Advance Review: Star Trek Holo-Ween #1 (of 4)

Space, the final frontier, to mix my taglines, where no-one can hear you scream! It is that time of year when things go bump in the night, even if that night is the blackness of space. Yes, its Halloween, Star Trek style.

Following an arduous, anxiety filled trip through a solar storm, Counselor Troi comes up with the great idea to celebrate Halloween, though of course Worf wants to add a touch of Klingon to proceedings. This being Trek, there is a sentient life-form, a holodeck and a spate of of missing crewmen and women. Before long, the main cast are getting haunted, chased and decapitated!

Writer Chris Sequeira follows the Trek coincidence tree with the timings of the infiltration coupled with the holiday season. With that out of the way, Sequeira does a solid job of capturing the voices of the crew, be it Picard, Worf and Data. Everyone acts as they should, so why does the book feel so vacuous?

Part of this is down to the art from Joe Eisma which is consistently inconsistent with characters faces unclear and heights changing frequently. I am just glad that character names are used to help identify who is who. Things get better with horror twists that feature in the book. Overall, I am a tad disappointed in the art as I really liked Eisma on Nancy Drew. ST:TNG has a very specific velour-esque scheme that Charlie Kirchoff tries had to recreate though lacks the finer details in the most part. As with the art, the scheme gets better when the horror elements start to play out. The letters provided by lettering guru Clayton Cowles, so you know that the font is going to work from page one. There are a range of covers to choose from; buyers choice wins out, though I would go for cover A by Francesco Francavilla.

Is Halloween enough to carry a four issue mini-series? I am not sure to be honest. Could IDW be publishing too much Trek? I am not sure of the answer to that either. Still for Trek fans, it is nice to have the choice of which “star to follow”.

Writing – 3 Stars
Art – 2.5 Stars
Colors – 3 Stars

Overall – 3 Stars

Written by; Chris Sequeira
Art by; Joe Eisma
Colors by; Charlie Kirchoff
Letters by; Clayton Cowles
Published by; IDW Publishing

Star Trek: Holo-ween #1 is warping into shops 4th October.

Author Profile

Johnny "The Machine" Hughes

I am a long time comic book fan, being first introduced to Batman in the mid to late 70's. This led to a appreciation of classic artists like Neal Adams and Jim Aparo. Moving through the decades that followed, I have a working knowledge of a huge raft of characters with a fondness for old school characters like JSA and The Shadow

Currently reading a slew of Bat Books, enjoying a mini Marvel revival, and the host of The Definative Crusade and Outside the Panels whilst also appearing on No-Prize Podcast on the Undercover Capes Podcast Network