Star Trek: Waypoint #1 (re-post)

Star Trek: Waypoint #1

“Puzzles”

Written by Donny Cates

Art by Mack Chater

Colors by Jason Lewis and Dee Cunniffe

“Daylily”

Writing and Art by Sandra Lanz

Lettering by Andworld Designs

                Captain Geordi LaForge and the starship Enterprise, now run by a crew of holographic Datas (you read that right), are tasked by the Federation to investigate a gigantic cubed vessel out in space. It has over two hundred crew members on board and will not release them, repeating a heavily encrypted message over and over. Meanwhile, on another planet in the distant past, Lieutenant Uhura is stranded when a transporter accident splits her away team. She then becomes the interest and inadvertent host of a strange plant-like creature.  

                Star Trek: Waypoint is a new anthology series celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved franchise. According to editor Sarah Gaydos, the book offers a “stopping point” to “reflect on what’s come before.” It’s a nice sentiment which is on full display here featuring short stories with well-known favorites of Star Trek; Geordi and Data from Next Generation and Uhura from Star Trek: The Original Series. And while it may seem a good idea to have short little tales of going where no one has gone before, I come out of reading this issue feeling something lacking.

A good anthology series contains stories that can be both consumable and satisfying, without leaving the reader wanting more. Though, as with anything, there are strong installments as well as a few clunkers or outright stinkers. Despite not having watched EVERY episode, I’m sure the Twilight Zone, gold standard of anthologies, has had its fair share of disappointing or head-scratching stories. However, what one shouldn’t feel after reading a short story is a sense of incompletion. Sadly, these stories in this inaugural issue feel very light and one in particular plays out almost like a deleted sequence from an episode than an actual full-on story.

The first story, titled “Puzzles,” featured Geordi and the Enterprise ship with the bridge crew of holographic Datas. They establish there are more crewmembers in other parts of the ship, but Data’s positronic brain is uploaded into the Enterprise computer, hence the hologram bridge crew. Personally, I think a compelling story would focus on Geordi’s seeming inability to form meaningful relationships with any sentient organic lifeform. I can’t imagine what kind of existential hell that would play on a person’s psyche to realize that not only are you the only “real” person on board; but all of the other inhabitants share the face of a friend who had been, for all intents and purposes, killed years ago.

The story we get here centers around Geordi and Data finding a time-displaced cube that appears to be a Federation ship holding its crew hostage. The main problem I have with this story is that the conflict is interesting enough to provide multiple issues and could serve as the beginning of a long-running arc. What was the cube doing there, why is it time-displaced? Why hold the crew? There’s tons of unanswered questions that could’ve used several issues to flesh out. I can’t help find the story lacking, especially when it falls back on an old cliché’ to resolve a conflict that had no real way to satisfying conclude in the short amount of time it had.

The second story, titled, “Daylily” featured Lieutenant Uhura meeting a strange lifeform that begins to exhibit humanoid form and speech the longer it’s in contact with her. It’s a nice, sweet little tale and doesn’t quite have the same problem as “Puzzles” did. However, the story’s brevity and conclusion make for what amounts to a deleted scene in a DVD collection of classic episodes. Not necessarily bad, (especially since its title is thematically fitting given the actual behavior of daylilies) but disappointing and not just in the way the ending was intended.

The artwork put forth in “Puzzles” by Marc Chater is solidly done. He captures the visages of both Levar Burton’s Geordi LaForge and Brent Spiner’s Data nicely. I’m not quite sure I’m completely on board with giving Geordi glowing blue headlights for eyes. It makes him seem less human. I get it might be one of those things where they’ve enhanced his sight beyond the visor, but I remember in Nemesis, they all but made Geordi’s eyes look completely normal. Also, the ship at the center of the conflict, the U.S.S. Sakurazaka, looks like a Borg ship if it decided to go for a minimalist motif. The use of blues, whites and even golds tend to give off a somewhat cold, distant feel for the story, making it tough to fully engage in the urgency of the situation.

By contrast, “Daylily”, written and drawn by Sandra Lanz, recreates the feeling of the original Trek series by its look and tone. The bright, expressive colors make the scenery more vibrant. The line work gives it a little more of a campy feel but not so much that it can’t be taken seriously. It helped add warmth and charm to the overall story as well as make a creature one may find off-putting at first seem friendly and hospitable. It’s something of a microcosm of what Star Trek is about, seeking out new life, boldly going, exploring and meeting new species. It makes the ending all the more disappointing alongside the briefness of pages it had to work with.

Despite the artwork being exceptional, I can’t really recommend making a stop at Star Trek: Waypoint #1. I hope it lives long and prospers with more satisfying, better written stories from this point going forward.