Review – Star Trek #29 (IDW Publishing)

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Mike Johnson
Artist: Yasmin Liang
Release Date: 29th January 2014

For most of Star Trek #29, I found myself wondering if I had missed something. There is a glaringly obvious and somewhat jarring difference to every other issue of Star Trek in these pages that only becomes understandable around halfway through. Unfortunately, this means that the final page’s ‘shock moment’ falls flat, because you already see it coming 10 pages in advance. Sadly, in an effort to keep this review spoiler-free, that’s pretty much all I can say about the plot of this book.

Mike Johnson’s writing is still pretty good in this issue, and as I have said in previous Star Trek reviews, he seems to have a good grasp on the characters. They all feel familiar enough, but in this issue that actually doesn’t feel quite right. Issue #29 offers readers a peek into a parallel universe, and an alternate take on the crew of the Enterprise, but this doesn’t really run any deeper than the characters’ looks. I can’t help feeling that the story being told here could have been more entertaining if Johnson had been a little bolder with his take on the characters.

We also see a change in artist for this 2-part arc, and while her style isn’t to my own tastes, Yasmin Liang’s style is a welcome change. One noticeable problem from page to page, though, is that everything feels very ‘static’. There is almost no sense of movement to the characters in any of the panels, and each character holds the exact same facial expression in every panel of the book, making the visual experience very unsatisfying.

After the previous arc finished so strongly, this title was looking up. Star Trek #29 deviates from its course, and just about manages to pull off something a little different, but ultimately results in a fairly boring and predictable reading experience.