BotTalk Reviews

The USS Cerritos has to travel back in time to 1985 to rescue more humpback whales to bring them forward in time because the whales from the last time didn’t repopulate as well as everyone hoped. So instead of a new, original idea they... are doing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I mean they could have done some kind of story where they track down that probe thing if they really wanted to do Star Trek IV. Otherwise this is HEY REMEMBER STAR TREK IV THE ONE WITH WHALES? REMEMBER KIRK AND SPOCK IN 1986? REMEMBER WHALES! REMEMBER THE WEIRD TIME TRAVEL SEQUENCE? Remember? They even have Shaxs dressed like Spock from that movie and Brad Boimler dressed like Marty McFly. Also I get Jack Ransom is supposed to be a meathead or something, but you don’t get into Starfleet and work your way to first officer by being an idiot. Anyways the story in itself isn’t terrible, and while it absolutely wastes time trying to be a sequel to a much better movie, at least it takes the time to exposition dump wi...

Voyager returns to Earth after its long journey.  A group of four Admirals arrive but strange things are already about.  Tuvok begins having headaches and one of the Admirals locks the computer controls.  Eventually The Doctor determines Admiral Kittum and his team are members of Species 8472.  As they confront Kittum, Admiral Paris is also exposed as a fake.  8472 open a doorway to fluidic space. The story of Voyager's return home has been told a couple times.  Once as a fake out episode on the series and in a series of novels that continued the story of the Voyager crew past the series finale.  The great majority of that continuity was rendered non-canon with the Picard series.  I always felt it was a mistake removing the threat of Species 8472.  They spent so much time establishing them as the next big bad, able to easily defeat the Borg... only to make friends with em and move on.  I'm looking forward to seeing how things play out h...

The team wait for someone to show up and spring their trap.  They anxiously await someone to take the bait... and to fill the time we get some character backstories and characterization.  Eventually one of the officers is killed by the Romulan spies and a jungle monster attacks several of the others.  The monster manages to kill two of the squad but they are able to jam transmissions so the Romulan spies can't beam away.  The Romulan Bird of Prey fires from low orbit as the remaining security team members try to survive.   This feels very jumbled.  We get a little time with the team as they wait for the Romulans to show up, but it all feels very surface level.  Like trying to care for a victim in a Friday the 13th movie.  The more interesting characters have mostly been killed off.  The jungle monster attack feels almost random and the Romulan threat feels far away, even when they show up and kill one of the security officers.  Other tha...

Nurse Chapel is bored by the current slate of missions Enterprise has been on.  She makes arrangements to meet an old friend.  When Enterprise arrives they find no life signs and the base completely empty. Eventually they encounter a robot who shows them to a submersible craft.  The landing party descends into the awaiting arms of an octopus like creature. The set up feels like an episode of the series.  Some of the characters feel like they should, others... a bit off.  These Strange New Worlds minis are very hit or miss with me.  This one, so far, is intriguing.  Star Trek comics should add a little something and not be bound by constraints of budget.  Doing something on an ice planet or underwater, or with robots is a nice change of pace.  I'm curious to see where this is going.   six out of ten.

Christine Chapel is bored. Una Chin-Riley is bored, Erica Ortegas is not bored, and Spock is fascinated by a microbe they discovered from a previous planet. The starship Enterprise has been on a planet survey mission for weeks, having found nothing but microbes. Chapel calls a friend who’s doing an expedition on an ice planet that happens to also be a far off star base that Pike is sending the ship to. When they arrive they find the science team have disappeared, so off into the abyss they go! See now this is the kind of story that could fit in with the current season of Strange New Worlds. The story has what we want: planets being explored, a mystery to solve, and a reason to come back next issue.  The art, I’d say is at least up there with the now ended Star Trek/Star Trek defiant run. And it does leave with a reason to come back and see what happens. I’m not sure why Chapel suddenly is a thrill seeker, but then original Chapel was a glorified background character. And for some r...

