The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Star Trek
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No way, decent art from Balboni? It’s unbelievably acceptable, probably due to Marina Castelvetro’s pencils. Now, it’s not great but it’s far from the usual Balboni eyesore. This issue is a done-in-one episode, which is kind of nice. The Enterprise finds a ravaged colony of prospectors; turns out the Gorn are back (from the “Star…
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So Johnson doesn’t reveal the human female who is conspiring with the Romulans. It’s probably that chick Khan hooked up with in Space Seed but who cares. He comes up with a wacky way for Spock to get out of Pon Farr without having to fight Kirk (a sad oversight) or get busy with his…
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Not a particularly special continuation of the story… mostly because there’s so much extra stuff to complicate the “Amok Time” adaptation. First, there’s no Vulcan anymore so Spock’s on New Vulcan. Turns out there’s a tribe of wild Vulcans running around the planet–in its volcanos, which leads to a terrible action sequence from Fajar, who…
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Interesting, very interesting. Well, sort of interesting. This issue, beginning a sequel arc to the Star Trek Into Darkness film, does feature a return to form for Johnson in some ways. He’s enjoying writing the scenes between the crew, not trying to fit in a bunch of silly new history. The worst he does is…
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Not only don’t Sulu and Chekhov rate their own origin issues, they don’t even get one bad artist. They have to share two lousy artists. I wonder if Johnson knew he was going to have two artists or if the told him later. The change is handled somewhat seamlessly. It goes from bad to bad;…
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Maybe there’s a reason Scotty isn’t the star on “Star Trek.” Johnson gets absolutely no mileage out of the character, even going so far as to include the transwarp Beagle incident the film writers thought so much of. It doesn’t help Balboni’s on the pencils, but there’s just no story. Some of the problem stems…
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What a truly awful comic book. Ryan Parrott takes over for regular writer Mike Johnson–really hope it’s just for this issue and not forever–and does the secret origin of Uhura. There’s something to be said about how the new Star Trek promotes Uhura to the big three and downgrades Bones, but now’s not the time…
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The Bones McCoy origin issue. Not sure if Johnson doing origin issues is such a good idea after this one. Definitely not if the art team of Claudia Balboni and Erica Durante continues. It’s sometimes a little amazing the artists IDW gets for Star Trek. It’s one of the oldest licensed properties out there and…
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Eh. You know, Johnson tries really hard sometimes and he ends up forgetting things. For example, doing the mirror universe version of the new Star Trek movie, he manages to lose sight of his best possible story threads. Old Spock arrives–only he’s regular old Spock not old mirror Spock. Johnson refuses to play too much…
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Very interesting approach to doing the Mirror, Mirror adaptation. Instead of adapting the original episode–so far, Johnson just does a story set in a similarly dark alternate reality but one in the new movie continuity. Spock’s the captain of the Enterprise, Kirk is his first officer. They’re warring against the Klingons, but there’s still the…
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These little original issues don’t work out bad at all. Johnson uses this one to flesh out the Keesner character–Scotty’s little alien sidekick–and it’s pretty good. Turns out the character is from some planet of little aliens where he’s ostracized for being too tall. He ends up in Starfleet–following an odd cameo from Kirk’s father–and…
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I think this issue has to be the best in the series so far. Johnson structures it around a redshirt who is writing home to his parents from the Enterprise. The character does have a name–and some ties back to the movie–but he’s sort of interchangeable. There’s a brief recap of the movie and the…
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The Tribbles storyline doesn’t have a particularly good conclusion. Not because of Johnson’s script. He does all right actually. The action moves from the Tribble planet–gives Uhura some Klingon to translate–back to the ship for the Tribbles on the Enterprise (but not like the original episode at all). Scotty gets a big sequence where he…
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For the Tribbles issue, Mike Johnson goes for humor, which is appropriate. It’s definitely not a direct adaptation of the original episode, as it features the Enterprise finding the home world of the Tribbles and the beasts who keep the ecosystem in check. There’s a flashback–I think–at the beginning to the Star Trek movie, then…
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Johnson closes this issue on San Francisco Starfleet Command. He opened the last issue with it, but these scenes have no connection. It’s a terrible bookend device, since it tears the reader away from the regular cast. The plot revelations throughout the issue, though predictable, aren’t bad. Johnson has problems transitioning between locations, which is…
