Review: ‘Star Trek: Holo-Ween’ #2 Is An Unintentional Nightmare
by Tom Smithyman
Talk about a nightmare scenario.
The Enterprise is being terrorized by the spirit of Jack the Ripper that has become Borgified while Data has been turned into Frankenstein’s Monster. Phasers don’t seem to work and these holographic projections have somehow escaped the holodeck and made their way onto the rest of the ship.
Unfortunately, the situation isn’t much better for readers of Star Trek: Holo-Ween.
The simple fact of the matter is that this book should be a lot more fun for readers. Mixing Halloween and Star Trek should be a joyous occasion. And to be fair, the premise sounds great. But the execution, from the writing to the artwork, leaves a lot to be desired. Too much to make it enjoyable.
Christopher Sequeira’s script should pay off in this issue, as the plot is fully realized. Unfortunately, that realization is just not that good. To fight fire with fire, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and several members of the Enterprise’s bridge crew are transformed into monsters to rescue trapped crew members. That’s right, some of your favorite characters voluntarily turn themselves into a mummy, a werewolf and a supernatural Klingon beast.
While the old TV show made some bad creative choices like these ones, at least those can be explained by a lack of budget. In the comic book world, the creative team is confined largely by its imagination. It just wasn’t a good choice and it has likely doomed this weekly miniseries.
Joe Eisma’s artwork fares even worse than the lackluster writing. It cannot be easy to draw a monthly comic; a weekly one must be even more stressful – regardless of the preparation time involved. But Eisma’s work here is broad and sloppy. Forget about the characters looking like the actors who portrayed them – this issue is chock full of people with ridiculous looks on their faces. And that is before they are transformed into monsters.
It’s unclear whether more attention to how this idea is executed will save this series now that it’s already half over. But something is needed to rescue this starship in distress.
Star Trek: Holo-Ween #2 will be available for purchase on October 11, 2023.
Overview
Sometimes good ideas are stymied by poor execution. That’s the case with this miniseries that tries to blend Star Trek and Halloween. Subpar writing and illustrations make this this issue a trick when it ought to be a treat.
