Review: Star Trek Boldly Go #11
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Written by: Mike Johnson
Art by Megan Levens with colors by Marissa Louise
Cover Art by George Caltsoudas
Star Trek is boldly going back into the Prime Universe memory banks with a new spin on an old classic. Boldy Go’s eleventh issue, “Whom God Destroys”, is the first of a two-parter starring, you guessed it, “the greatest of them all”, Capta- err, LORD Garth of Izar. This marks his first appearance in the Star Trek comic universe since DC Comics’ “Who Killed Captain Kirk?” epic denouement in 1988. Once again, Mike Johnson is at the helm with artwork by the talented Megan Levens.
Before The Picard Maneuver, there was the Cochrane Deceleration Maneuver
We begin with a pretty in-depth prologue set 10 years before TOS, with much of the story taken from bits of dialogue in “Whom Gods Destroy”, (a classic episode which gave us this amazing Kirk gif) and the rest from the 2003 novel, Garth of Izar. Captain Garth is in command of the pre-Breaking Bad USS Heisenberg on a routine mission to Axanar when he encounters a hostile Klingon battle cruiser in the same system. Outmatched, he performs the Cochrane deceleration maneuver, defeating the Klingons in what became known as the Battle of Axanar.
Lord Garth should be renamed Mentor Garth
Three years later, Garth is the “hero of Axanar”, giving lectures at Starfleet Academy and mingling with a starstruck Cadet Kirk, who, much like his Prime counterpart, is about to start his service on the USS Farragut. As we know, Kirk studied Garth’s victory at Axanar when he was a cadet – it was required reading at the Academy.
What Would Chief O’Brien Do?
Four more years go by and while the USS Heisenberg is in orbit over Antos IV, Captain Garth beams down to the surface, only to fall victim to a horrific transporter accident which leaves him severely disfigured. It’s at this point where things start to deviate from the Prime universe and Johnson begins to weave in the Kelvinverse comic book continuity. Back into the fold is the space pirate Eurydice and her daughter Thalia, last seen in IDW’s first run of Trek comics back in 2015. Thalia convinces Kirk to follow her to Antos IV to search for her missing mother.
Kirk and a Space Pirate. What could go wrong?
As I’ve said many times before, I’m a huge fan of Levens’ artwork, but until First Officer Liang Jin calls him Captain Garth I had no idea who it was. Her version of Garth bears little resemblance to actor Steve Ihnat. Of course, she could not have been going for Ihnat’s likeness, in which case I’m happy to be proven wrong. Aside from that, she does a fine job with everything in the Kelvinverse – the ships look excellent and we even get a first look at the Antosian race. Eurydice and Thalia are drawn extremely well and look fantastic.
First look at the Antosians
As for the story – this issue starts out strong. For fans of TOS, we are finally getting a real dramatization of how Captain Garth literally and figuratively morphed into Lord Garth of Izar. Even if you aren’t familiar with his backstory, it’s entertaining nonetheless. Johnson has done a masterful job of merging the two universes and I’m eager to see how this pre-Elba II Lord Garth wreaks havoc on the crew of the USS Endeavour.
5-Page Preview: Star Trek Boldly Go #10
Click thumbnails to enlarge
Available Today
Star Trek Boldly Go #11 arrives in comic book stores today, Wednesday, September 2oth and retails for $3.99. You can also order it at TFAW with a discount. You can also order the variant cover by Tony Shasteen.
And if you want to catch up, the trade paperback collection of Star Trek: Boldly Go (volume 1, collection of issues #1-#6) is available now. It retails for $19.99. You can order from Amazon for 32% off.
Keep up with all the latest inked Star Trek in TrekMovie’s Comics Category.
And let the Alec Peters bashing begin…
Who is Alec Peters?
A person of relative insignificance.
