Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Mike Johnson
Artist: Claudia Balboni
Release Date: 21st May 2014

Star Trek: Khan – as one would expect – covers the story of Khan Noonien Singh within the New Trek Universe.

Following the mixed response of Into Darkness, many questions were raised. First and foremost – how do you get from Ricardo Montalbán’s original Khan to the radically different visage of Benedict Cumberbatch?

For me though that was all semantics, clearly something happened of screen which altered his appearance. It wasn’t something I felt I needed to see as I had presumed largely the same as is shown in this series.

With that in mind I much preferred the first half of the book, which instead focused on Khan’s origin and the warfare that plagues Earth prior to the suspended animation that ends as the Space Seed [… and now Into Darkness].  The war is particularly well-detailed, from the maps of how Earth changes to the horror of the war itself as the augments turn on each other prior to humanity’s uprising.

I found this section quite gripping, but from the moment Khan is re-awoken in the 23rd century it pretty much becomes exposition for the ambiguous parts of the films. You can piece this part of the story together, and there really isn’t much of an exciting journey through it unlike the first half

The art holds up reasonably well but again it flows much more naturally in the first half than the latter half.

Overall, the series does its job in filling the unknown parts of the new Trek Universe and at times is a good read.  However, sadly, it definitely peaks too soon.

Rating: 3/5.

The writer of this piece was:
Gary Kane aka (GK)
Article: Flashin’ Back!
GK tweets from @Kanoclassic