’t remember). But if we simply don’t see cloacked klingon ships in TOS, well, that’s not enough. After all, cloacked ships are invisible ;)
@27.
Good point!!!!
@31.
Take a look at the TOS-Episode “The Enterprise Incident”!
In 2269 the Klingons and the Romulans share technologies!
Klingon D7-Cruiser for the Romulans!
Romulan cloaking technology for the Klingons!
So the Klingons didn’t have cloaking-devices until the year 2269!!!!
From Memory Alpha:
Klingon ships were outfitted with cloaking devices as late as 2269. One of the first Klingon vessels to acquire the new technology was the IKS Klothos. (TAS: “The Time Trap”; DS9: “Once More Unto the Breach”)
#34
Take a look at the TOS-Episode “The Enterprise Incident”!
“So the Klingons didn’t have cloaking-devices until the year 2269!!!!”
I don’t remember the exact lines of that episode, so I may be wrong. Anyway, in my opinion there is no canon, on screen reference to these events. I mean, not seeing klingon cloacked ships in TOS doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist.
#35
Ok, Memory Alpha speaks. But Memory Alpha is not to be intended as canon.
(omg, I’m talking about canon….)
#35
Ok, maybe the DS9 episode is the right source of information. I’ve not seen it. (TAS is not canon, right?)
I stand corrected.
#29, 30:
I’ll say! If it only happened one or twice, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it happens a lot! grrr!
Why has Kor not a smooth head???? The timeline of Captain Archer ist functional! And in this consequence the klingon must have the eugenic virus!!!!
If they can not show us kor like seen in the original series why they use kor in the comic?
Ya know, back on Qo’noS (sp?), all the Klingon nerds are probably wondering why in their version of Star Trek, the evil humans change their uniform style every ten episodes. First the women wear skirts, and then they wear pants, and then Uhura wears a skirt again…after the crew of the first Enterprise wore overalls…
No, on second thought, the Klingon nerds probably argue about ACTUAL PLOT DETAILS! :D
Pants or no pants? What a dumb question. Ridges…no ridges…pink blood…red blood…
You know, I wonder…
Could they work NERO into the sequel by showing flashbacks at the start of the film? They already filmed a bunch of scenes of him with the Klingons. Why not use them in the sequel? It could help to explain how the Klingons change from a technological standpoint. It would also help tie the first movie in with the second film.
29 & 30
same here (pain in the ass)
39
i think it happens EVERY time the add is loaded. simply hit the back button and allow the trekmovie page to reload and a new add will automaticly place at the top and no problem.
Oh my how feeble you little creatures are. Squabbling over something as petty as this ‘television show?’ did i pronounce that correctly?
I might just have to Jean-Luc.
I might just have to *TELL* Jean-Luc
its difficult being omnipotent!
Prosthetic ridges… the equivalent of fake boobs. Why not. See Dr. Rey on Dr. Qo’noS 90210 this week on SyFy!
Kor of Organia doesn’t make sense here though, really. But, if Worf Rozhenko of TNG era has a grandfather Colonel Worf in the TOS movie era… it’s no problem to have Kor of Organia have a father named Kor also. Precedent with the Worves. ;)
And the fourth season under Coto of ST: Enterprise actually did a great job of incorporating the classic fanon “Klingon fusion” idea we all used in FASA days into a way that preserved everything… give the team credit. It created some great stories and built on the Augment arc. The episodes with the Klingons going through the divergence were some of the best of the best season. That it’s Archer’s DNA that saved the Klingons, but left them looking human-esque is just perfect, and ties Enterprise into TOS and TNG and DS9 in so many ways….
As a fan since the beginning, I was glad to see them do what they did. As I recall in the movie ST09, the Klingons were all filmed wearing helmets with ridges on the helmets, and we’d have never seen an uncovered Klingon forehead. Which also was a great kudos to the Romulan helmets in BoT and The Enterprise Incident.
Pepto bismol blood though? Please?
45- Kor makes sense here, IMHO.
We never found out how old he was in TOS.
Of course the problem with the explanation for ridges in Enterprise is that we see Kang, Kor and Koloth as old men WITH ridges. And it’s rather difficult to buy into the idea they were okay without them in the presence of humans and enemies, and respected enough to serve as captain of a Klingon warship, but years later thought ‘Ya know, I’m not happy with the size of my ridges’ and visited a plastic surgeon. Kang also has ridges in the admittedly awful Voyager episode ‘Flashback’.
Whatever the goofy reason they came up with, I was always perfectly comfortable with the Rodenberry explanation of ‘they always had ridges’.
@1: I agree, a photo of Eric Bana would seem more logical.
I may wait a bit to see how the story progresses. The fractiousness of the Narada crew sounds interesting, and Klingons vs Romulans with sharp objects is always fun, but… I want more character stuff, please.
Here’s a thought: maybe Kor was dosed with an early attempt at a cure for the forhead-smoothing virus from Enterprise, but it didn’t take and only worked temporarily.
19. RD
I love the way the writers explain things like the Klingon ridges and in Enterprise these were great story lines.
I have come up with my own “FIX” for a TOS inconsistency. They constantly refer to Library “tapes” and storage ‘tapes” for data storage. Who’s to say a “TAPE” is not a completely different item by the 23rd century.
How about “Transportable Amorphous Processing Envelopes!”
You live long enough you can explain everything in Star Trek eventually!