He’s the man who wanted to make a fan film based on Axanar. He made a short film which is basically a special effects reel for TOS style starships. Google “Prelude to Axanar” to see it. CBS and Paramount clubbed together to sue him for copyright infringement when he announced that he would make a full length feature based on his short to compete with official Trek. He raised over $1m from fans for it. He also started selling Trek merchandise without permission and used the fan funds raised to pay himself a salary and many of his own personal expenses. This was several years ago. The case has now settled. As part of the settlement he can no longer produce the film as intended (full length) with various restrictions in place. His project also resulted in the studios implementing restrictions for fan films, which annoyed a lot of fan film makers. It’s been around a year I think since the settlement and despite having raised $1m and having restrictions on how he can now raises funds, he’s still begging for more ,money from fans and not a frame of his film has been shot. It also doesn’t help that the man himself is a vulgar narcissist incapable of maintaining a mature dialogue with anyone who criticises or asks questions of him.
The whole saga has also given rise to an online feud between fans of fan films, particularly those who has been involved in them, with two obsessive groups that are Pro-Axanar and Pro- Peters and those who hate him with a passion and want to see him fail and are prepared to go to any lengths possible (including some very immoral ones). Some on the Anti-Axanar side are real losers. They devote each minute of every day to obsessive over Peters. It’s unhealthy. Carlos Pedreza for instance, runs a so called journalistic blog that reports on every Axanar development with a negative spin. He’s a fan film maker with a clear axe to grind (who worked on New Voyages and the terribly low budget Hidden Frontier) pretending to be a neutral journalist, who probably hated how far Peters got with his fund raising and project before shutdown. On the other side you have people like the sycophant Jonathan Lane, who is a Peters stooge and runs a fan film blog as a cover to blow smoke up the arse of Peters and target the “haters”. The whole thing has become the saddest thing I have ever seen. With one set of gullible fans being taken for a ride by someone who is probably a con man, and another set having developed an unhealthy daily obsession with said man. Objective commentary on the whole thing is pretty scarce.
So there’s a brief history of it all. It’s best avoided like the plague since too many involved are toxic and am embarrassment to fandom.
Pedraza is not a ‘so-called journalist’, but a good one tracking an unscrupulous moron who stole people’s money to make a bogus bullshit film that could never be made because it didn’t have a good script and because said unscrupulous moron can’t really make a movie. He has a much right to do this anybody else would, since what Peters did has destroyed Star Trek fan films.
What should be happening as a result of this focus is that Peters stops being involved in fandom; if that means being ‘unhealthy’ about following him, that’s not really a big deal.
A con artist who bilked fans out of tons of money.
It’s more than deserved.
I’ve not been involved in it, but it seems to me that Peters did in fact defraud fellow fans in order to enrich himself. That was my impression from afar. I think that has now been borne out by the facts and the passing of time.
Haha, wow. CBS can obviously do whatever they want, but I’m amazed that they don’t consider Axanar so toxic as to never go near it again. Or maybe they’re trying to reclaim it with the fans by doing this comic. Or maybe none of the above :).
False drama–CBS doesn’t suggest what to make the comics about. The writer or editor comes up with the idea. CBS just approves or nixes it.
Can’t get past how awful the artwork is.
In the ten years ago flash back, are they doing an alternate reality version of the Discovery uniforms? Some definite similarities.
They look look more influenced by the Kelvin uniforms to me, as if they are meant to be an updated version of them?
The Star Trek Boldly Go comics are set in the Kelvin Timeline a few months after the events of Star Trek Beyond and prior to the launching of the Enterprise-A. The uniform Garth is wearing I think is supposed to be the same style of uniform the USS Kelvin crew were wearing in Star Trek 2009. So this is the Kelvin universe version of Garth.
Why are my comments never approved?
Haha. Twice in the last few days I’ve commented and it just remains in moderation. I commented first on this post earlier, saying that I guess this puts to rest the Lorca = Garth fan theory.
People are saying Lorca = Garth? That’s a ridiculous theory.
Why would your comments need to be approved? Comments are posted immediately, without going through approvals. If you need to go through approvals, you must have done something to tick off the moderators.
The theory actually had some decent points in its favor. My comments seem to be going right through now. Can’t imagine that I ticked anyone off. I rarely post here.
Not entirely correct.
https://trekmovie.com/about/comments-and-moderation/
If you’re a new commenter you have to wait for someone to approve the first comment. Also, since we don’t have registration, if you change any combination of name or e-mail address you input into the comment form, that’s considered a new person. There are also a few other things that will get your comment flagged for moderation beyond that.