Star Trek 1246: Renewal

1246. Renewal

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Untold Voyages #1, Marvel Comics, March 1998

CREATORS: Glenn Greenberg (writer), Michael Collins and Keith Williams (artists)

STARDATE: 7413.2 (just after The Motion Picture)

PLOT: After the V'ger incident, Admiral Kirk is allowed to finish the Enterprise's shakedown cruise before having to return to his desk job. However, the Klingons show too much interest in the Constitution-class refit and try to take the ship. Kirk manages to beat three cruisers off by exploiting a dangerous design flaw that has phaser power course through the engines. At full power, the phasers are incredibly powerful, but burn out the engine. The Klingons don't realize it's a one-shot weapon and leave. Kirk has proven he should be in the center seat for a second 5-year mission.

CONTINUITY: Renewal picks up the loose threads from The Motion Picture (answering to the Klingons for V'ger, looking for survivors of Station Epsilon 9, Admiral Nogura wants Kirk back behind his desk, the design flaw hasn't been corrected). The Organians seem to have given up on enforcing their imposed treaty on the Federation and the Klingons (Errand of Mercy).

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANEL OF THE DAY - How every Klingon extra from the Movie Era is supposed to die.
REVIEW: I'm pretty sure Untold Voyages could have been a long-running series detailing the entire 5-year mission of the refit Enterprise. Greenberg gets the characters right and doesn't shy away from continuity, believably placing this right after The Motion Picture. Page count forces the comic to gloss over certain scenes just to put the pieces where they need to be to set up the second 5-year mission, but that's entirely forgivable. The art is perhaps the real star here, with Collins and Williams drawing expressive likenesses, cool TMP-style Klingons and effective space battle scenes. They almost manage to make the TMP uniforms palatable (Male Nurse Kirk's as always the most acceptable). I'm not gonna hold the design choices of the first film against them, of course.