Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #1…
A bold new chapter for Star Trek begins here, in an all-new series that shows you what life is like for cadets at the galaxy’s greatest school! Witness the student days of the iconic cast before they joined the Enterprise, immediately before the blockbuster 2009 film! Plus, meet an all-new group of students as they embark on bold new adventures of their own! The first new characters in the Star Trek movie universe make their mark here, as we lead up to next summer’s blockbuster movie!
It really doesn’t feel like six months since I was interviewing Mike Johnson and enquiring about Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Time has really screamed around so quickly to bring this new comic to our doorsteps (or tablet in my case) and we’re really going to step into something rather new here. However, as were going to be looking at the life of teenagers to post-teenagers and their trials and tribulations at the “Academy” is this really a Star Trek comic for the more seasoned readers?
With Spock discussing his current relationship to an empty restaurant table and Uhura, who currently has her mind on a recent signal she’s picked up, Nyota suddenly becomes aware that Spock is actually breaking up with her. Asking him to leave we overhear another relationship currently ending, but not so subtly, as the remaining diner – Kirk – sits and joins Uhura.
We move ahead three years to discover a Vulcan cadet, called T’Laan, requesting to leave Starfleet Academy so she can join the survivors of new Vulcan. However T’Lann’s Professor strikes up a deal with her to join the Academy’s Centennial Celebration and the Inter-Academy Exploratory Competition, if she accepts he will fast track her request to leave the Academy. With the Competition underway we discover that a Federation starship called the U.S.S. Slayton was lost at the beginning of the founding of the U.F.P. a hundred years back, this however was the source of the signal Uhura detected three years before.
It’s an intriguing opening issue #1 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and I’ll be honest not what I was expecting. Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrott have entwined the two threads to safely ease us into to the world of these new cadets. If it had just been Kirk and Co. we would have cried, “foul!” instantly but wisely they didn’t; plus we’ve been given a faint whiff on a mystery as a hook at the end of this newly strengthened line.
The artwork from Derek Charm is nice, clear and crisp. In truth if Paramount, tomorrow, asked for a new animated series I’d suggested that Derek Charm’s artwork would be a perfect template; it ticks all the boxes for what would look great upon the screen.
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is both an enjoyable and interesting start for what could be a great new crew in an excellent series of comics; even for us readers that have seen a few more moons than others.
Rating: 8/10
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published December 16, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
