Suit up, cadets! We warp back to San Francisco in the final chapter of IDW Publishing’s Starfleet Academy comic miniseries!

There are a trio of covers to collect for the last issue in this series:

Order Star Trek:
Starfleet Academy #5

• The regular cover by interior artist Derek Charm is sensational. Divided into four diagonal planes, it highlights all four aspects of this series; going from top to bottom, Uhura, Spock, and Kirk in glorious red are in profile from their right, looking at Starfleet’s logo; T’laan, Lucia, Shev, Gracie, and Vel are colored boldly, posed as those who came before them; the U.S.S. Slayton in cool blue speeds forward against a powerful yellow background; and fireworks go off over the Golden Gate Bridge, foreshadowing our heroes’ success. Outstanding!

• I had said in my review of Issue #2 that one of the covers had a Breakfast Club vibe. The subscription cover by Stephen Thompson is an outright homage to the film. Posed on the grounds of Starfleet Academy are Lucia as Allison, Shev as John, Gracies as Brian, T’laan as Andrew, and Vel as Claire. The characters excellently mirror their film counterparts, with the art being exceptionally realistic, especially on Vel.

• Malachi Ward created the retailer incentive cover. This is not a good frontpiece. The characters appear to be a conglomeration of several artist’s studies combined randomly into one image. Lucia has dead eyes, Gracie is awkward, T’laan is like a deer in headlights, Shev is in a random action pose, and Vel unlike anything shown previously. The flat mustard background does not help.

In the Wagner-219 system, the cadets have encountered the lost USS Slayton. They arrived before the ship just as its infamous mutiny has begun. Their appearance has caused a cessation to the revolt, as long as it results in the crew getting home. The Slayton’s crew is told they’ve been shot a century into their future where it’s seemed as though they’ve only been stuck in place for sixty-one days. Captain Hendricks had hoped the cadets could use their ship like a tugboat to liberate him and his crew, but Gracie reveals their ship is now in the same predicament. The cadets believe that some “unorthodox modifications” can save all of them.

Any Trek fan will have guessed how this will play out, but the joy of this final issue by Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrott comes in how the group escapes this “time quicksand” and what happens after they return to Starfleet Academy. The two pages between T’laan and Somers are gold: they make the chief’s seemingly one note character grow considerably. Gracie also shows some considerable grit with the plan executed on Pages 7 – 9. As the leader of the cadets, T’laan gets the most from the book’s resolution, with a very poignant piece on 14 and 15, and the coda on 19 and 20 wonderful.

Derek Charm illustrates and colors this final issue and it looks terrific. The anomaly both ships are trapped in is a gorgeous mishmash of violet and blue. The interiors of the Slayton are excellent with cables hanging everywhere to remind the reader of the ship’s distress, and some nice smoke aggravates their plight. The sail effect is beautiful and definitely falls into the category “Why wasn’t this ever shown in one of the shows?”

It’s a truly beautiful effect. The coloring that accompanies this plan is equally impressive. The dramatic shift in colors on 13 tells the reader the story is winding down, and it was good to see this dominant color continue through 16. The final two panels on 16 end in a very humorous visual; not just from the dominant character but the two individuals reacting to the action. The final panel of the book continues to give me goosebumps. Charm hits all the right marks.

Several settings, narration, dialogue, and transmissions are all the same font, while yells, sounds, and computer text receive some welcome differentiation.

AndWorld Design is closing out this book’s text in the limited style of the previous issues, so for that they are to be congratulated. If only the book had had a wider variety when it first began.