Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Khan #2….
“The origin of STAR TREK’s greatest villain continues here, in this all-new mini-series overseen by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci! Witness the never-before-seen outbreak of the legendary Eugenics Wars and behold Khan Noonien Singh’s brutal rise to power, as the secret history of the future is finally revealed! “
After my adoration of last month’s issue, I was rather excited to see Khan #2 fall into my virtual post box. You remember that last month I was more than happy for the Trek Lore being giving a lick of Rehashing Paint and from what Mike Johnson had created in #1, I could see it becoming a great series. What I didn’t anticipate was that #2 would be the first stumbling block I’d hit.
Last month we left Khan and his new found friends leading the Exodus out into the desert from both their childhood home and the base they were raised to be super soldiers, them and us both walking to a future that we’re currently uncertain of; we already know however what Khan’s future will be, but this new history left us with a bit of a wonder of where the story would lead.
Unfortunately we are given a mere glimpse of young adolescent Khan coming to power and again roughly the same for the end of the comic; I know that these are meant to be recollections which Khan 2.0 is making in the 23rd Century, but issue #1 never felt like this. Here in this issue it seems to be full of jumps which ignore a growth to power and another repeat of the Khan 2.0 crushing heads gimmick, which, albeit graphically violent, is losing its power as it’s overly milked.
I’m unsure of what brought Mike Johnson to hack this story up in this manner as he has shown with the last issue that the Khan 2.0 series could be interesting and stick to a story without huge disjointed leaps. I had become so uninterested in this tale I thought part way through (the comic) to stop reading. I don’t often feel like this for comics; it normal attacks me during books which turn to padding rather than story, but here it was in a twenty-something page comic, although I didn’t stop reading and continued to the end.
Though the story may be a bit of a lemon, this month the art is not as David Messina and Claudia Balbont are both rather excellent within these pages. They manage to put across a perfect show of skill in attempting to awaken the story and again as in last month’s issue we see a more gruesome side to the Trek comics than we normally get. Though one thing I’m unsure of is why the troops’ heads are shown in bloody detail being crushed whilst we seem to see no victims of the nuclear strikes in the two selected major cities.
Coming to a close, issue #2 isn’t an overly good comic to be honest, especially after a cracking start to the series, and it’s rather a disappointment that we’ve already began to tumble. My fingers are crossed that #3 springs back up.
Villordsutch is married with kids and pets. He looks like a tubby Viking and enjoys science fiction. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published November 12, 2013. Updated April 15, 2018.
