Digital Comic Review: Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness

Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness is a graphic novel prequel to the movie Star Trek into Darkness and, like that film, is set in the J.J. Abrams version of the Star Trek world, in which a young Captain Kirk runs the Enterprise with a crew that will be familiar to fans of the original TV series. That said, you don’t have to be any kind of a Star Trek expert to enjoy this graphic novel. The action is straightforward and the story stands well on its own, although it does seem like a very typical Star Trek story: Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and a redshirt travel to the surface of a planet on the flimsiest of excuses. Supposedly, the planet Phaedus is at the same level of technological development as the ancient Romans, and the Prime Directive of the Starfleet is that their personnel not interfere with the evolution of more primitive civilizations. Kirk and his crew are therefore taking a risk by visiting in their shuttle, but when they arrive, they realize that the interference has already occurred—from a previous captain of the Enterprise, Captain Robert April. April has brought Starfleet technology (from an intergalactic fence) to the planet Phaedus to help fight a civil war in which one group is cruelly dominating the other, but the story rockets forward with plenty of twists and turns from there. The crew members of the Enterprise get themselves into, and out of, a number of tight spots using their usual combination of ingenuity and teamwork, and the story packs in plenty of action as well as a satisfying ending into a relatively short space. The art is clear and easy to follow, and artist David Messina does a nice job of varying panel sizes and styles to produce a cinematic effect without letting the layouts get too confusing. This is a collected edition of a four-issue miniseries that was released earlier this year, and there are several different ways to buy it, with varying prices: The Kindle edition is $11.99, and the comiXology and Nook versions are $9.99. You’ll save two bucks, though, if you buy it as single issues on comiXology: The first issue is free, the second is $1.99, and the third and fourth are $2.99 each. Digital Comic Review: Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness is a post from: E-Reader News

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