Chris and Cindy beam back aboard the Enterprise to review two recent photonovel comics by industry legend John Byrne, and published by IDW! These “lost episodes” feature actual images of Shatner, Nimoy and company…recomposited to fit Byrnes’s new stories!
First up is Star Trek Annual, 2013: “Strange New Worlds”. The Enterprise intercepts a transmission from Delta Vega… the planet where Captain Kirk was forced to kill his best friend Gary Mitchell…driven mad by god-like power in the 2nd series pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. Has Mitchell returned? And if so, what does he want?
In Star Trek: New Visions #2, “Time’s Echo”, a startling message from 1,000 years ago surfaces. A message sent by…Captain James T. Kirk! How could the Enterprise have sent this message centuries before the crew was ever born?
Also, Byrne reveals the true fate of Captain’s Yeoman Janice Rand.
It’s classic Star Trek as you like it! Did the Franklins? Listen and find out!
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Chris (aka Earth 2 Chris) co-hosts the Power Records Podcast with the esteemed Rob Kelly over at the Fire and Water Podcast feed!
Next time: Plaid Stallion head honcho and Rack Toys author Brian Heiler stops by to talk about genre-related coloring books …just in time for Christmas!
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Hey Chris, let me congratulate you five years after the fact for scoring these books at bargain prices!
I picked up the [i]New Visions[/i] Vol. 1 paperback recently, knowing what it is of course and trying to keep an open mind. I can’t say I cared for the end result. It’s not that I think the idea of doing fotonovels is misguided, it’s more that I already have an appreciation for the comic art form, and an appreciation for Byrne’s art style, and so it seems like this book was aimed at someone other than me. Which is fine, of course!! Clearly these books have continued and I’m glad people like them.
Not that there wasn’t a bit of entertainment value in how the “Where No Man…” sequel played out. It was fine. And the “Mirror Mirror” sequel was fine. But then there was the “Time’s Echo” story, which — I’m going to just say it plainly — was done better in the 1990s on [i]Deep Space Nine[/i]. So, fine didn’t quite cut it that time. Yes, [i]Trek[/i] has a long history of recycling ideas, which people noticed even in the 1960s with TOS ripping off TOS. And later of course VOY is fairly critiqued by many for ripping off TNG, and ENT for ripping off DS9, and so on, and so on. It happens. But these books cost a pretty penny and I expected better from Byrne for my money.