Reading Marathon: Kelvin Timeline Comics (and Novels)

Once again, I am embarking on a long journey through my unread Star Trek books!

In this case, I've been collecting (the collected editions of) most of the so-called "Kelvin timeline" comics as they've been released, with just a few gaps I need to plug in. But all I have ever read is Nero! (And, I guess, Spock: Reflections and Countdown, which lead into the Kelvin timeline, but don't take place in it.)

So in this thread, I am going to chronicle my reading of all of those stories, from Star Trek: The Official Motion Picture Adaptation #1 to Star Trek: Boldly Go #18. On the way, I'll take in IDW's sixty-issue ongoing Star Trek volume 1, the two original Kelvin timeline novels released by S&S, various Kelvin timeline miniseries (e.g., Countdown to Darkness, Khan, Manifest Destiny), Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Trek Into Darkness, and the two Green Lantern crossovers. Me being me, I'm going to do my best to read it all in chronological order (thanks to this thread and Memory Beta).

Since I've already read Nero (and Foster's novelization of the 2009 film), my journey begins with Star Trek: The Official Motion Picture Adaptation. I will report back here once I have read it!

I feel like these comics overall garnered very little discussion here on TrekBBS, but they must have sold decently well to last sixty issues plus assorted other things, so I would be happy to see others chime in with their takes as I go. Please attempt to avoid future spoilers, though; I have some broad knowledge of where the comics go, but that's it.

And the YA series? Those were pretty good.

I only read the first volume of Bodly go but I read all the countdowns and the ongoing comics. I enjoyed them quite a bit. I read them when I was younger and they definitely helped Spark my love of Star Trek.

There’s some cool episode remakes and character backstories that added a lot to the universe. Made me wish they’d had been able to make more movies.

Laura Cynthia Chambers said:

And the YA series? Those were pretty good.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (2010 novel series)

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is a young adult novel series published under the Simon Spotlight imprint of Simon & Schuster. The series is set in the alternate reality established in the film Star Trek, the novels being the first original tie-ins based in that continuity (following the placing on...

memory-alpha.fandom.com

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Literally nothing about these appeals to me. I know I am a crazy completist, but I do have my limits!

Stevil2001 said:

Literally nothing about these appeals to me. I know I am a crazy completist, but I do have my limits!

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Ditto.

Stevil2001 said:

Literally nothing about these appeals to me. I know I am a crazy completist, but I do have my limits!

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I've read at least three of the YA Academy novels, and I thought they were okay. Nothing special, but no worse than a lot of the Kelvin comics.

I enjoyed how the Kelvin comics fleshed out the crew by giving them more than just the movies.

Star Trek: The Official Motion Picture Adaptation #1-6 (Feb.-Aug. 2010), reprinted in Star Trek: The Official Motion Picture Adaptation (2010)
screenplay by Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, adaptation by Mike Johnson & Tim Jones, pencils by David Messina with Claudia Balboni, inks by Gaetano Carlucci, colors by Giaovanna Niro and Ilaria Traversi, letters by Robbie Robbins and Neil Uyetake

I was kind of worried about this book going in; in my experience, most comics adaptations of films are not up to much, often reading as a condensed version of a story optimized for a different medium.

To my surprise, then, scripters Mike Johnson & Tim Jones and artist David Messina deliver a pretty strong retelling of the 2009 film. I mean, it won't knock your world alight, but it does a good job of hitting the beats of the story via the medium of comics. Probably this is at least partially because it's been given a whole six issues, so (mostly) it's not too compressed. But also Johnson/Jones/Messina have good pacing instincts, sometimes piling a lot of panels into a single page, sometimes using double-page spreads in order to capture a key moment. Clearly also some thought was put into putting issue endpoints at key moments, so that each issue works as a unit.

The result is an adaptation that reads fairly genuinely as a comic. It's probably at its best when covering the earlier parts of the story; it's not until the end of issue #3 that Nero's attack begins, so the early parts of the book have a lot of space to unfold key moments like the destruction of the Kelvin or the reveal of the Enterprise in space. On the other hand, moments like Kirk's and Spock's fight on the bridge are given numerous panels on a single page, really giving them an impact.

