Monday, August 22, 2016

Bea Reviews Star Trek: Manifest Destiny by Mike Johnson & Ryan Parrott, Art by Angel Hernandez

Series: Star Trek
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date:  July 5th 2016
Challenges: I Love Libraries |
NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Buying Links: Amazon* | Book Depository*  | iTunes* | Barnes & Noble
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

Blurb from goodreads:

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the STAR TREK franchise with this all-new adventure! At the edge of explored space, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise come face to face with a new Klingon threat... with the fate of the galaxy at stake! Also includes the Klingon Language version of issue #1!

My Thoughts:

I saw this at NetGalley and couldn't resist. I'm a sucker for most things Trek and I like graphic novels. Unfortunately, when I downloaded it, Adobe Edition wouldn't work and I couldn't get it to open. Several months later, I got the hardcover from the library and was finally able to read the story.

The story details a conflict between the Federation and the Klingon empire. I enjoyed seeing the Klingons and it was strange, after so many years of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager, to see them as the bad guys again. Bad guys they were but for the most part, Johnson and Parrott avoided cliches and stereotypes and gave us villains with meat to them. The exception was the main bad guy who was lacking in development. What wasn't lacking was action, there was plenty of that. The story moves along at a brisk pace but there's also some humor and good character interactions. The crew is from the movie reboot and between the story and the artwork, I could easily hear their voices as I read the dialogue. The artwork was okay, nothing spectacular. The artist went with a dark color scheme and that meant some panels were hard to see or read. Then other pages would be just about perfect in their coloring, arrangement, and overall aesthetics.

"Star Trek: Manifest Destiny" gave us action, villainous Klingons and honorable Klingons, and a pleasant trip to the Star Trek universe, if you don't mind fighting and some blood. It wasn't great but it was enjoyable. The version I read also had some extras: additional artwork and the first issue redone in the Klingon language. The extra artwork was especially well done.

3 comments:

  1. Are they taking cues from Star Wars with all these continuing stories and universes? It's hard to keep up but I'm sure super fans enjoy these little nuggets of gold

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    Replies
    1. Other way around - Star Wars followed Star Trek's lead. :)

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  2. Sounds fun although I hate the reboots . I keep telling myself be flexible Greg, roll with the times- but it doesn't work. :( Still it would be nice to see a Klingon story. Glad you enjoyed it even if it wasn't great.

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