Nero’s twenty-five year wait for Spock to arrive in the past is over. The fourth and final issue of “Star Trek: Nero” offers readers a wrenching conclusion and a painful setup for the events of Star Trek (2009). Find out how it all turns out in our early review of the issue, due out Wednesday.
REVIEW: Star Trek: Nero #4
written by Mike Johnson and Tim Jones, art by David Messina
Spock’s ship, with its dangerous cargo of red matter, is pulled aboard the Narada. Nero doesn’t waste any time letting Spock know how long he’s been waiting for him, nor is he gentle about it. He’s still furious with Spock, but wants him rested and wide awake when they arrive at Vulcan. Spock is pensive. His lifelong friends are alive again and now they will suffer because of his mistake. After a brief and violent interlude with a Klingon task force led by Koth, the Narada arrives at Delta Vega, whose unique orbit will give Spock a perfect view of Vulcan. Nero says goodbye to Spock. Romulans don’t have sayings like live long and prosper.
Writers Mike Johnson and Tim Jones finish up their tale of vengeance with a punch to the gut of every Trekkie. There have only been a few Star Trek comics that packed any kind of emotional punch and none like Nero #4, because we know what Spock will witness after Nero leaves him on Delta Vega. I know we’re dealing with a movie villain in a fictional universe, but it’s still difficult to imagine that anyone would be capable of this the sort of hateful brutality. Johnson and Jones have pushed Nero into a class of Star Trek villainy that he may occupy all by himself. Nicely done.
It’s a good day to die.
David Messina‘s art for the final issue of the mini-series is focused on Nero and Spock, with a spectacular space battle in between. The Klingons don’t fare to well in the battle, but we, the readers, get to enjoy Messina’s enraged and gloating Nero plus a whole lot of Klingon carnage. Messina also captures the hidden emotion of Spock’s human side all too well, particularly in the last page of the comic. Giovanna Niro colored this issue. When Nero greets Spock with the haft of his staff and draws blood, it’s red, not green. This is a small mistake, as comics mistakes go, but an extravagant and amusing error in the Trek universe. However, I don’t think it’s necessary to break out the tar and feathers. Overall, the the artwork and colors of Nero #4 are striking, which I expect from Messina and Niro, so I’ll cut them some slack on the blood thing. Neil Uyetake, IDW Art Director, takes care of lettering. His red letters are right next to Spock’s red blood. Hmmm. Don’t turn off the burner underneath the tar pot yet.
Add one teaspoon of red matter. Tempt fate vigorously.
Star Trek: Nero #4 has two covers. The regular cover by David Messina features Nero with his back to Vulcan, as it’s destroyed in a cataclysmic yellow explosion. The retailer incentive photo cover features Anton Yelchin as an apprehensive Pavel Chekov in black & white & yellow. Each of the covers fits together with its predecessors to form a Starfleet insignia, like the covers for Star Trek: Countdown.
Cover: David Messina, Cover RI: Photo cover
Star Trek: Nero #4 will be in local comic shops this Wednesday, then we’ll have to wait until next year to see how this story concludes in IDW’s comic book adaptation of Star Trek (2009). Until then, you’ll just have to watch the movie on DVD.
You can order individual issues from TFAW …
… or you can pre-order the trade paperback collection from Amazon, to be published May 2010.
PREVIEW: Star Trek February Titles
Today IDW released their solicitations for all the February titles. This includes
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.
so there is an explanation for “delta vega” and “vulcan has no moon”?
The moons in the TMP make the “Vulcan has not moon” quote difficult to explain…
It also seems silly to make him watch from a distant moon.What the view was not dramatic enough inorbit of Vulcan? No windows on a ship 10 miles long?
Yeah, I think Nero would have made Spock watch from his skybox seats on the Narada, pressing his face up against the glass, and then later maroon him on Delta Vega. Then hardcore fans wouldn’t be cheesed-off about the problem of Spock being able to see Vulcan from Delta Vega.
What happened to the V’ger cliffhanger in the last installment?
@2
In the TMP director’s edition, they went back and redone some of the visual shots,including spock on vulcan where there is no moons in the sky.
http://www.startrek.com/imageuploads/200307/news-121708-1/320×240.jpg
Yea, what did happen with V-Ger?
This is really a ‘Countdown’ gripe, but I don’t get why Spock’s time ship had that gigantic ball of red matter — Nero’s fury hinged on Vulcan taking too long to produce it — when it turned out only a tiny drop was enough to stop the Hobus nova. Maybe that’s Spock’s real regret, that he overcalculated the red matter required and was needlessly late to save Romulus.
“The regular cover by David Messina features Nero with his back to Vulcan, as it’s destroyed in a cataclysmic yellow explosion.”
I Thought the Planet that was destroyed in a cataclysmic yellow explosion was Romulus in the Future. Vulcan was sucked into a black hole (got, I hate this part of the movie…).