Indeed, issue #4 is probably the one compression hurt the most; the drill battle is just not interesting in this format, with key moments like Sulu's unfolding sword going by too quick to leave an impact, and I found the death of Amanda way too rushed to give it the impact it needed, and then the issue's final panel, weirdly, does not clearly communicate the destruction of Vulcan. The unnecessary Galaxy Questeseque second climax of the film, where the Enterprise is almost pulled into a black hole, comes across as even more unnecessary here.

The book's solicits trumpeted the inclusion of cut material, but this mostly seems to just be a couple lines of dialogue here and there. David Messina is a longstanding Star Trek artist for IDW, and he mostly does a good job here, though I struggled a bit with his likeness for Bruce Greenwood's Pike. Overall I think this does exactly what it needed to, and did it well. Probably the best comics adaptation of a Star Trek film other than the two by Peter David.

"Legacy of Spock, Part 1 of 4", from Star Trek vol. 1 #55 (Mar. 2016), reprinted in Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 (2018)
written by Mike Johnson, story consultant: Roberto Orci, art by Tony Shasteen, colors by Davide Mastrolonardo, letters by Neil Uyetake

This issue takes place in parallel with the epilogue of the 2009 film, replaying Prime Spock's valediction to the Kelvin Spock from the former's perspective, then showing him leaving Earth, before the Enterprise embarks on its mission. Prime Spock goes to join his surviving people, but meanwhile, Romulans are plotting.

This is mostly set-up, so it's hard to judge on its own. Still, I found it struck a couple false notes: Why does Spock say in narration he anticipates disdain in an early scene, then when talking to Sarek, he doesn't seem to feel any such such thing, finally being surprised by his people disdain at issue's end? I liked a lot of the dialogue, it seemed to me that Mike Johnson did a good job in picking up on how the elder Spock was written in the film... except that Spock and Sarek's reunion features no mention at all of Amanda, who died only days or weeks prior. I can believe Sarek would not bring her up, but not this Spock. And how did some Romulans end up with Nero's leftover red matter (here called "the red element")?

That said, I did generally enjoy how Spock was written, even if he is a bit naïve given his age, and Tony Shasteen's art does a good job with the likenesses of Nimoy, Quinto, Pine, and Urban. I liked seeing all the Vulcan ringships, too.

Legacy of Spock was the comic where the Vulcan ringships are repurposed Jumeirah Burj Al Arab buildings, right?

Markonian said:

Legacy of Spock was the comic where the Vulcan ringships are repurposed Jumeirah Burj Al Arab buildings, right?

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Ha! I think you might be right.

Star Trek: The Unsettling Stars (2020), chapters 1-9, by Alan Dean Foster
The first half of this book chronicles what the Enterprise was doing on its shakedown cruise while Spock Prime was off hanging out with his people. On its very first mission, supposed to be a calm cruise around the edge of Federation space, the Enterprise comes across an alien ship carrying refugees under attack from another group of aliens. The Enterprise defends the refugees, then helps them resettle on the closest uninhabited inhabitable planet, a moon belonging to yet another group of aliens.

As a story, it's fine so far. I feel like not a lot has actually happened: the aliens are essentially friendly, but capable of learning thing surprisingly fast, and have a tendency... not to lie per se, but to not reveal relevant information until forced by circumstances. This makes the Enterprise vaguely suspicious but there's nothing concrete for them to point at. This is reiterated again and again and again in a variety of ways, and soon it starts to drag a bit. This half of the book ends with the Enterprise resuming its shakedown cruise; presumably events will call them back in the second half, which takes place several months later.

What I did enjoy was Foster's grasp of the characters. Foster is a Star Trek writer of the old school (few older), so he of course knows them well, but he adapts them well to the new circumstances of the Kelvin timeline. His Kirk and Spock speak dialogue that is recognizable, but with a twist—these are younger, less experienced versions of the characters. His Kirk, for example, is confident in his battle tactics, thanks both to acing Academy classes and his showdown with Nero, but nervous about his continued presence as captain of the Enterprise, and wondering if he has what it takes when it comes to, say, diplomacy and making first contacts, and thus eager to prove himself with an easy win. His Spock is also recognizable as the character we know of old, but disturbed by the great tragedy that befell his people. Uhura is probably the other character who is the most different; she doesn't play a big role here, but Foster captures what we saw of her in the movie just fine.

McCoy seems like basically the same person, but I found Foster's McCoy fun; his Scotty is recognizably the Simon Pegg version rather than the James Doohan one per se. (The idea that Kirk has ordered Scott to give up drinking because when Kirk first met Scott he was drinking on duty is an interesting one I hadn't ever really thought about!) Sulu and Chekov don't play big roles here, but get some good banter.

