Advance Review — ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes’ #2 Focuses On Secondary Characters
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
While it’s nice that this limited series shines the spotlight on secondary characters, the artwork needs some TLC. Most of the time the characters look like rough – very rough – approximations of the real things.
Overall
8/10One of the great injustices in Star Trek’s original series is that secondary characters were largely ignored in favor of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. For example, we learned more about Uhura in the premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds than we did in 79 episodes of the original series.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes seeks to change that by shining a spotlight on Uhura and Chekov, sort of. Both are popular characters who deserve some love. This limited series brings parallel versions of them into the Trek prime universe. Uhura, the reliable communications officer, is now General Nyota Uhura, a resistance fighter. Her enemy? Akris, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Pavel Chekov (though he’s missing the atrocious Russian accent).
Akris has escaped into the Romulan Neutral Zone, which Kirk and crew refuse to enter for fear of sparking a war. That ticks off the general, showing a side of Uhura we’ve never really seen before. Of course, Kirk being Kirk, he figures a way to bend the rules so they can pursue the criminal without causing an interstellar conflict.
Marc Guggenheim’s script remains true to the spirit of Trek, though his Kirk continues to be a tad too glib. Kirk spews out more one-liners in a single issue that he did through a season of the old series. The man’s clever, but not that clever. Still, both Kirk and Guggenheim understand the gravity of the situation, so to speak.
Artist Oleg Chudakov has a bit more difficulty nailing the characters’ (and their associated actors’) looks than he did in the first issue. Only a few panels nail their look. The rest are fairly weak approximations of the real deal. Chekov and Akris, for example, bear no resemblance to actor Walter Koenig. In fact, it took me re-reading the book to even understand that Akris was alt-Chekov. We don’t need exactitude, but a close approximation would be nice.
It’s nice to see these secondary characters play a more important role in a classic Trek story. Now if the art can sharpen up a bit, it will be even more enjoyable.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes #2 will be available for purchase on June 14, 2023.
