Posted in: Comics, IDW, Review | Tagged: idw publishing, star trek, Star Trek: Waypoint

'Star Trek: Waypoint' Special 2019 Way too Much for Way too Little

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I try, as a rule of thumb, not to thrash on creators for trying to do something new with a license. By and large, IDW's Star Trek offerings have been fresh, innovative, and entertaining, but I'm afraid there's not a lot in 2019's Star Trek: Waypoint that I can justify recommending, especially with a $7.99 price tag.

Star Trek: Waypoint is a collection of short stories set in different timelines of the Star Trek franchise, with each story presenting a new writing and art team. Each segment also varies greatly in quality.

The first segment centers on Leonard McCoy, who finds himself enamored with a visiting doctor. The story is gamely written, and the illustrations capture the original series characters nicely. I'm not a huge fan of the inking, which obscures some pretty nice line work with scratchy cross hatching that feels largely out of place.

The second story regards Dr. Beverly Crusher and Chief of Security Tasha Yar working together to solve a medical mystery in space. Again, the story does a nice job of capturing the characters, but the artwork is largely disappointing and clunky. The color work is great, though, and fits the Next Generation color palette wonderfully.

The third segment is all about young Catherine Janeway, and an away team mission that's doomed for failure. The character art work is better than any other segment in the book, with a pretty good likeness of young Kate Mulgrew gracing the pages. The story is a bit of a toss-up, though, and falls apart pretty quickly once the character interactions are over.

The last story in the book is probably the best written, with pretty consistently good art, too. Ezri Dax has come to visit Ambassador Worf on Qo'Nos, and the two have a go at trying to work through his mourning cycle over Jadzia. The characters are captured nicely without being caricatures, and the story feels like the most organic fit in the Waypoint collection.

Unless I'm missing something in my copy, there wasn't a breakdown of chapter titles, nor the writing and art teams that handled each segment, which seems a bit odd- so, I'm assuming it's the copy that I had.

SUMMARY: Written by: Corinna Bechko, Stephen Mooney, Matt Sheean, Malachi Ward, Thom Zahler; Art by: Daniel Irizarri, Stephen Mooney, Andy Price, Malachi Ward; Released By: IDW Publishing; Release Date: April 24, 2019; Cover Price: $7.99; 54 Pages

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