In Review: Star Trek: Voyager: Mirrors and Smoke

Synopsis: Stranded far from the ruins of the Terran Empire, Captain Janeway of the rebel ship Voyager has crowned herself Pirate Queen of the Delta Quadrant! Of course, the locals won’t give in without a fight—especially not scavengers Neelix and Kes. And who is this apparent Terran who calls herself Annika Hansen? Find out in Mirror Voyager’s amazing comic book debut!

Review: This one-shot comic featuring the crew of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ is a must-read for fans of the mirror universe and gives us a glimpse of what Janeway and her crew would have been like had we ever seen their mirror counterparts on the show.

The Story

Having recently gotten transported to the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway and her rebel crew have no intention of returning home to the Alpha Quadrant when they have lots of opportunities to plunder and pillage with little in the way of competition. The only people standing in her way are Neelix and his telekinetic psychotic partner Kes. When Janeway learns that Neelix is transporting a human. She goes all out to transport the human to Voyager. The only thing she wasn’t counting on was that the human being Annika Hansen. A survivor from an attack by the borg had plans of her own. Which involved a certain emergency medical hologram and the crafty humanoid rodent known as Neelix.

The Artwork

Doing the art duties on this comic is J.K. Woodward who uses a really nice style that looks very much like a series of paintings. He captures a unique mirror universe type look for pretty much all the characters. Believe it or not, Janeway has some pretty impressive biceps, which she shows off a lot in the issue due to Woodward giving her a short-sleeved shirt. The closing panel of this story shows off a smug-looking Janeway fully in command. After which we see the beginnings of Janeway’s fleet as she plans to expand.

Overall

Paul Allor brings us a fun story here, which gives us a look at what could have been had the ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ television series had ever visited the mirror universe. I so liked this universes version of Neelix and Kes so much better than I did their characters in the actual series, which to tell the truth. I found really annoying. Especially Neelix. The story is a bit of a rollercoaster ride in that a lot of squeezed into so few pages and I sense there is a fair bit more to come too should IDW decide to give Allor a shot at expanding this into a mini-series, which they totally should.

It rather annoys me that IDW holds the license for all Star Trek yet only ever release books for Next Generation and TOS. Always seeming to ignore Voyager and DS9. It all feels like a wasted opportunity. Especially in recent years given how popular Star Trek has become again.

Overall. This was a fun story, which I’d love to see expanded given how it ended.