I think, Romulus being destroyed in Neros back shows much more of his character.
Sorry for nerdism…
On the real side: It was bad that Nero was so less developed in the Film. I just remember sitting him on the chair and Ayel doing all the evil things. Hard to think about such an important Planet as Vulcan being destroyed by a man I do not really remember…
I thought the Vulcan moons were more like asteroids. Perhaps that is why Spock said Vulcan has no moons. Delta Vega is more like a planet, so perhaps it is considered a sister planet by Vulcans. Just grabing straws here, but hey… :)
#6, #4 – (SPOILERS) Nothing happened with V’ger. It was a convenient plot device to solve how the frack Nero would have been able to calculate that Spock will show up 25 years after him, and where. It was all pretty goofy.
To #2 “The moons in the TMP make the “Vulcan has not moon” quote difficult to explain…”
No, Vulcan does not have moons. Those were large planets in Vulcan’s solar system.
@7 yeah, I continued to be less and less impressed with Countdown’s storyline…
Let’s face it… I would love the events of Countdown to be canonized via a screen adaptation, although the writers would be pressed to rationalize some of the more glaring cartoony and unrealistic aspects.
My gripe is how a supernova threatens another star system. If they had cooked up some explanation like an unforseen reaction with the decalithium or something, anything, or just done a better threat to begin with…
argh. what is and what should never be.
Someone (Nimoy? Abrams? writers?… sorry, I’ve slept since then) in a recent interview explained Delta Vega, and seeing Vulcan in its sky. Spock didn’t literally see Vulcan go while standing on DV, he felt it. He visualized it during the mind-meld to give Jim a means of grasping what he felt.
13. Yeah, the supernova threatening other star systems was a bitter pill to swallow. Just a sprinkle of technobabble could have made it more palatable. Like the star lay along a subspace rift, or conjunction of cosmic strings or something. Not just that the ejecta flew across interstellar space and wiped out another solar system, and put the entire galaxy at risk. :/
15: A shockwave damaged the Klingon homeworld in STVI from lightyears away. Technobabble never helps anything, ever. It’s meaningless babytalk, imo.
Spock’s line in Countdown that Hobus was one of the oldest stars in the galaxy made me wonder if it was due to die long ago, and some ancient super-race (like the Preservers) did something to it to extend it’s life (maybe it was their home star or something), that would have dire consequences millenia later.
I’m sure there would be a great story for the new ST crew, investigating the Hobus star and discovering it’s secrets…
@16 – Actually, Praxis was a moon of Q’onos (in ST VI, which is the shock wave to which I assume you are referring). So the shock wave would have been felt quite keenly. But you’re right, technobabble only serves to cover up the more glaring continuity errors.
And when it comes to the Hobus star threatening to destroy the entire galaxy, someone could probably come up with a plausible explanation for why one star could threaten everything, but it would have to be steeped in so much technobabble it would be unbelievable.
My simpler idea would be to change it from Hobus to the Romulan home star (maybe it was named Hobus, who knows?), and simply threatening to destroy Ch’Havran and Ch’Rihan (or Romulus and Remus, for those who haven’t read Diane Duane’s books). Make the danger more personal for both Nero (whose homeworld is in danger) and Spock (for whom the stakes are very high – failure is not an option). After all, Spock is the one pushing for the reunification of Vulcan and Romulus, and saving the Romulans’ homestar would go a long way toward that goal. But its destruction obviously renders the entire question moot, and lets Nero believably turn the tables on Spock in the past.
But write it so that Spock is too late to prevent the supernova with the red matter (who knows, maybe generating a small singularity at the heart of a soon-to-explode star would cool it down some), instead of allowing some galaxy-destroying star to explode and then inject the RM. Bad science from Bad Robot.
Illogical script and story..for all ages peoples. The dollars sra eimportant, dont you understand that yet?
7. I concluded that Red Matter’s only stable form is when it’s in such a large quantity. Therefore when Nero pulls out a silver dollar sized nugget, that nugget would soon grow unstable and blow. At least that’s how I swallowed that pill.
Also, i agree with Falcon regarding the Hobus Star. I’ve always just pretended in my head that Hobus WAS the star of the Romulus system, and maybe the “Galaxy destruction” they were talking about was merely the galaxy-wide repercussions of such a major event as is the death of Romulus. It’s the only sane way to accept that scientific plot hole.
As well, I hated the fact that the star explodes and kills Romulus, and THEN Spock says “There was very little time…” No Spock, time’s up. You missed it! It was like the star had a pre-explosion fart that blew up Romulus…
There’s actually a rather elegant explanation for Spock’s “Vulcan has no moon,” quote from TOS, from, if I remember correctly, one of Diane Duane’s Vulcan novels? Literally, Vulcan, like Earth, has a twin planet in orbit around it, not a moon. I’ve heard that some scientists believe it’s hard for life to evolve on a planet without some kind of tidal system. (Anyone with better science can correct me.)