IDW Publishing 2020
Written by J.M. DeMatteis
Illustrated by Matthew Dow Smith
Coloured by Candice Han
Lettered by Neil Uyetake
Legendary writer J.M. DeMatteis returns to Star Trek for the first time in nearly 40 years! And it’ll be well worth the wait, as he tackles two of the franchise’s most popular concepts: Khan Noonien Singh and the Mirror Universe!
This is why I love Star Trek! There is such a rich and storied universe at the creators’ fingertips that just begs to be explored. DeMatteis comes into this with what I would consider a dream project here. For me this is one of those “why haven’t we seen this before” kind of issues and that we are getting now from folks who are so incredibly talented is just a bonus. Who is worse here as we’ve got Khan who was pretty much a dictator madman type of guy in the regular universe and I just can’t imagine he’d be that different in this universe and to see that go up against a much more ruthless version of Kirk is like a dream come true.
The way that this is being told is sensational! How we see the story & plot development always moving forward through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is beautifully presented. I love seeing how this comes about and how we learn of Khan’s life in the Mirror Universe. The character development that we see here is amazing and as we see the characters go through what they do and the actions which they take I am blown away but what I see here. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists and turns along the way we see such a superb version of these characters that we want to see more of. The way this is structured and how we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow is remarkably well done.
Just seeing this makes me miss the television series and the film so bad. We have lost so many of the actors over the years and to be able to see them again here in this manner brings back a part of my childhood that I honestly thought I had lost. Aside from that factor this is just an amazingly good story in its own right and that’s worth its weight in gold.
The work we see on the interiors here is utterly fabulous! The linework we see is great and how the varying weights are being utilised to bring out the attention to detail is extremely well done. Matthew is a talented, talented artist and illustrator and the work he does is so spot on the characters likenesses it’s uncanny and thrilling. This may be one of the few cases where only utilising linework is something I can completely support just because of how well it’s laid down and how beautiful it makes the imagery on the page. The way that we see backgrounds being utilised not only expands the moments but brings us depth perception, this sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope for the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work is amazing as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is gorgeously rendered. Also the way we see the green phaser effects is a true highlight for me.
As is in a one-shot the story is very self-contained and fits beautifully in the allotted space. However, that being said I want more. How I would have been over the moon elated to have a four issue mini-series. This really does embody what I think of when I envision the original series and it’s so perfectly well realised through and through.