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The secret to reading Star Trek is to concentrate on the words. Not on what people are saying, but the actual visual text. Focusing on the balloons and boxes, one can ignore the art. For a panel or two, I thought Molnar had improved since his last issue. He has not. He oscillates between bad…
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I’m trying to imagine what Phillips’s pencils must look like. He does so little work on faces–relying almost entirely on the colorist to fill in depth–I wish I could see the pencils. People probably look like blobs with eyes. If you haven’t guessed, the art is terrible. Johnson still comes up with a fairly decent…
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Johnson does a whole lot better when he’s not adapting episodes of the original “Star Trek.” Sure, it’s the whole point of this series, but this issue–the first original one–is leagues better than the previous ones. Okay, Joe Phillips’s art is the same tepid, heavy on the likenesses, light on actual quality art the rest…
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While this issue is undeniably better than the last one, Corroney’s bad art is still a problem and Johnson exhibits a different writing problem. The issue’s better because more of it is dialogue. Spock and McCoy try to figure out what’s going on. It’s probably lifted from the original episode, but it definitely works. There’s…
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It’s hard to take Star Trek seriously. Joe Corroney’s art concentrates on photo likenesses of the new movie cast–he photo-references to the point when two people are in the same panel, they don’t even occupy the same physical space. And scripter Mike Johnson is just adapting old episodes in the new movie continuity. What he…
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These comics ought to come with a fifty cents off coupon for buying the original “Star Trek” episode online. If I’ve seen the episode, The Galileo Seven, I don’t remember it. But I do know the resolution must be somewhat different because Johnson’s finish for this issue is firmly in movie continuity. The issue’s a…
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Once again, Mike Johnson does well enough adapting an original “Star Trek” episode to the new movie’s continuity. Well enough means it utterly lacks any personality. This issue Uhura gets the most “movie” personality, just because of her romance with Spock. But even with those added details, she barely makes any impression. Instead, it’s all…
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So Sally Kellerman doesn’t show up this issue either. Johnson continues his adaptation of the show’s pilot, but it’s all of a sudden very reductive. He can’t handle a big cast–I think there’s maybe five people in the whole issue–which makes it feel less like “Star Trek.” Molnar can’t handle the technology, which is another…
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IDW should have put out Star Trek as double-sized issues, containing the entire episode adaptation, instead of splitting them up. It’s a high concept series–comic book adaptations of the original series but in the new movie’s continuity, which is the only reason I was interested. So, an issue is only as good as the original…
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Jeter runs out of space here a little. He’s got an exciting conclusion, but then he’s also got a big special effects conclusion (Cypress is disastrous as rendering it, unfortunately) and some more talking heads stuff. Also–and here’s why I was confused last issue. He’s got the station commander–Major Kira (you can’t refer to “Deep…
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This issue is the all action issue. Or close to it. I think N-Vector is most useful–not to discount its success as an episode of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” it’s a fine episode of that television program–as an example of how television pacing can be adapted to comic books. The problem, of course, is…
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Did Wildstorm not get the likenesses in their “Star Trek” license or something? At first I thought it was just Cypress’s style, bringing a scratchy indie feel to a completely mainstream release, but now I’m wondering if it’s just because he couldn’t draw the actors. His artwork is a little static at times, especially for…
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So this series is a continuation of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” I guess I’m glad I don’t care about the ending of the series being spoiled for me. I decided to read it because of Jeter, who’s a science fiction novelist of good repute, and because I didn’t realize–on seeing it in his bibliography–N-Vector…
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There really isn’t anything to dislike about Star Trek. Well, maybe the music, which isn’t bad, just isn’t as good the rest of the music in the series. There’s a lot to like–Chris Pine (though the wife disagrees), J.J. Abrams’s direction is outstanding, there’s some nice little stuff (Zoe Saldana’s Uhura and her romance, Leonard…
The Stop Button 