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Year Four #5 is out now, so post your thoughts on this issue here!

Remember, if you'd like your message to appear in a letters column, mark it "OK To Print".

8of5 · Forum Zombie Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 412

I found it disappointing, I was starting to get quite enthusiastic about this series and thinking maybe David Tischman had finally managed to get things together and then we get this. Bleh, just the whole premise doesn't make sense, if two stations comparable to K-7 had been built to conduct some mega experiment then what the heck happened to the research team that had been developing this for years? Why was the Enterprise even there let alone doing the whole thing!?

That quibble aside there was just nothing too it; experiment goes wrong, oh no Spock's in trouble, bother Spock's dead, oh, he isn't... "The Immunity Syndrome" anyone? And the art really didn’t help here, I mean what on earth was the point in pages six and seven - stars, stars, stars, stars... oh yeah and that blue blob is doing something up there. Once again this issue shows up the horrible idea of the fixed panel layout of four wide panels per page irrespective oh how that helps the pacing or fitting a nice chunk of story in, so much wasted space in this issue.

I don't think it helped that this came out along side the Orion Alien Spotlight, which had a story with so much more going on, and much more interesting and in-depth artwork. It's a real shame, the idea to play of the CERN experiment (though rather presumptuous that CERN is going to be a disappointing failure), and the way it was set up - that first page with the separating stations was coool, but oh dear what a wasted opportunity. To quick, not enough to it, a real disappointment. I hope the final issue of the series manages to get back some of better quality other issues have managed.
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Numerically challenged drone
8of5's Star Trek blog -- Updated October 14.

GustavoLeao · I'm kind of a big deal Joined: 11 Mar 2007 Posts: 247

TrekWeb Reviews Star Trek Year Four Issue 5

http://trekweb.com/articles/2007/12/21/Comics-Review-Star-Trek-Year-Four-Issue-5.shtml

Gustavo Leao
TrekWeb Editor
gl2000@uol.com.br

Ro-Dan · Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:24 pm Post subject:

It wasn't a very memorable issue. It didn't help that this followed the clever story and beautiful art of the previous issue. And why the heck was the Joe Corroney cover the incentive?
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indianatrekker27 · Slayer Joined: 04 Apr 2007 Posts: 58

yeah, this issue didnt blow me away either. It felt very rushed. I did feel like I was watching a replay of "The Immunity Syndrome." I can't stand the four panel thing either. The reality TV story and Gordon Purcell drawn issue have been the strongest two stories in my opinion. I'm glad that Purcell will be back to do the final issue. I wish he had done the artwork for the whole series.

Ro-Dan · Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:01 am Post subject:

Speaking of the "reality TV series" issue (my favorite of the series) I hope that IDW has plans for the Sharp Bros in the future. These guys are scary talented.
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Aric · Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:34 pm Post subject:

I thought this was the strongest of the Conley issues. I loved the gemini stations and I thought the quark cloud was rendered beautifully. This one also had the best characterizations other than isssue #4.

8of5 · Forum Zombie Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 412

Ro-Dan · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:22 pm Post subject:

Despite the criticisms there are some strengths in this issue. Once again, Tischman nails the characters "voices" and personalities. The Chekov scenes were quite good and I liked Kirk's apology to Arex. Little things like that nice.
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8of5 · Forum Zombie Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Posts: 412

Samy · I'm kind of a big deal Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 174

Art: C. Serviceable but little more can be said. The splash on pages 6-7 was a waste of space.

Story: C. Nothing particularly special. I still think there's a lot of space being wasted when a fourth of an entire page is wasted on "I owe you an apology". Could've been included in the previous panel, or it could've been a smaller panel leaving more room for other stuff. Things like that have been prevalent in ST:YF, wasting a lot of space and giving an undense story. The Arex/Kirk conflict -- the only real personality conflict in the issue -- was also very downplayed, making the whole issue seem kind of watered down when there was no big clash between any personalities. The end tried to salvage it a little bit but it was just the same old same old Spock being unemotional -- seen it a hundred times. Can't say there was any particularly strong point in this issue.