In Review: Star Trek: Year Five #24

Synopsis: This month on Year Five. Their journey has taken them to the edge of the known universe and beyond. They’ve faced down impossible odds, conquered incredible enemies, and now, here in the shadow of home, their mission will come to an end… and nothing will ever be the same. The crew of the Enterprise will put it all on the line in the grand finale of Star Trek: Year Five.

The Story

Picking up from the last issue. Captain Kirk is managing to keep tabs on Gary Seven while traversing through time to prevent his own assassination. Meanwhile, Spock faces down the Tholians and manages to get Bright Eyes to talk some sense into them. Meanwhile, Captain Kirk has the difficult task of talking Gary Seven down from his mission.

The Artwork

Stephen Thompson has the fun task of drawing panels to represent different points throughout James T. Kirks life as we follow Gary Seven through time. We even get a pretty good drawing of the crew of the USS Kelvin as Gary Seven attempts to go after Kirk at an earlier point in his life. We also get some great pages where Bright Eyes meets up with the other Tholians. I quite liked the way in which Thompson drew the Tholian Shard and Bright Eyes meeting with them.

Overall

The writing team manages to bring this series to an adequate close. In that Kirk and Gary Seven manages to resolve things while Spock with some help from Bright Eyes is able to get the Tholians to back off. However, I was not happy with the way things ended with Gary Seven’s storyline. Because it basically cancels out much of the mythology that has grown around that character.

If you are a long-term reader of Star Trek fiction of any stripe. Whether it be in comics or novels. You’ll know about a great many stories that have featured Gary Seven. Gregg Cox’s Khan Series The Eugenics Wars Vol 1 and 2 featured Gary Seven in a key role as he sets out to prevent world war III in the second novel. But observes Khan in his early childhood and youth in the first. Assignment Eternity, which is also by Gregg Cox sees Kirk and Seven work together again. This time to prevent a coup. The fact is Gary Seven has featured in loads of great stories throughout Star Trek fiction. And I feel the conclusion of this story for me personally. Feels like a bit of a disservice to the character. I didn’t mind Gary Seven being a villain for a while as he was following the orders of Aegis. But I felt the story didn’t resolve particularly well because taking the enhancements away from Gary Seven is stripping him of a big part of what makes him such a unique Star Trek character. All of that said. It is Star Trek and some other writer can fix all of this by the use of more time travel and temporal freakery.