STAR TREK: NEW VISIONS VOLUME 3 - John Byrne

STAR TREK WEEK


It is the third volume in the Star Trek: New Visions graphic novel series, this one featuring comic book issues #'s 6, 7, and 8. Author and photoplay artist/manipulator John Byrne has begun to refine the process and found ways to add new characters to the stories, broadening the scope of the stories.

The first story, "Resistance," is the weakest of the three here.  It's an 'internal' story, meaning all the action takes place aboard the Enterprise with no special guests. In the story, Kirk and crew face off against a powerful, Doomsday Machine-like entity with the very strong suggestion that it is the Borg. Mostly I was a bit bored by the story and I executed an eye-roll at the end. I don't mind when a franchise like Star Trek draws on past precedent to include storylines or characters that have gone before.  It's actually quite fun. But I do have a problem when trying to presage a storyline or characters.

We know that Picard and crew were among the first to encounter the Borg, so why do we need to have other Star Trek series'/characters have any sort of interaction with this galactic menace? Even if the encounter is only tenuous, as it is here, if this is the Borg that Kirk's Enterprise has encountered, why wouldn't the Borg pursue this race sooner than 100 years later?

"1971" is a much more interesting tale.  This one combines Star Trek and the Star Trek starter series, Assignment: Earth with a little 'Guardian of Forever' thrown in.  The Star Trek episode, "Assignment: Earth" was never one of my favorites, but Byrne writes a really fine time travel story here that had me interested all the way through.  This was a delightful adventure and I could see this is as stand-alone episode from the original series (which is precisely what I'm looking for when I read a graphic novel like this).

"The Survival Equation" also calls upon some familiar themes and characters from the original series, this time primarily from the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of."  When Kirk encounters an android replica of Andrea he discovers that she's just one of many different Andrea replicas. Kirk learns that she's just one of a large series of serving androids being delivered across the galaxy by an unknown  merchant.  In the course of tracking them down, the Enterprise crew uncover an android uprising plot that even brings the giant, Ruk, back. 

We do discover the 'unknown' merchant - which won't be a surprise to anyone who knows the series - and while this is a character I like, I do tend to think is a bit over-used. It makes sense, though, and I enjoyed the story.

Overall, we see that Byrne is improving on his process. His writing and plotting is strong, and given that he's somewhat limited by characters in the pre-existing series, he's done quite well in giving us interesting stories.

Looking for a good book? Star Trek: New Visions, Volume 3 is a unique graphic novel with stories that read as though they were pulled right from the television series.

I borrowed this book through the Kindle Unlimited program.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Star Trek: New Visions, Vol 3

author: John Byrne

artist/photoplay manipulator: John Byrne

publisher: IDW Publishing

ISBN: 1631405365

paperback, 136 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber

Image
 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles. I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five). The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult. Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detecti
Read more

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - wherein he acq
Read more