After participating in the immense Star Trek: TOS-a-thon recently and getting a heavy dose of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, it’s a little difficult to shift gears to plug into the J.J. Abrams version of young, hip, cool, action-man Star Trek. I remember enjoying the new version of Star Trek well enough – especially Karl Urban’s channelling of DeForest Kelley, but I always default to Shatner. Obey Your Shatner.
However, it’s time to get our new school groove on, and what better way to get back into that new jack swing than with IDW’s Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness, the official comic prequel to Star Trek: Into Darkness. Writer Mike Johnson developed the story with one of the film’s screenwriters, Roberto Orci, so the ‘official’ part ain’t no joke.
We open here with Spock being plagued with guilt nightmares about the loss of his home planet Vulcan, growing ever distant from his lady love, Lt. Uhura, while Captain James Kirk is all lonely and wants some shore leave. Their Federation duties bring them to the planet Phaedus on a routine scanning mission to check the progress of their civilization, which at last check was comparable to the ancient Roman Empire – and thus, the Prime Directive prevents any kind of contact with them. However, this time around, they get zapped with an energy field that should be far beyond their technology, and the resulting shuttle investigation leads to them being shot down with laser fire. Obviously, things ain’t what they should be.
Turns out that one Robert April, commander of one of the previous iterations of the Starship Enterprise who was long thought dead, has instead been committing an egregious violation of the Prime Directive by trying to stop a brutal genocide among the populace of Phaedus, claiming he could not just stand back and do nothing. So he’s been arming the oppressed with the help of smuggler named Mudd – not the portly, Dom DeLuise-looking version from the Shatner days as played by Roger C. Carmel (although one surmises that Harry Mudd is being referenced by April referring to Mudd’s “disreputable father”), but a snarky blonde woman with some nose-ridges which bring to mind a Bajoran origin.
However, while April is supporting the victims, it turns out that the Klingon Empire is backing the conquerors in what’s become something of a proxy war with the Federation. April’s manipulations put Kirk and the crew into all kinds of danger, and despite his apparently noble goals, he eventually lands on a master plan to commandeer the Enterprise and trade it to the Klingons in exchange for being made the governor of Phaedus – ostensibly so he can ensure some kind of peace, but we’ve seen enough skullduggery out of him to ponder ulterior motives. Apparently, there’s such a thing as Starfleet Intelligence, a Federation C.I.A., but that comes later. The climax of this miniseries features Kirk and the crew, locked out of the bridge and seemingly helpless, scrambling to find a way to take back control of their ship.
Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness is a fairly entertaining read, centered around an interesting debate about the ethics surrounding the Prime Directive. There are fun bits with Scotty’s miracle working and with McCoy being handed the reins of the Enterprise while the main command crew runs around planetside – and McCoy is never the guy who’s supposed to be in the command chair. The art from David Messina does come off as a bit stiff sometimes, but that’s likely a hazard when you have to focus more on making your characters look like specific, actual, recognizable human beings all the time.
The book ends with a quick shot of shenanigans about to go down in London at the hands of Benedict Cumberbatch, which is something we’ve seen implied from all the trailers – thus making it a direct lead-in to Star Trek: Into Darkness. If you still can’t wait for the film, check out our dueling reviews – will you hate it like Bibbs, or love it like Fred?
