Originally published on Set The Tape
‘The enemy of my enemy… is not my friend. But Kirk and Kor find themselves forced to work together against a common foe. Alliance, or a chance for deadly betrayal?’
Star Trek: New Visions brings back a classic character, the Klingon Kor, to team up with Captain Kirk in an uneasy alliance as the two of them must escape from the powerful Vrotti, a race of huge lizard-like aliens.
With the two captured they are told by the Vrotti that they each have a chip implanted within their chest that will make their hearts explode if they get more than 10 meters apart, forcing the two enemies to work together in order to get away from their captors.
Whilst the initial set-up is good, and the idea of the two of them having to put aside their differences is intriguing, the story fails to live up to the potential. Kor has been a part of the Star Trek universe for decades, originating back in the original series, and appearing again in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine multiple times, he was always an entertaining and engaging character.
I appreciate that there is a limited number of pages that can be used to tell this story, but it felt like Kor wasn’t given any room to be his character, and that his animosity towards Kirk wasn’t anything more than an average Klingon. The fact that we’re following Kirk and Kor seems to be an after thought, this could have been any pair of characters.
Sadly, this lack of characterisation or connection makes the story feel very flat and lacking any real depth.
The second story in the issue goes backwards in time, telling a story centred around the Enterprise before Kirk, with Pike as the captain. Whilst the shift in look and style of this story is interesting, and makes a change of pace from the usual, the narrative itself is very slow and, dare I say, dull. Finding a ship from 1901 floating in space, the Enterprise crew discovers a man who’s supposed to be a fictional character. Any kind of mystery or drama is soon forgotten as we get a very dull explanation for how and why this person is here, then he just goes on his way.
The art style of Star Trek: New Visions doesn’t help either story either. In the first tale feels very disjointed, mixing together brand new creatures and ships with existing images from episodes. Unfortunately, as Kor was in very few episodes of the original series there’s not a great deal of options for images to use, as such Kor often feels out of place, with expressions and poses that don’t really work for what’s happening in the story.
The second story is also let down by this art style as the character of Cavor very clearly has CGI glasses and a beard stuck to his face, which makes him incredibly distracting whenever he’s around.
Star Trek: New Visions continues to tell stories within the Star Trek universe but fails to capture the quality of the original series in both storytelling and visuals.
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