Continuing from last month, D'Vana Tendi is essentially placed into indentured servitude until she figures out a solution to the Ferengi DaiMon’s energy problem: turns out it’s Gormagander poop. 5 pages in I was hoping this whole story had turned out to be some weird fantasy caused by space drugs, Trelane, or it was a Ferengi holodeck experience the lower deck crew was running with a ferengi ship, all of which would have made more sense than this story. This two issue story was written by an intern who has never watched any Star Trek much less Lower Decks because Tendi is out of character which I covered in my last review, Captain Jack Ransom would never forget to hydrate, Beckett Mariner apparently decided to regress from all the character growth she’s had by the time this story takes place in, Carol Freeman wouldn’t just randomly wave any of her crew off to some Ferengi, and once again the Ferengi are just written as cartoony business villains. So this had to have been written by...

A young red shirt nearly loses his eye to a Mugato.  He walks away with a discoloured eye and some scars that he hopes will appear intimidating.  Some time later he gets a new assignment with several other security officers. Someone has tapped into a Starfleet coms center and its their job to sort it out.  They will offer bait, then cut the data feed and see who comes to investigate.  The officers are fired toward the surface in torpedo casings, though two officers don't survive.  As the remaining team members regroup with the embedded officer on the planet, a Romulan Bird of Prey approaches. This is an interesting change of pace.  A comic focused on Red Shirts.  Of course fans know the joke.  Red Shirts are disposable on the Original Series and we get multiple panels of Red Shirt deaths.  Some gruesome, some funny.  Having them be self aware, that few ever live past thirty, was a good choice I think.  The story feels a bit more ma...

Wherein the issue opens with D'Vana Tendi having a perfect day, but it suddenly turns into a nightmare as a giant Ferengi head chased her and she wakes up to reality. Someone keeps sending her messages, which is annoying. Turns out Tendi got into some financial loans trouble with a Ferengi who loaned her money to get a flight to Earth so she could attend starfleet. And now that Ferengi has come... to collect! Dun, dun, dun! So... they do student loans in the future? Is the first thing I thought when I started this issue, followed by but Earth and Starfleet are post-scarcity and don’t use money.  But apparently the daughter of a major Orion Syndicate family doesn’t know that,  I mean she’s a pirate queen, we’ve seen her be a far smarter person on screen yet now for the sake of plot she, the pirate queen, was swindled by a Ferengi? I’m sorry that’s just weak. Plus they have computers on Orion she could have easily looked all of that up and found Glom lying. So you’re telling me...

Worf's reinstatement with Starfleet is denied by a group of Admirals, only for Jean-Luc Picard to come in and upend the situation.  On Vulcan, Geordi La Forge shows Spock his design for the Jellyfish.  Scotty resigns from Starfleet and meets Nyota Uhura.  Tom Paris reunites with his family.  Martok restores Kahless his honour and gives him a throne to sit and do nothing more.  Ro Laren is held in a detention facility, her sentence reduced.  Finally Benjamin Sisko shares a few moments with his family before returning to the Celestial Temple. This is the final issue of the current IDW slate of books.  It attempts to wrap up various plots, put various characters in place for the events of Nemesis, Trek 09 and even Picard Season 3.  I'd say it achieves this goal.  More or less.  The less being Ro.  She is not granted a pardon because the Maquis are designated a terrorist group... even though they were all wiped out by the Dominion befor...

Part two is here, Katherine Pulaski acting very out of character and so Carol Freeman and her lower decks crew mutiny and come up with a way to trick the Romulans and save the day. And as Pulaski leaves she repeats pips and the flashback story ends, and then the story ends as Beckett Mariner, Freeman, and Brad Boimler go skiing on mount Pulaski. It’s nice of them to name a holodeck mountain Durango. The flashback story wraps up nicely... I guess? Pulaski word dumps to just say she was playing the lower decks team of the USS Illinois to force them to solve the problem of the missing crew.  This could’ve been a single issue, but I get it: modern comics aren’t long novels, and you have back matter to shove in after the story... And having Mariner backslide for reasons was just to... have the flashback, which sure, sure. But I thought we already knew Freeman was a chaos goblin from the show? 7/10 Or am I thinking of some other Star Trek?

