Spoilers IDW Star Trek - New Visions - John Byrne

[Avro Arrow]

Merged issue 2 thread with issue 1

Villordsutch - since you're usually the first with the reviews, can you do me a favour and just add each new issue's review to the existing thread? That way we'll have one thread per comic book series.

Just out of curiosity... what's wrong with having a separate thread for each issue? Having separate threads would make it easier to participate in discussions about the issues you have read, while still allowing you to avoid spoilers in the issues you haven't read yet.

(Just wondering. Not trying to be a jerk or anything... )

 

[trampledamage]

It was discussed in the IDW ongoing comic thread and most people wanted a single thread for the series so the discussion could move back and forth across issues - with comics there's a continuation of story through the issues that makes referring back to other issues more likely.

 

[Avro Arrow]

^ Fair enough. Although New Visions seems to be more stand-alone, but it's really only the second issue, so it's probably way too soon to try to determine trends!

As it turns out, I was able to pick this up today, and I can certainly agree with what people are saying, both with respect to the story, and the quality of the photo manipulation this time around.

One major question I had, which I will spoiler code because the thread is not marked as a spoiler thread:

Spoiler: Time's Echo

At the end, Kirk avoids the crash, and the Enterprise suddenly ends up back where they would have been if they never heard the message, because since they didn't send the message, they didn't go to the centre of the galaxy to investigate the message. So then why were they at the centre of the galaxy originally, if they only went there to investigate the message? (Perhaps this was some sly "Magiks of Megas-Tu" tie in! )

At the end of the main story, one of the bridge crew appears to be wearing a purple uniform. I assume this is just due to an attempted recolouring, but it did kind of stand out.

So, yeah, a bit of a disappointment this time out, but hopefully the next one will be better!

 

[Enterprise1701]

Borg in the next issue, eh? Fascinating.

http://www.thetrekcollective.com/2014/11/comic-bits-new-visions-previews-and.html

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Borg in the next issue, eh? Fascinating.

http://www.thetrekcollective.com/2014/11/comic-bits-new-visions-previews-and.html

Also from the linked article...

Byrne's "Three Captains" project for the 50th anniversary sounds epic. His sample Andorian woman looks great. I hope this project actually happens.

 

[Villordsutch]

My review of Star Trek New Visions #4 "Made Out of Mudd" - http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2014/12/comic-book-review-star-trek-new-visions-4-made-mudd.html

Spoilers

Spoiler: My opinion on the comic

I wasn't a fan

 

[YJAGG]

Sorry to hear this I was not thrilled with Time's Echo

so I ditched the series.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Bit surprising that they (apparently) couldn't get clearance to use Roger C. Carmel's likeness as Harry Mudd, and had to dance around showing his face up all the way up to the changeover (leading to an hilarious tag near the end). Yet, somehow, it bizarrely fits with it being (setting-wise) a third-season episode. I could almost hear Paramount execs telling Fred Freiberger "You've got just enough budget for one guest star in this episode. You can have Roger Carmel or you can have Morgan Woodward, you can't have both!"

 

[JonnyQuest037]

According to Byrne, there's a big list that CBS provides, detailing which Trek actors have granted the use of the their likenesses, and which haven't. All of the regular crew are on the "yes" list, obviously, and folks like Teri Garr, Roger C. Carmel, and John Hoyt are all on the "no" list.*

*This is also the reason why the recent Batman '66/Green Hornet crossover comic book series had Roger C. Carmel's character of Col. Gumm wearing a mask over his face.

 

[Christopher]

*This is also the reason why the recent Batman '66/Green Hornet crossover comic book series had Roger C. Carmel's character of Col. Gumm wearing a mask over his face.

I don't see why they couldn't have just slightly redesigned Gumm's appearance, like earlier Trek comics have done with Harry Mudd. Of course that wouldn't work for one of Byrne's photomontage comics.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

*This is also the reason why the recent Batman '66/Green Hornet crossover comic book series had Roger C. Carmel's character of Col. Gumm wearing a mask over his face.

I don't see why they couldn't have just slightly redesigned Gumm's appearance, like earlier Trek comics have done with Harry Mudd. Of course that wouldn't work for one of Byrne's photomontage comics.

I'm sure they could have. They probably just decided that the glued-on mask worked better for story purposes, since it made Gumm a more interesting villain.

 

[dstyer]

*This is also the reason why the recent Batman '66/Green Hornet crossover comic book series had Roger C. Carmel's character of Col. Gumm wearing a mask over his face.

I don't see why they couldn't have just slightly redesigned Gumm's appearance, like earlier Trek comics have done with Harry Mudd. Of course that wouldn't work for one of Byrne's photomontage comics.

Christopher, which comics are you speaking of? I've been collecting the Trek comics since the 1980 Marvel run, and don't remember ever thinking that Mudd didn't look like Mudd.

