Villordsutch reviews Star Trek #48…
In this all-new 2-part story called DEITY, the crew of Starship Enterprise discovers an uncharted world whose inhabitants worship vengeful gods… gods who now turn their wrath on Captain Kirk and his crew!
Inside this issue of Star Trek #48 some great things happen. Not only are we getting to see the moulding of a future captain but we’re seeing the shaping of an uncharted Alpha Quadrant right before our eyes and it’s all rather exciting.
After the last two issues [The Tholian Webs] which seemed to be rushed and compressed, Mike Johnson could have happily delivered Star Trek: TOS with a NuTrek dressing mixed throughout and begrudgingly we would have truthfully still bought it, for – let’s face it – we love Trek and we actually have Star Trek: Insurrection on Blu-ray even though we’ve only watched it once. We’ll Mike hasn’t done that, in issue#48, he’s taken the fact that Mr. Sulu is Captain material and has begun to sow that seed from the off with some rather truthful dialogue between Kirk and Sulu. We are then placed upon a completely alien planet with an Away Team who – other than Scotty & Sulu – we know nothing about; we are however given their brief back story. The planet they are sent to investigate is inhabited by a planet of, to be glib, chicken-headed creatures which the Universal Translator cannot comprehend their language. It’s after we meet the Chicken People do we get to see something ever so special. I can only describe this moment of seeing this new unknown vessel appear – for me – like the first time I witnessed the Shadow ship appear in Babylon 5, I was awestruck with what had been designed by Mike and delivered on the page by Tony Shasteen. This object appeared in space, dwarfing the Enterprise and that’s when you notice the staffs carried by the creatures below.
If you’ve caught any of my previous Star Trek reviews, you will know Tony Shasteen’s art is often hit or miss with myself, but in Deity Part 1 he seems to have pulled out all the stops. This all seems somewhat different to his usual art, less separated, it feels like he’s taken a fine-nibbed pen to his work and shaded in the odd areas bringing life to the normal flat panels. On top of Tony’s work we have the quite brilliant palette from Davide Mastrolonardo, who makes these pages shine, the proverbial cherry on the cake. Yes there are a few overly animated Scotty faces but I can easily push these to one side, when I’ve witnessed red bolts of electricity shatter the sky from an unknown crescent ship.
Deity Part 1 is an excellent comic and one you should be picking up today.
Check out our recent interview with Mike Johnson here at Flickering Myth.
Rating: 9/10
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=8k_v0cVxqEY
Originally published August 5, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
