Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Boldly Go #1…
STAR TREK’s 50th Anniversary Celebration continues with this all-new series following the adventures of Captain Kirk and the iconic crew! New worlds! New species! New ships! And a new danger unlike anything the Federation has encountered before! Boldly go into a new era of STAR TREK!
SEE ALSO: Check out a preview of Star Trek: Boldly Go #1 here
Today is the start of something special, as it’s out with the rule book, or in this case story consultant Robert Orci, and in with the new. ‘What’s new?’ you’re possibly wondering. Well anyone that has the subscription cover from Tony Shasteen will see it straight away, but for those that don’t Mike Johnson now has a very big universe to play in.
The crew of the Enterprise is scattered amongst the stars, for they are no longer the crew of the Enterprise. Kirk is now the Captain of the U.S.S. Endeavour with Bones as a lowly plain old Doctor, serving under the rather blunt Chief Groffus, and Chekov has joined them too; meanwhile Spock is taking a sabbatical on New Vulcan with Uhura, Scotty is stationed at Starfleet Academy putting Cadets in their place and Sulu is now Second-in-Command on the U.S.S. Concord. Time has moved them on.
With all going well for the crew, except perhaps for Dr. McCoy’s routine ear bashing from his superior officer, their peace is shattered when the Concord receives an unknown signal which is relayed to Endeavour along with their distress call. Not being able to decipher this signal, it is sent to New Vulcan with the hope that a certain linguistics expert can translate it. With the Endeavour arriving to the call of the Concords distress, Sulu has a message from their attackers.
It’s a brave step that Mike Johnson is taking here. Not wanting to drop major spoilers into this opening issue, but throwing this certain enemy into the fray will ruffle a number of feathers and I’ll freely admit when this Trek lover read it I had a minor internal hissy fit. Then it dawned on me NuTrek, new rules, Kirk and Co. have been thrown all over the Galaxy already, abd the Federation has bound to have already attracted numerous species attentions. So here Mike is drawing his line in the sand and starting as he means to go on, which if it carries on like this Boldly Go will be an excellent series.
Tony Shasteen’s art in the opening issue ranges from the excellent to the not so great; his Starships are superb, I loved his cameo of the Cadets from Starfleet Academy and also Jaylah from Star Trek Beyond; however as we’ve witnessed in the past – with Tony’s characters – they occasionally suffer with morphing out of shape. Although this doesn’t distract from the overall story, it is noticeable on the page especially when you have something splendid from Tony then something not so splendid right next to it.
Star Trek: Boldly Go is a perfect opener to a brand new Star Trek series and one you should be picking up.
Rating: 8/10
Villordsutch
Originally published October 19, 2016. Updated November 14, 2019.
