REVIEW: Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The Scorpius Run #5 (of 5)

Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The Scorpius Run brings the high quality series to a close with flourish. This book truly understands the nuanced, interesting characters fleshed out on the wonderful series. The conflict itself is a challenge which can only be solved by the crew learning from their interactions with other species. What began as a race through space forced upon the crew by Zephyx turns into a lesson in thinking outside the box and finding a new balance. The crew has spent this arc being challenged by and learning from their competition. Spock has spent time with the logical Uvex crew while Una has been with the aggressive Rovok crew. Zephyx has told them all that only one ship that is the victor can be allowed to survive. Pike and the Enterprise crew take this challenge as their own version of the Kobayashi Maru. They refuse to accept the pretext of the race and instead use the technology adopted from their competitors to combine all the remaining ships into a united singular unit so they can all make it together to the finish line.

The art in this series by Angel Hernandez is filled with excellent character work, solid spaceships, and an incredible expressiveness. The colors by Nick Filardi exude a bright positive world perfect for this era of Star Trek. Writer Ryan Parrott brings us to this clever end with narrative heft as well as clear strong voices from all the team members. Even as the Enterprise is falling apart each team member is given space to add their own thoughts and strategies. Most impressive is how the individual characters sound exactly as they should. Pike is contemplative, Ortegas exudes confidence, Una learns to soften her approach, Pelia is ready to complain even as she does the impossible, Spock learns to bridge his logic with empathy. Every beat feels like a natural extension of the characters. This makes the book feel alive. The energy carries us quickly through the action as the competition ends and the ships combine forces structurally and then militarily to take down Zephyx.

It is interesting that the villain of this book looks like an angrier version of Zordon given Parrott’s extensive time on the Power Rangers book, but it does make for an excellent visual of having a tyrant ruler in a very limiting situation. In the end the conflict works to not only transform the ships along the way but also to transform the members of the team based on the lessons they learned from the conflict and their competitors. Star Trek Scorpius Run is a fun, action-packed, character filled adventure and exactly the type of Star Trek book we need on the stands. Here’s hoping we get a lot more of this creative team on Star Trek books moving forward.

Writing: 4.8 of 5 stars
Art: 3.8 of 5 stars
Colors: 4.0 of 5 stars

Overall: 4.0 of 5 stars

Writer: Ryan Parrott
Art: Angel Hernandez
Colors: Nick Filardi
Publisher: IDW

Author Profile

M.R. Jafri

M.R. Jafri was born and raised in Niagara Falls New York and now lives with his family in Detroit Michigan. He's a talkative introvert and argumentative geek. His loves include Star Wars, Star Trek, Superheroes, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Transformers, GI Joe, Films, Comics, TV Shows, Action Figures and Twizzlers.