st_waypoint02-coversubThe Menace of the Mechanitrons

Writers: Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore

Artist: Gordon Purcell

 

Legacy

Writer: Sam Maggs

Artist: Rachael Stott

 

IDW, out now

 

st_waypoint02-coverThe crew of the Enterprise defeat another dastardly Klingon plan; Yeoman Leslie Thompson reflects on her life…

Two incredibly different tales for this issue of IDW’s anthology series, both set during the original five-year mission, but with extremely contrasting takes. First up is Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore’s IDW debut (Ward co-wrote the Trek Life strip for a few issues of Star Trek Magazine a few years back, so technically this isn’t his comics debut) which pays homage to one of the more unlikely versions of Star Trek – the marvellous Gold Key comics, which, like their British comicstrip counterparts, sometimes only had a passing resemblance to the series which they were supposedly chronicling.

Ward and Dilmore have had far too much fun writing this story, which will keep a broad grin on your face from its opening use of the Star Date to Mr. Spock’s tag line. Gordon Purcell’s art keeps to the strictures of the Gold Key formula while still maintaining a dynamism that those strips sometimes lacked. His flames on the Enterprise warp drives, though, are second to none.

st_waypoint02-coverriYou really need to take a few minutes before diving into Sam Maggs and Rachel Stott’s very affecting and effective short tale about Yeoman Leslie Thompson, who holds an unfortunate distinction in the USS Enterprise’s history during the five year mission. The story doesn’t just focus on her one “canonical” appearance in By Any Other Name – we see Thompson in action behind the scenes in a number of key moments prior to that. My favourite is The Doomsday Machine, but there’s a whole book to be written charting what she was up to during Mirror, Mirror! There’s understandably a bittersweet feel to the story, but there’s a terrific final twist. Stott’s art doesn’t feel constrained by the page size and is even more of a contrast to the deliberately square box look of the Gold Key homage earlier in the book.

Verdict: Two very different, but highly enjoyable Star Trek tales. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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