A couple days ago, as the month of April was rapidly disappearing, I realized that while I had indeed been reading through out the month (I’d read over two-thirds of Frank Herbert’s Dune and over a dozen 1942 Superman comic books and newspaper comic strips stories) that I was not going to *finish* anything by the end of the month.
Not willing to have a “goose egg” on my monthly reading reports, I started looking to find a couple “quick read” comics collected editions. I discovered while picking up a novel on hold at my public library that they had gotten in two of the newest IDW Star Trek trade paperbacks that I’d asked them to get. Which was perfect, because both of them collected five-issue mini-series. Short enough for even me to read, one per day.
The two were:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes Trade Paperback (March 2024; reprinting Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes #1-5 (May 2023 to September 2023)) Writer: Marc Guggenheim. Art by Oleg Chudakov.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War Trade Paperback (February 2024; reprinting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War #1-5 (April 2023 to August 2023)) Writer: Mike Chen. Art by Angel Hernández.
I hate to say it but the one of these two that I was looking forward more when I first heard about it, Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes, turned out to be quite a disappointment.
The time period between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a very interesting period for tie-in comics and novels to set their stories in as it’s one of Star Trek’s less explored time spans.
But Echoes just isn’t very good in pretty much every way. Not a particularly good story. With art by an artist whose style is not conducive to actor likenesses (which is a major negative in regards to TV or film tie-ins).
And especially in this story where there were also two “doppleganger” versions of main cast characters. The two versions of Chekov never did look a bit like actor Walter Koenig, or even like each other. Heck, at times I had to remind myself that I was looking at Captain (Admiral) Kirk! And Spock’s depiction was all over the place. Some times okay, while other times almost grotesque. (In at least one panel I would have sworn that the artist was drawing a Marvel Comics Skrull.)
Which is not to say that I don’t think the artist has talent. I just don’t think this was the right project for him. I also felt that Guggenheim made Kirk too much of a smart aleck, tossing out witty comments on just about every page. That’s not how the Kirk was portrayed during in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Anyway, as much as Echoes (which I ended up giving two out of five stars on GoodReads, at that was me being generous) disappointed me, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Dog of War made up for it. The story was interesting. The art was great (including very nice likenesses of the original actors). The characters all acted and talked like they usually did on the television series. And the story followed the well established types of story beats that one would expect. Including a really cool moment at the end of one of the issues where they all depart from the space station in the Defiant, officially with their priority the recovery of a dangerous piece of Borg technology with vital stolen Starfleet intel on it, but with Sisko declaring, “And… we are getting our dog back” (or something like that).
What dog? Well, you’ll just have to read it to find out. (That’s called a tease.) I gave Dog of War four out of five stars on GoodReads.
— David Young
