Review – Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes #4 (IDW Publishing)

January 12, 2024

2–3 minutes

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Oleg Chudakov
Colors: DC Alonso
Release Date: 9th August 2023

Whilst some readers may well argue that Marc Guggenheim’s storyline for issue four of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes lacks much in the way of dynamic, action-packed excitement, the New Yorker definitely fills his twenty-two-page plot with plenty of political intrigue and tension as James T. Kirk desperately attempts to swot up on his Romulan equipment so as to secretly transport himself to the undisclosed location of the planet-destroying Nightbringer weapon.

Foremost of these diplomatic dilemmas undoubtedly stems from this comic’s strained opening between the Federation’s blue-skinned Madame President, Admiral Mohamed, and the duplicitous Ambassador Nanclus – who rather enjoyably bears more than a passing resemblance to the Romulan character’s Silver Screen actor Darryl Henriques. This well-written scene really helps establish just how close to a full-scale war the two opposing empires are, and adds loads of weight to Commander Spock’s subsequent decisions, when the Vulcan is forced to contemplate the consequences of Sulu stealing “Akris’ purloined ship” and whether Pavel Chekov’s “dire medical state” is worth risking a galactic conflict over.

Furthermore, it provides Guggenheim with plenty of opportunity to demonstrate just how very well he can handle the science officer’s close relationship with Leonard McCoy. The pair’s banter within this comic is so good that many within its audience should easily be able to hear the voices of actors Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley in their ears, as well as see the character’s facial responses to their verbal sparring and witty repartee in Oleg Chudakov’s pencilling; “Wait. You were messing with me just then weren’t you? I really hate you sometimes.”

Lastly, but by no means least, is Guggenheim’s ability to also give some spotlight to the rest of the U.S.S. Enterprise’s main crew, most notably that of Montgomery Scott and Nurse Christine Chapel. The Chief Engineer’s role within Spock’s plan to locate a pre-warp civilisation upon which the Romulan’s can test their newly-acquired Doomsday weapon is pivotal to this publication’s plot, and additionally provides the Scotsman with an opportunity to exhibit his own biting waggishness once he realises the pointy-eared alien “deemed it an acceptable risk” that he’d be clobbered unconscious by the determined General Uhura so she could escape the Constitution-class vessel in her recently repaired spacecraft.

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