Star Trek Red Shirts #1 (Review) by: B. L. Blankenship

       Like any review that I have ever written or will ever write, this will have heavy spoilers. My thoughts & opinions are my own. Hopefully, someone reading this both finds it enjoyable & insightful. Just to begin with a slight background on any sort of foreknowledge or credentials that I may have that'd add any weight to my reviewing a Star Trek comic, particularly, I'll begin with that.

       I (B. L. Blankenship) have been serving the comic book community in multiple capacities for well over a year, done over 100 reviews of comics (primarily on my LinkedIn page), & was happy to review and banter back and forth with Ben Rachmanov (iShook CEO) on a recent episode of the iShook Comics Podcast; i.e. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqrIvIR5Ikg&t=3294s". I'm well acquainted with Star Trek as I've seen every movie, and I am up to date on the series: Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, & Strange New Worlds. My wife & I are currently watching Discovery as well on Paramount+. Prior to this comic, I had not read a Star Trek comic book in my life, so it was my first time.

       As someone who writes, reads, & reviews a lot of comics, most of them are mid. The largest problem with that is that in a fast food world, if you can't hook someone right off, they'll fall away. With that said, this story did have a coherent plot & a hook at the end. It begins with an outline of the sizable cast that you'll be reading about. Presumably, the cast that it is focusing on is as big as it is, because some of them won't make it to the end of this run. After reading a short bio of each, alongside their pictures, you turn the page & are more formally introduced the the most compelling member of the lot as he gets his eye torn out by the clawed hand of a Mugato.

        Thereafter, the story continues to delve deeper into these characters through their personal interactions with each other & general conversations. They talk a good deal about the scars over the eye of the Starfleet Security officer from the aforementioned attack. This part is a slow build and a bit dry, but it kicks in somewhat afterward. Starfleet has found that an ostensibly arbitrary station of theirs on a planet has had someone intercepting the signals. As someone who has worked as a novelist prior to writing comics, this makes me wonder if it is as insignificant as the top brass wants to act like. Regardless, that has yet to be seen, and as a matter of principle, they've baited a trap by putting real info there, allowed some of it to slip through, & they're sending a team to go head to head with whomever is spying on them. On the last page, the enemy is shown. It is the Romulans, who, by the way, I like as the bad guys.

        The part that I took issue with in this specific story was that in an act of over hyped insanity, the away team were fired down to the planet in insulated topedoes, from which most of them were successfully beamed out of and onto the ground. The point of firing the torpedoes was to take out the tower from which the communications were being taken, so that the enemy would have to physically come to the surface of the planet.

        ...With all of that being said, I rated this comic book issue a 5/10. Beni Rachmanov, in the iShook Comics Podcast video, then responsively exclaimed how the week prior, I'd given several different comics, specifically Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters 1-3 (circa 1987), a 10/10. Frankly, it's a high score that I wouldn't give most comics. In case it helps you, I'd give The Death of Superman, Wesley Dodds Sandman 1-6, Bat-Man First Knight 1-3 (DC Comics), as well as Ghost of the Badlands (Indie) a 10/10 due to their exceptionality in every way; and that's just to name a few. Beni Rachmanov scored this higher, & while I totally give him props as being deeper into Star Trek than me (as he's seen every show except for Enterprise & has a lifetime subscription to Star Trek online), I'm even further ahead of him than that within comics, which he'd acknowledge. When I think of how to rank comics, I think of other comics that'd be in that 1-10 slot & how it holds up, ergo I ranked this as a 5, which is Okay, Mid, Normal. To be clear, that exceeds the quality/likability of most of the creator-owned comics published through Image that I've read. What I say nice about Image is that I think it is nice that they give people a chance. The problem is that they operate more like a vanity press than a company that partners with creators that they believe are going to hold serious value. This is something that I'm only pointing out to say that a 5 from me isn't bad.

        While Beni said that he wants to keep most of the upcoming reviews on the iShook Comics Podcast a secret until they happen, he did mention reviewing the second one. Frankly, I expect that it'll hold its own or pick up, and thus, I'm game.