Order New Visions #12

Editor’s Note: A special thanks to Patrick Hayes, leading our Trek Comic reviews for the past several years. He’s moved on to other endeavors, and we wish him well.

Today, “Captain” John Kirk joins the TrekCore team, manning the helm on our continuing Star Trek comic coverage.

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You know, if there’s anything that IDW needs to be proud of, it’s their respect for, and treatment of the Star Trek Franchise.

Star Trek: New Visions by John Byrne – edited by Chris Ryall – is living testament to this accomplishment. I mean, not only did IDW have the foresight to snare the license of this incredibly influential property, but it also had the good sense to enlist legendary comics creator, John Byrne to draw their books for the last few years. On the heels of successes like Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor, or Star Trek: Crew, only Byrne could have managed to re-invigorate the entire notion of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

After seeing Byrne’s dedication to series like The Fantastic Four, The X-Men or Alpha Flight, It’s fair to say that Byrne was the right choice to deliver it in such a devoted way that honors this ground-breaking television show and pays homage to the creator, performers, and technicians who worked on the original series. Byrne has painstakingly taken thousands of stills from the 79 TOS episodes and re-purposed and arranged them into completely new adventures that continue the voyages of the starship Enterprise and allow a new generation to witness the excitement and fantastic nature of this classically timeless series.

Issue #12, “Swarm,” is the latest edition in these amazing adventures. To quickly sum up the story, the Enterprise encounters a new species of interstellar life that feeds on the raw power of stars in a swarm. Warping into a system where a star has recently gone nova, Captain Kirk and his crew are faced with a lifeform that mindlessly devours and poses a threat to the populated centers to the galaxy and it up to them to somehow stop it. How? Well, that’s for the reader to discover, but take it from me, it’s classic Trek and the plot could have come from the pages of Norman Spinrad’s own scripts.  

…which is exactly the type of thing that a die-hard Trek fan wants to read. Byrne, a Star Trek fan in his own right, has lovingly recreated the same atmosphere, pacing and substance of the show that fans would experience when watching it. Each page is a careful choice – in terms of positioning of the characters, selection of the right emotion for the story or scene, and even lighting is brought into effective use to help convey mood.

If Byrne had have drawn these, then that would have been an aspect that he would have included near subconsciously but working with photographs – and a limited stock of them to boot, is a far more difficult process. It’s a sign of Byrne’s attention and talent that he is able to select or modify photos to achieve the same atmosphere as he would in telling a story of his own rendering.

Some critics have voiced an issue about Byrne not drawing his story. However, while Byrne is sensitive about his self-perceived inability to effect likenesses (though personally, I think he’s a little too hard on himself) this is an adaptability that is definitely laudable and should not be underestimated. However, the pace of this fifty page volume is also not to be missed. Byrne manages to communicate the story as you would have expected to develop at the same rate as a television episode.

In the case of “Swarm,” Byrne has a natural advantage. Given that one of Byrne’s most celebrated works was “The Last Galactus Story” (featured in Epic, Illustrated in the early 1980’s), he has a natural affinity with sun-consuming alien entities. This familiarity with subject material might make it an easier story for him to plot, but Byrne knows how to insert story-developing aspects like Spock’s discovery of relevant scientific facts, combined with McCoy’s philosophical insights all lead to Captain Kirk’s bold, tactical decision-making ability. It’s this progression of the story that Byrne has keenly assimilated into this book and it’s dead-on.

But it’s the integrity of the characters that really catch a reader’s attention. The fact that Byrne can reinforce this by using actual images of the original characters not only lends credibility to the book, but also makes it a nostalgic joy for original generation fans as well as fully portraying the original characters in a way that a new generation can appreciate.

Byrne has the mannerisms, the expressions and the scenery literally picture-perfect, but his own original scripting has captured the essence of the characters’ dialogue so well that it truly is a recognizable tribute of his own love and respect for the series. Only someone who knows Star Trek so well could manage to so accurately replicate its nature. It’s a thing of beauty.

Of course, this is an easy sell for me. Given that I’m one of those die-hard Trekkies as well as being a complete fan of John Byrne’s work, the combination of these two elements makes this a book that I can’t help but want to buy. Also, IDW’s strategic ability to license the right properties makes this a book that people will need to collect.

“Swarm” is high quality, definitely unique and created by legendary talent. In fact, it makes you want to quickly draft your resume and send it to editor, Chris Ryall. Clearly this company knows what it’s doing when it comes to Star Trek.