Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Deviations…
In a world where the Romulans discovered Earth before the Vulcans, Earth is now a brutal penal colony. Resistance fighter William Riker has uncovered a vast conspiracy, and together with his band of prisoner outlaws (you just might recognize a few!), must fight to rescue a mysterious prisoner in the darkest level of the Romulan dungeons. The only man on Earth that still holds the key to humanity’s return to the stars!
SEE ALSO: Check out a preview of Star Trek: Deviations here
It’s not often “One-Shots” come around in the Trek series; normally we get a short run of a few issues dealing with a separate story, or as in the case of Star Trek: Waypoint a cluster of “One Shots”. Though here in Deviations – from Donny Cates – we have an honest to goodness one shot, and we’re not expecting an issue#2 anytime soon; though that isn’t a spoiler!
Imagine if you will, that at the end of Star Trek: First Contact when Picard and Co. had just defeated the Borg and Zefram Cochrane had completed his first Warp excursion, that the first extra-terrestrial beings to descend into Bozeman wasn’t the logic-loving Vulcans, but the all-conquering Romulans. How would the timeline of the Federation have been skewed from that point on? Where would the friends, crewmates and enemies grow? It’s here in Star Trek: Deviations we discover the answer to said questions.
Donny Cates delivers a rather exciting, energetic and action-packed issue here. We start with a “Snake Plissken”-like Riker barrelling down on horseback, and behind him we have – in the driving seat of a dune buggy – a blindfolded Geordi, whose sight comes from the disembodied head of Data; beside the blind driver we a pacifistic Worf and in pursuit of these are three Scorpion-class Romulan attack ships. The pages of Deviations open as they mean to go on, with a rather fantastic pace.
As the story unfolds we discover that fate has brought this crew together and due to a symbol discovered, they’ve realised that they are something more than a group of scavengers and prisoners, so they begin to fight to find the truth.
As said above this is an exciting tale, and not only that when it comes to a close you’ll be wanting more of what Donny Cates has started. Here he’s begun the opening threads of this Universe with the sparks that have ignited the best fireworks in the box and now we’ve seen one brilliant explosion we want another, but Donny’s taken the box of fireworks away! Curse you Donny, curse you to heck!
The art from Josh Hood is rather grand to, there’s a classic Star Trek: Next Generation “1990’s comic book” feel to his work. I also especially like his Reg Barclay taking down a Romulan Guard midway through the prison break, giving a war cry too it appears, shame there was no onomatopoeia to beef it up. Another piece of splendid art comes from Rachael Stott who delivers a fantastic Picard/Crusher “X-Files” cover.
Star Trek: Deviations is an enjoyable read to take a break from the norm in the universe of Trek with the “what if?”, but now I need to know “What happens!?”
Rating: 8/10
Originally published March 15, 2017. Updated November 14, 2019.
