** Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Echoes #4**
Written by: Marc Guggenheim
Art by: Oleg Chudakov
Cover by: Jake Bartok
Tensions are at an all-time high with Chekov in a dire medical state while his evil doppelgänger, Akris, is supplying the Romulans with the Nightbringer weapon. The Enterprise crew’s mission is clear: infiltrate the Romulan dreadnought and destroy the Nightbringer before Akris can bring the destruction he’s inflicted upon his universe into theirs. But can Kirk and Nyota set their differences aside to ensure a peaceful resolution and avoid sparking a war with the Romulans?
Plowing through it, but I find the art dreadful.
I enjoyed this issue of Echoes more than the previous installments, but it still isn’t doing much for me. Guggenheim seems to be cramming as many character flourishes – little Kirkisms, and Spockisms, and McCoyisms – into the issues as he can, and it makes the characters read like parodies of themselves. Also, the art has not grown on me at all.
I did like the opening scene with the Federation President though.
Are there any Trek comics you’d recommend? It never dawned on me until now to look for some.
I think the both the current ongoing books, Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant, are a lot of fun, in the way that grabbing up a handful of action figures and smashing them together is a lot of fun. They’re ultimately silly fan service in a way that’s completely uncynical.
On the subject of action figures, if you want to talk about completed series, I think Star Trek vs. Transformers was actually really good. I especially like that they leaned into the Saturday morning cartoon aspect by having the Enterprise crew from STA with Arex and M’Ress being part of the cast. Unfortunately, IDW no longer has the Transformers license, so finding a digital copy could be a pain.
I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out the Star Trek: Lower Decks mini-series that came out a few months back. Everything you [I] love about LDecks, but in comics form. It was written by Ryan North, the author of Dinosaur Comics, and The Unbeatable Squirrel-Girl. He also said I was funny one time, and now nobody can tell me a damn thing.
Circling back to stories that are just dumping all the action figures out on the floor, my highest recommendation goes to Star Trek: The Q Conflict, in which Q and some other similarly powerful beings, gather up the crews of the Enterprise, Enterprise D, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager to act as their proxies in a cosmic dick measuring conflict.
Awesome write up, thank you!!
I read Lower Decks this weekend and loved it! And I also read Star Trek vs Transformers and your description was highly accurate, lol. I’m starting on Defiant now.
Awesome, I’m glad you enjoyed Lower Decks.
One thing to note about Defiant is that it is a spinoff of Star Trek; the story picks-up after the first Star Trek arc.
Yeah just saw that. I’ll start Star Trek and then go to Defiant.
