Advance Review – ‘Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming’ #3 Is Like A Supercharged Television Episode
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
The USS Voyager is facing a double threat in this issue, so it’s not exactly the homecoming they were expecting. Fans of the show will be drawn to this limited series, which does a good job of depicting the familiar characters both visually and tonally.
Overall
8/10While Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise-D may have discovered the terrifying Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the cybernetic baddies held a special place with Kathryn Janeway and the U.S.S. Voyager.
After all, it was because of encounters with the Borg that the Voyager crew added fan-favorite Seven of Nine, and of course, how the ship made it home after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant for seven years. Voyager even teamed up with the Borg at one point during the show’s run.
Now, in the limited comic series Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming, Janeway and crew form another alliance with their longtime enemies to combat the even more dangerous Species 8472 in fluidic space. Species 8472 found a way into our space and kidnapped Voyager just as it returned to Earth.
In this third issue, written by Susan Bridges and Tilly Bridges, Voyager comes across the remnants of a Borg cube from a failed invasion of fluidic space. The writers have adeptly captured the tone of the television series – including Janeway’s confidence and compassion, the sometimes clunky dialogue, and even the confusing technobabble. Voyager fans will relish the familiar here.
Of course, the story is larger than what would have fit onto a television screen in the 1990s. The challenge of visually depicting that massive scale falls to Trek comics veteran artist Angel Hernandez. Hernandez has excelled throughout this limited series is nailing the look of each of the characters. And drawing Species 8472 – with their three legs and detailed alien faces – is no easy task. His Borg seem a lot more muscular and less techy, though.
Voyager was not always the best of Star Trek, and so this series has its work cut out for it. But this particular story increasingly feels like it should have been set during the show’s run, instead of after the end. The stakes are about saving the Federation from invasion, but it seems to have little to do with the ship’s homecoming.
Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming #3 will be available in comic book stores and digital platforms on Wednesday from IDW.