Sisko's forces begin freeing the Quadrant minds.  Along with Worf they make it to Lore's throne room and find Data's head.  Lore appears and with him he brings Jennifer and Jake.  Worf talks Sisko into completing their mission and Sisko calls forth the Orbs against Lore.  Worf uses an Orb and disintegrates Lore.  With that, Data restores the universe and the issue ends in a flash of light. There is a massive amount of ass-pull in this issue.  Sisko's forces easily manage to free the Quadrant minds.  They also manage to collect ten Orbs.  Did I sleep through this?  Were the Orbs ever mentioned?  You'd think someone like Lore would have erased the Orbs along with the Wormhole.  After all this, it just seems like the final stage of a video game that you beat on the simplest setting.  Worf kills Lore and that is it.  It is over just like that.  It feels so hollow.   five out of ten.

I wondered when or if Lower Decks would enter... THE LORE WAR!!!!!!! It makes sense that Shaxs would be our focus character.  So Shaxs touches Kahless’ magical Bat'leth and his normal self is restored. He manages to battle his way through the evil enterprise, assume control, trick the Gorn Captain of evil USS Cerritos, assume control of that, make it to earth and use Starfleet ingenuity to trick evil Captain Liam Shaw then turn his worst day into his best, most violent day.  And in the end who didn’t want to watch Shaxs be totally unleashed on Lore’s universe and Starfleet? I mean the issue is a little goofy and a bit self referential but it’s LORE WAR: Lower Decks, so it’s going to be a little lighter even while it’s extremely violent. But that’s okay cuz alternate universes. I liked this issue. A quick moving story that stuck to the plot and stuck the landing going from Shaxs’s worst day to Shaxs’s best. Love the Gorn captain, a Gorn in Starfleet is something Star Trek SHOUL...

We learn that the four quadrants of the Milky Galaxy are powered by the minds of Scotty/Montgomery Scott, Geordi La Forge, B'Elanna Torres and Miles O'Brien.  Meanwhile, Kahless and Worf battle Shaxs, with Kahless dying in the process.  Later, Benjamin Sisko and his group meet up with Spock to discuss the situation.  Suddenly, Worf appears and embraces his son (Alexander Rozhenko).  Everyone is now dedicated to opposing Lore. It feels like everything and nothing happens in this issue.  It also feels jumbled.  Like parts are missing or it suddenly has to jump forward to get to the point.  Worf just kinda appears at the end with a hand wave explanation.  Data is able to undermine Lore because the story demands it.  Seemingly.  I have to say with this being part 4 of 5 I should be invested in the story and its outcome... but I'm not.   five out of ten.

The issue starts out by giving Beckett Mariner a day of being regressive and dragging Brad Boimler on a field day through the ship which inevitably lands her in Captain Freeman’s ready room where her mother once more gives her a “why are you like this?!” speech. They argue which prompts Freeman to look away heroically as we are thrown into a flashback to the time when Carol Freeman was a thirty something year old ensign, like right after TNG season 2, but still before the uniforms had collars.  Guest stars Katherine Pulaski! ‘Member Pulaski! ‘Member how Pulaski was mean to Data! ‘Member! So this arc will be diving into Carol’s past, when she was a young ensign, married with a kid, and turns out she was somewhat as bad as Mariner is in the present day. Pulaski’s experimenting on transporters and how they affect the brain and Freeman gets sucked into it which leads to her having to take command during a fight with the Romulans. Or does she? As Pulaski is still aboard and thus the ra...

The Enterprise catches up with The Phoenix.  Benjamin Sisko, Beverly Crusher and Kahless escape in spacesuits as the ship collides with the Enterprise, which also provides them a way in.  They are immediately confronted by Tom Paris and Harry Kim.  Kim dies but Tom manages to wake up from his Lore manipulated reality and joins Sisko.  They eventually come face to face with Worf and Alexander.  Alexander wakes up as well and after a short battle joins Sisko and they make their escape in a shuttle.   This issue seems a bit messy.  The method of waking up from Lore's reality is almost too simple.  Kahless simply strikes them with his sword.  So why don't they just go around hitting everyone with it?  So far this event has not impressed me very much.  And at the risk of repeating myself, we have seen better and more interesting alternate reality stories across various episodes of Star Trek.   six out of ten.