 

[Christopher]

Christopher, which comics are you speaking of? I've been collecting the Trek comics since the 1980 Marvel run, and don't remember ever thinking that Mudd didn't look like Mudd.

Well, sure, he looked like Mudd -- chubby, balding, with facial hair -- but wasn't based directly on Roger C. Carmel's appearance. Here's how he looked in his 1987 appearance, for instance -- with a rounder, fatter face and significantly more hair on top than Carmel, and a cartoonier appearance than most of Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran's characters. In his 1991 appearance, his facial proportions were closer to Carmel's, but altered just enough that it wasn't overtly the same face, and he had lighter brown hair (with gray streaks) and a Van Dyke beard instead of a handlebar moustache. (The cover of Vol. 2 #23 gave him a full, kind of Sybok-like beard and far less hair on top, but it didn't match the interior art.)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I finally got the Mudd issue today (the shop was sold out of issue #3, Cry Vengeance, but I'll get my hands on it before long).

Since I can't really discuss my (mixed) opinions of the story itself without spoilers, I'll code the plot discussion:

Spoiler: Made out of Mudd

I found the story a bit disappointing, frankly. The limitations on using Roger C. Carmel's likeness forced the plot to get a bit convoluted to avoid showing him. Mudd's body is a duplicate of Kirk's for the majority of the story, but then Byrne largely shoves Mudd's shenanigans (or POTENTIAL shenanigans, rather) to the side. There's not much of the humor that you'd expect from a Harry Mudd story, but I suppose that was intentional on Byrne's part.

And I thought the ending, where Mudd CANNOT be restored to his proper form, was rather absurd. It seemed like it only ended that way to avoid showing Roger C. Carmel's face. I think a better alternative would've been to stick Kirk/Mudd back into the machine, with the crew beaming away right before the transformation was complete.

The backup story, "The Great Tribble Hunt" is okay, but it doesn't really show us anything we couldn't already infer from "Trials and Tribbleations."

Byrne's Photoshop skills remain a mixed bag. he's quite good at selecting appropriate images for the characters, acting wise and he cleverly casts two TOS guest stars as new characters. Byrne designs and constructs some impressive 3-D backgrounds in the TOS style, but they're rarely integrated well with the figures. The foreshortening and perspective on scenes is sometimes distractingly off (why are Kirk, Spock and McCoy all suddenly LOWER than their brig prisoner in one panel? Did they step into a pit?). And he really needs more practice at the head & hand replacements (necks can be a rare commodity in Byrne's 23rd Century).

Overall, I'd say this one was a swing and a miss, but the strength of Byrne's past Trek work (the Romulans stories and his first two Photoplays, especially) will have me sticking around for the next few issues at least.

 

[JD]

The iffy photoshopping, and IMO not that great CG backgrounds have been a big turn off when for me with this one. I've seen a few previews on Comixology and that was enough for me.

 

[Villordsutch]

My review of Star Trek: New Visions - "A Scent of Ghosts" - http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2015/03/comic-book-review-star-trek-new-visions-a-scent-of-ghosts.html

 

[Enterpriserules]

I love the stories for the most part, but I feel the issues would be much better served without the gimmick of photoshop. Just get a photo-real painter or another great artist to tell the stories. The photoshop of new places, aliens or altered crew members, like the original Number One in the latest issue, just distract from the good storytelling.

 

[Christopher]

^Why do you need another great artist? You've already got John Byrne! I just wish he'd go back to drawing them. The photomontage was an interesting experiment, but from what I've seen, it's not an improvement on Byrne's normal art style.

 

[Enterpriserules]

^There you go! I was just thinking of a photo-real artist like Alex Ross, since the style would fit what John seems to be trying to do. But I completely agree, it is not better that is own art at all.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

^Why do you need another great artist? You've already got John Byrne! I just wish he'd go back to drawing them. The photomontage was an interesting experiment, but from what I've seen, it's not an improvement on Byrne's normal art style.

Indeed. However, sadly, Byrne has said that he's losing interest in producing illustrated comic book art and feels that photo-art is his new creative outlet.

A shame, really, because his imagination and TOS stories would be much better served by his line- and brush-work than his photo-art.

I've loved Byrne's artwork for decades now and have really enjoyed his Trek work for IDW. He carved his own unique corner of Star Trek comics and appears to be continuing his Byrne-verse (hey, if Shatner can have the Shatnerverse novels...) continuity with the latest New Visions volume featuring Commodore Number One. But this story would have been miles better if only he'd drawn the comic instead.

The "Memorium" back-up story was lovely and touching, but a bit eerie given the timing of its publication just days after the passing of Nimoy. Still, points to Byrne for demonstrating that a photo-comic of a movie era story can be successfully achieved.