The Strangest New World: Reviewing ‘Star Trek’ #20

Starfleet’s mission includes boldly going where no one has gone before. Sometimes that means boldly going where they’re not wanted.

Captain Benjamin Sisko and the crew of the Theseus are at that point, as Star Trek #20 takes the crew beyond where any Starfleet crew has ever gone. A godly dimensional breeching story from Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing, Megan Levens, Lee Loughridge, and Clayton Cowles.

One of the most beautiful things about this series is just how massive a sandbox it can occupy. Crossing over or sharing ideas is tough with the television shows, what with schedules and budgets and the fact that some of the shows have been off the air for decades meaning actors have aged quite a bit. Not with comics.

Through these twenty issues, Lanzing and Kelly have balanced what toys they pull out of the box, when they use them, and how they use them. It’s not an easter egg fest just meant to stir up nostalgia and make us point at the comic like we’re the popular DiCaprio meme. A new character, from Star Trek: Picard, makes an appearance here (many years before we meet them on screen) in a truly logical way that fits their character and where they would have ended up with their career.

All of that plays with the overall story of the need to get to the god gathering, or the Pleroma, and threads from the very first arcs of the series. Even touching on the godly beings of the universe itself is a big toy box grab since Star Trek is truly littered with so many abnormally powered potentially god like entities. Can’t shake a fist in space without running into one, especially since some of them have chosen to take an interest in the humanoid beings of the universe.

There is a natural levity mixed with depth that Levens easily brings to the page. Capturing the feeling of the characters and the universe they live within without losing a softer whimsical tone. Whether it’s the Utopia Planetia shipyards or the later pages with the ship breaching the other worldly barriers, it all is rendered with such care and spectacle and uniqueness. Every space they enter feels like it has weight and purpose as well as scale which allows the characters to feel heftier in response.

Oh gosh those aforementioned pages of the entrance to the Pleroma. I’ve never done any type of psychedelics in my life, but various imagery like these pages is what those of us that have not done them assume it might be like. So many bright colors, strange visuals, characters being warped around, and elements that speak to wild out of body situations. It would have been easy to just have them blast through some white or slightly colored barrier and call it good, but this book always takes it up numerous notches.

Loughridge brings those wild colors to the page. Adjusting them to fit with Leven’s style choices, while keeping a lot of the same series color DNA in place. Various colored filters, of a sort, giving each space on the ship and beyond their own unique energy and feeling. Pulling back in some cases to make things feel even more grounded or toned-down, so that the later pages of peak vibrance and color splashing feel even bigger.

That big page of the arrival in the Pleroma is strikingly bright, where one feels like they need to shade their eyes. So many yellows and whites almost pulsating off the page. Just right for a godly realm that mortals are not meant to look upon.

Lettering is never left behind in these situations, as Cowles always pulls out all the stops. Bubbles that embrace colors and wilder font styles, fonts that grow or shrink to indicate volume, and a perfect flow that fills the pages. Even had I not heard some of the actors who played these characters, the way they are written and how Cowles presents their voices allows me to hear them so well.

I’ve said it before, but I truly love the way this series uses data pages. Comics moving more this way in particular cases is something I’m a huge proponent of. When these pages are used well, like this book, they offer up information in fun ways that doesn’t feel like just a page of prose shoved into the middle of a visual story. They are at their best when they inform goings on of the stories rather than trying to lore/info drop on the reader just because there is no space to fit that moment in the comic.

Star Trek #20 is now available from IDW Publishing.