So, it's a little thin but it's also better than I expected; I had found Foster's novelization of the 2009 film weak, but the character touches here made this more fun and enjoyable than I anticipated.

"Legacy of Spock, Parts 2-4 of 4", from Star Trek vol. 1 #56-58 (Apr.-June 2016), reprinted in Star Trek: The New Adventures, Volume 5 (2018)
written by Mike Johnson, story consultant: Roberto Orci, art by Tony Shasteen, colors by Davide Mastrolonardo, letters by Neil Uyetake

While the Enterprise is doing its thing with alien refugees, Prime Spock is trying to prevent future tragedies: attempting to persuade his own people that maybe Ceti Alpha V isn't a good place to hang out, trying to convince the Romulans that someday the Hobus supernova will destroy them, so maybe they should play nice with others. But no one wants to listen to Spock; his own people exile him (always so rational, those Vulcans!), the Romulans put him on trial. There's some fun stuff here, as Spock travels to Deep Space Station K-7 in order to get Cyrano Jones to smuggle him across the Romulan border. I found the reveal that Senator Pardek's father Senator Pardek did the exact same things as Senator Pardek less creative. Prime Spock does come across as repeatedly naïve.

The story is designed as a tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy... which is why I find its ending exceedingly odd. The Romulans send a warfleet to destroy the Vulcan refugee fleet,* the Enterprise intervenes to help save the day,** and one of Nero's former followers (left behind in a Klingon prison) has a change of heart and decides to not red matter all the Vulcans. Spock basically does nothing in a story supposedly about him... but there is a very clear thing he could have done. Instead of having the Romulan miner randomly decide that genocide is bad, why not have Spock convince him of it? You know, the supposedly legendary diplomat? Instead, basically everyone just watches the story resolve itself. It's a weird omission, and weakens what could have been a much better story.

There is a bit where Prime Spock reflects that the structure of K-7 is the same but the decor is different... but three pages earlier, the station is drawn with a different design! Spock also mentions that the species are the same but their clothes are different, so apparently Nero's incursion changed 23rd-century fashion. (Which fits with the films, as apparently the Kelvin timeline Starfleet had a much bigger budget for uniforms.)

* The Federation's response: "Well, you'd better not try to do a genocide again; next time you'll be in trouble, buster!"

** It is established that the Vulcans don't call for help... but I had no idea why this might have been the case.

Star Trek: More Beautiful than Death (2020) by David Mack
If this book lines up with Legacy of Spock, it's obviously pure coincidence, but it basically does; you just have to squint and assume everyone says, "Last time we saw you, Sarek, it was when we were stopping you from being genocided in the Ceti Alpha system" off camera. Oh, and no one mentions the big refugee fleet.

Anyway, this chronicles an early mission of the Enterprise, just before it embarks on a long-term journey of exploration. The Enterprise takes Sarek to a planet with dilithium; once the Enterprise is there, they also have to help save the populace from mysterious wights. At the same time, Kirk wonders if he has a destiny, and Sarek's new aide sets her romantic sights on Our Man Spock. Time to make Vulcan babies to save the race!

There are a number of different things happening here, but they didn't really cohere for me; some are related for plot reasons, but the connections feel kinda arbitrary. I think the weakest part of the novel, though, is the alien planet is very difficult to care about, because it's weirdly mostly off-stage, like a low-budget TNG episode: we see basically just two guys from it, both on the Enterprise, nothing of the civilization itself, so when we're told their in turmoil, it's all very abstract. Felt like a weird choice in a novel.

I did really enjoy the reveal of what L'Nel was up to—I didn't see this coming, but it made perfect sense, and was very satisfying when revealed.

My other favorite part of the book was Scotty. I think overall Mack had a decent handle on these versions of the characters, though I didn't find them quite as lively as in The Unsettling Stars. Decent Kirk (the bits where he defies orders through creative interpretations were well done), good Spock/Kirk interactions, fine work with Uhura and Sulu and McCoy... except that Mack totally nailed the vibe of the Simon Pegg Scotty, I loved every bit with him in it. Could easily imagine Pegg saying the lines, and Mack did a good job marrying comedy with extreme competence.

Sarek sucks in this timeline even more than the regular one!