REVIEW: Star Trek : Mirror War - Geordi

These “Mirror War” issues are going to make quite the omnibus. Holtham’s focus on Geordi La Forge – one-shot style – is just another inclusion into the best Star Trek book on stands today, carrying the Mirror War’s show out tradition. Holtham unearths the dark and damaged past that Geordi has been known to keep under wraps, even in the main TNG syndicated series.

Geordi apparently doesn’t just wear a visor to look cool. Blinded from birth, Geordi is put in a group home where he is bullied and finds himself throwing a Molotov cocktail at the headmaster of the foster home. Holtham hits the fast forward button from here and invites readers on a journey where Geordi finds himself work and love, handling each of these constants from this world to Rodenberry’s with a cold calculatedness befitting of the Mirror Universe.

Geordi’s tale here is one of betrayal and self-centeredness on the surface, but a deeper look shows the various coups pulled throughout the 32 pages stem from the abused looking for someone to abuse. Holtham’s foray into the Mirror Universe is a never-ending power play, with mistrust lurking around every inch of this part of the Star Trek mythos, and this Geordi one-shot is just a sample of the overall grime that makes the Mirror Universe a fan favorite topic for Trekkie’s worldwide. Though Geordi dishes out plenty of pain in the issue, he suffers nearly as much and artist Carlos Rodriguez is able to fantastically capture every second of Geordi LaForge’s agony from the cover all the way the final page. As a person who watched many episodes of TNG (against my will, mind you, my biological mom was a HUGE Trekkie) never could I have thought characters like Geordi or Troi could ever appear menacing. Yet when these fan favorites are left in the capable hands of Holtham and Rodriguez, these TNG stalwarts are twisted more than the tail end of a Bop-It toy.

“Star Trek Mirror War : Geordi” is a look behind the visor and into the motivations that drive one of Star Trek’s most recognizable faces of any of the franchise’s many series’ and while rehashing, thanks to this one-shot being a Mirror War title, Geordi is remixed with a background fresh as his new bald-head slick hair-do and divided space specs. Holtham and Rodriguez have more than earned their pay at IDW for this one, because after reading this Geordi one-shot, whenever I catch a TNG re-run in some waiting room screen, I will be forever suspicious of not just Geordi, but every member aboard the starship Enterprise. Every issue of “Mirror War” is the definition of reinvention, and “Geordi” continues to add to the argument as to why the universe of “Mirror War” should be the main continuity for Rodenberry’s most known franchise, just off the levity of pure entertainment.

Score : 5/5

(W) J Holtham (A/CA) Carlos Rodriguez