Advance Review — ‘Star Trek: Red Shirts — Ghosts Of The 21st Century’ #2 Defies The Franchise’s Rigid Structure

With its utopian society and lack of conflict among humans, Star Trek is not the easiest franchise to write for. After all, the heart of any story is its conflict. Take that away and you have little more than exposition.

Writer Gerry Duggan has found a way around that inherent blocking point in Star Trek: Red Shirts – Ghosts of the 21st Century. In this limited series, Duggan creates a criminal enterprise ring inside of Starfleet. These humans aren’t interested in exploration or altruism; they want latinum. And they’re run by a ruthless starship captain who is secretly a Romulan spy.

And this being a Red Shirts series, it also features plenty of death scenes from characters we barely get to know. (Duggan throws in a hilariously gruesome scene where the evil Captain Miller kills an incompetent worker via a slowly opening airlock. The doomed worker is named Cantwell, a ghoulish poke at Christopher Cantwell, who wrote the original Red Shirts series.) And that may be the one thing that makes this truly feel like Trek. Yes, it’s set in the 23rd century galaxy that we know and love, but is it really Star Trek?

It does look like Trek, down to the red uniforms from most of the Original Series movies to the heavy use of blue-skinned Andorians. But artist Scott Buoncristiano’s illustrations often lack detail. In some panels, it seems that he spends all his time on the backgrounds while giving the characters nearly no attention. Buoncristiano is clearly talented, but this issue feels rushed in several places.

Setting aside how Trek this story ultimately is, one thing is clear: it’s entertaining. And that is no small thing.

S

tar Trek: Red Shirts – Ghosts of the 21st Century #2 — written by Gerry Duggan, illustrated by Scott Buoncristiano, colored by Charlie Kirchoff, and lettered by Jodie Troutman — will be available in comic book stores and on digital platforms Wednesday from IDW.