Publisher: IDW
Writer: John Byrne
Release Date: 14th May 2014

Legendary X-Men and Man of Steel artist John Byrne does Star Trek! Sort of. Actually what we have here is a strange photonovella; stills from the show overlaid with speech bubbles. You know, like those relationship advice columns found in tabloids, where women lie around in their underwear fretting about their marriages. So, there’s no lovely Byrne artwork, just prose atop photographs which is a wee bit disappointing.

A sequel to classic episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’ (Season 2 Episode 4 for the Trekkers among us; evil, goatee bearded parallel universe Spock for the rest of us) this finds the Mirror Universe’s sinister eye-linered Kirk beaming aboard the Enterprise for revenge. The concept is a strong one and thanks to numerous spoofs and homages (namely South Park andCommunity) the idea of an evil parallel universe where people have beards is familiar to many.

The story is handled well, Byrne clearly has extensive knowledge of the Star Trek mythos and a lot of affection for the central characters and this shines through. However, it’s a bit wordy at times, with panels swamped in words and some pages becoming a bit of a slog to read through. The main problem isn’t the story though, it’s the ‘art’. Photomontage is normally a pretty tacky and horribly contrived looking style, characters always seem stiff and lifeless and a comic is robbed of any zip or dynamism. I’m afraid to say that despite the facial gymnastics of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, the same is applicable here. It’s also a real head scratcher why a comic would constrain their visuals with the budget limitations of a 50 year old TV show when one of the most celebrated artists in comics is working on the title.

To be honest, I don’t know who this is for. Die hard Trek fans will buy it because it says Star Trek on the cover and lovers of kitsch might like to titter at the sheer weirdness of the project, but it’s a missed opportunity and a waste of a strong story idea. I’d really hoped for dilithium crystals, but instead was given Tribble dung.

Rating: 2/5.

The writer of this piece was: Joe Morrison
Joe is Freelance film journalist based in Glasgow.
You can also find Joe on Twitter.