Star Trek’s initial pitch was “Wagon train to the Stars”, because the concept was that there would be this ship that would encounter new situations every episode, just like the hit Western TV series, Wagon trainwas built according to the same principle. This is also essentially the configuration of the love boat. Different episodes, different locations, new guest stars, drama (or comedy) ensue. Obviously THE biggest difference between Star Trek And Wagon train is it that Star Trek was in the future and in space, another notable difference is that Star Trek was much more than just a different location each episode. Star Trek there were also COMPLETELY different setups each episode. Wagon Train would definitely mix things up, but he played things pretty close to the vest. These were mostly different forms of basic drama. With Star Trek, however, one episode could be time travel, the next episode could be space gangsters, then the next episode could be alternate dimensions, and finally the next episode could be Tribbles. You really didn’t know what type of story, or even what the SCOPE of the story would be. Some would be small scale plots, others would be HUGE plots.
This same spirit of never knowing how big the story is, or even the KIND of the story, is at work in the second issue of the new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds mini-series, The seeds of salvationwhich opens the scale in a major way in this problem.
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Seeds of Salvation Issue #2 is from writer Robbie Thompson, artist Travis Mercer, colorist JP Jordan, and letterer Jodie Troutman, and it expands the series’ initial Lovecraftian horror into a much broader scope.
How do things evolve beyond the Lovecraftian horror of the first issue?
As noted in my review of the first issue, Christine Chapel took her mandatory time off (the entire crew was asked to take mandatory time off) to help one of her old friends who is experimenting on a mysterious ice planet. One of the key plot points of the first issue is that Chapel has become bored on recent Enterprise missions, and when she complains about their boredom to her teammate, Number One, she subtly chastises Chapel for confusing danger with excitement. This upset Chapel, but perhaps it also could have hit home a little. So that was on her mind when she visits her friend and finds out she’s missing, and her entire team of scientists are ALSO missing. This leads Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike to send a group of crew members to investigate, namely Chapel, Number One, Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Montgomery Scott, and Security Officer La’An Noonien-Singh.
That’s how the first issue ended, with this creepy Lovecraftian horror setup, and the beginning of this issue follows that path (there’s a great part at the beginning of Thompson’s issue where we see Chapel’s friends’ notes before her mission into the deep, and she writes so poetically about their upcoming mission and the very ROLE of scientists. It reminds me of how, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the characters (scientists were usually the HEROES of the stories, something they generally aren’t these days).
I enjoy Travis Mercer’s artwork, but I don’t know if his art style necessarily translates as well to gothic horror (JP Jordan’s colors are more than up to the task, however), but then things take it to a different level, and Mercer’s dynamic art style works really well…
How does the scope of the story change?
We discover that the scientists are being held captive by these sentient plants, and one of them has taken over the body of Chapel’s scientist friend…
It’s basically like a symbiote situation, but the key here is that they control other beings and force them to do what they want. It’s at this moment that we see that the story goes beyond the horror…
You might say, “I don’t know what you mean, Brian, that sounds like a horror story to me,” and that’s certainly a reasonable position to take, but it turns out that these seeds (and the plants they form) are actually being held here as a PRISON, of sorts, a prison that scientists have unwittingly entered while doing their experiments, and in the process, these seeds/plants want to leave the planet, and this is their end goal, and, well, since they’re there in this old prison, they’re obviously not GOOD guys.
I love how the scope of the story can change not only from issue to issue, but even from one half of the book to the next. The beginning of the book was a nice, scary journey into the depths, even including a Lovecraftian monster attacking with tentacles and all, but once they meet their real enemy, we learn that this is a much more traditional type of conflict, and that it’s simply a super-jailbreak.
This is very clever of Thompson, and this setup suits Mercer’s style so well, especially the cliffhanger, where the Enterprise discovers that it has accidentally triggered the planet’s defense mechanisms, and so even if the crew members underground could escape, they might not have a ship to return to!
Comics are great for wild tonal shifts like this because you don’t really have to worry about a change of setting or anything like that because you can just change gears completely in the span of a few pages. A quick word on the quality of the dialogue between symbiont plants. Jodie Troutman did a really good job on their dialogue font. It looked cool, but it was also easy to read. This is a difficult combo to achieve.
This is a fun series, and I can’t wait to see what direction it takes in the next issue!
Source: IDW Editions