At Bozeman Montana; Benjamin Sisko, Beverly Crusher and Kahless steal The Phoenix, Zefram Cochrane's experimental warp ship.  Sisko intends to travel to the Bajoran Wormhole but after consulting a star chart, discovers it does not exist in this reality.  In space the Maquis attack Worf's fleet as Spock details how the Vulcans managed to overcome being assimilated by the Borg.  Lore becomes unhinged at the Vulcans constantly being a problem in every universe he creates and detonates a star in an attempt to defeat them.  The Maquis fleet is destroyed and Lore gives Worf a new mission, track down Ben Sisko.   Meanwhile, Hoshi Sato discovers T'Lir. This was a very busy issue.  With The Phoenix being stolen and a fleet battle between Worf's Starfleet and Spock's Borg.  His explanation of how the Vulcans managed to overcome the assimilation process was quite clever I thought.  At this point a lot of our characters, like Worf, are simply a corrupted exag...

And they’re on the Titanic ocean liner! And really, they’re kinda foggy on the details about the Titanic except for Brad Boimler who should know overachiever that he is. So off to another zany adventure and finding out how they get out of this one! Where they run into the bridge crew who tell us they are chasing a mysterious hooded woman who’s going through time and causing chaos like some kind of time travel chaos demon, and so combined, the crew work to figure out a way to save the day millions of years in the past. First off I just want to point out that a Dark Sith rebel without a cause Beckett Mariner got old after a while on Lower Decks, temporal psychosis seems fun and streaming trek is missing a huge opportunity to make a Temporal Wars Star Trek. Just saying, we love time travel. But instead we get academy and I’m getting off topic. This was a good conclusion but I could live without the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home time travel heads thing. I get it, we all love Star Trek IV ...

In a new reality created by Lore, Benjamin Sisko works a menial job and is plagued by dreams of the reality we all know.  He is attacked by Kahless.  As they struggle his memories fully return.  Meanwhile Worf and Alexander track down and battle rogue elements opposed to Lore.  Elsewhere, Lore directs Data on the creation and continued maintenance of his new universe.  As Borg forces gather in the Delta Quadrant, Sisko and Kahless approach the Phoenix Warp Ship in Bozeman Montana.   This is the big crossover event story the two Star Trek ongoing books have been driving towards for months.  And... honestly it is a mess.  You have the familiar faces of both books scattered across the galaxy.  Some in familiar places, others completely out of place and seemingly out of character.  I have to assume at some point the two crews will come together, realize Lore is the enemy, and defeat him.  But this reality under Lore holds no interest fo...

Berlinghoff Rasmussen and Nymira Vondect run a snake oil scam.  With the grift completed they move on to the next and we see how the two came together.  Rasmussen saved her during the parasite space station debacle.  They are out in space having an argument when Lore begins breaking down reality.  The planet they were just on vanishes due to a space/time rift.  They fly through the rift and emerge near the Defiant.  As they try to explain the situation the shockwave entangles both ships. I have to say I never really cared for Nymira much.  I get that Defiant was/is a ship of rogues and renegades on a secret mission.  And what we've seen of her past fits that.  But I just never formed any attachment to the character.  To be honest when I saw her on the first page it was only then that I realized that she had been gone for multiple issues.  Also happening as a little vignette is the ongoing mine standoff which concerns Miles O'Brien. ...

So a time rift has opened up and Starfleet’s DTI (Department of Temporal Investigations) has to go and save the day which means the bridge crew has to go off on a separate ship to help save the universe. Meanwhile the lower decks crew remains on The USS Cerritos and deals with waves of changes to the timeline all culminating in a cliffhanger that, well seems like it will be impossible to get out of. Who doesn’t love a good Star Trek time travel story!? And this issue is a good time travel story that has most everything you could want, changes to the present because of things done in the past, altered states, lower decks sticking to the idea of following the lower decks cast while the bridge crew goes off to deal with a major time rift, Brad Boimler having a freak out because of said timeline changes only to be given a technological solution. And a cliffhanger that makes you want to come back! Vendorians and the USS Protostar from Star Trek: Prodigy get a reference! 9/10