In Review: Star Trek: Year Five #15

Synopsis: The final leg of the five-year mission continues. With the Klingon threat behind them, the crew of the Enterprise begins their victory tour of the original planets of the Federation. But they’ll soon discover that for all of the danger they faced on the five-year mission, the biggest threat of all may well be something closer to home.

The Story

Having managed to deal with the Klingon threat in the last issue. Kirk is given a mission to assess a threat that is closer to home in the form of a political movement that could put an end to exploration. Kirk heads to Andor with Scotty and Bright Eyes to figure out the threat, which is presented in the form of Harry Mudd. Having escaped from a planet of murderous fembots. Mudd has gotten a sudden aspiration to serve the people of the Federation as their new president. Added to this threat is the fact that his Andorian sponsor seems to place a huge amount of faith in Harry Mudd’s ability to win people over.

The Artwork

For the most part.  Silvia Califano does a fantastic job of the artwork by capturing the likenesses of a young William Shatner and Jimmy Doohan and the rest of the cast perfectly. However, all that changes when it comes to the artist’s interpretation of Harry Mudd, which seems to be based entirely on Rainn Wilson’s portrayal from Star Trek: Discovery. Not to knock Wilson who is one of the best aspects of the new Trek series. But given that this book is based on the original series stories. I would have much preferred an original series visual likeness of Roger C. Carmel. That would have fitted a lot better within the era of Star Trek that this comic book series is doing. I’ve included an image of both the actors below so you can see where I am going.

This one thing aside. The artwork hits all the right marks. But will lose a few points from me based on such an obvious mistake, which forces me to imagine how being accosted by a planet of fembots can change a man. I think original series fans who are the target market of this comic would most likely have preferred the art had been closer to the original Harry Mudd. Admittedly the artists rendering of Rainn Wilson is pretty bang on. But he is not the Mudd we are looking for.

Overall

Writer Jodie Houser eases herself into the continuation of Kirk’s five-year mission with a political thriller, which obviously lends some inspiration from Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The writing and character voices are captured brilliantly. Especially when it comes to Mudd. You can actually tell that the writer most likely re-watched the original series episodes as well as the new Discovery episodes to get the right nuances.

Overall. A pretty solid start to a story, which might well have some Romulan input as the story progresses. Then again I am only guessing about the Romulan involvement.