“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Omnibus, Vol. 1” Comic Book – Review

Collecting The Illyrian Enigma and The Scorpius Run, along with two short stories, this omnibus makes good use of the format to tell sprawling, exciting adventures too big for television.

I was provided with a free review copy of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Omnibus, Vol. 1. The opinions I have shared are my own.

I was delighted by the first short story in the omnibus, which concerns a younger Chapel seeking ways to modify Starfleet officers’ apparent species without breaking their anti-genetic modification laws. Her friend, Ensign Roz Lozano, suggests a novel solution: using the same “subdermal epigenetic modification” patches that allow Roz’s body to express female attributes like breast growth and gametes. Combined with transporter matrix technology, Chapel successfully alters herself to have Vulcan ears without changing her genetics.

This is a fun way to integrate gender affirming technology into Star Trek, and an entirely appropriate use of transporters, which are typically capable of doing anything the story demands at any given moment.

It also sets us up for the first major arc in the omnibus, The Illyrian Enigma, by Kirsten Beyer, Mike Johnson, and Megan Leven.

The larger Star Trek universe has been struggling to make sense of Starfleet’s position on genetic modification since a passing mention of the Eugenics Wars in the original series defined canon. It was initially a way to establish Khan Noonien Singh as a villain, positioning his super-strength as a symbol of Earth’s World War III, but it got confusing as Starfleet became better defined in later series.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds confronted this issue head-on by making Una a member of the Illyrian race, who are all genetically altered. The second season gave us “Ad Astra Per Aspera,” a classic courtroom episode, which put Una on trial for lying about her genetic modifications. The story also served to put the United Federation of Planets on trial for hypocrisy: how can a policy of non-interference with other cultures be compatible with condemning an entire race that is genetically altered?

The Illyrian Enigma occurs shortly before this trial, sending Pike and crew searching for the Illyrian home world. They find themselves chasing down answers about why the Illyrians ended up genetically altered in the first place–and learn it’s thanks to early Vulcan meddling on the Illyrian planet.

This explanation is only dissatisfying in the sense that it happened in the comics, so it couldn’t be referenced on the show. They had to tie everything up in secrecy at the end to keep it from interfering with the courtroom episode.

It’s a shame because “Vulcan meddling” is a great explanation that ties back to the very themes of non-interference in other cultures. The Vulcans turning the Illyrians into a genetic experiment, and learning how they devastated an entire planet, would have helped inspire the Prime Directive.

The Illyrians want this matter kept secret because it defies their self-identity, where the genetic alteration is a matter of pride that makes them feel special. Pike’s choice to respect this is more Starfleet-appropriate than putting one of its best officers on trial for something that happened to her before she was a baby.

While The Illyrian Enigma has a lot of fascinating implications for canon–and an amazing couple of pages featuring old Vulcans riding sehlat–The Scorpius Run is a story that feels like it could have suited Star Trek: Voyager if only they had the budget for it.

Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, and Angel Hernandez give us a tale about another intergalactic race with high stakes. Where Star Trek: Voyager had “Drive,” pitting the Delta Flyer against other small vessels, The Scorpius Run pits the entire Enterprise against vessels from other cultures.

It revisits several standard Star Trek plot lines: the race itself, a giant angry head with godlike powers, and Starfleet officers finding ways to work with alien races who have vastly different values.

But The Scorpius Run hardly feels standard. I was stunned by the escalation of the stakes at times. Although we’ve seen aliens trying to seize Federation ships before, we usually only get the Enterprise blown to pieces in movies and alternate timelines. I couldn’t imagine the solution to the teeny tiny problem of our heroes’ vessel being turned to shrapnel depicted on a television budget, even with the great effects of modern Trek.

The art is stunning, too. Splashy, colorful, and exciting, I found myself turning back pages again and again to grasp the scale of the action.

Although all the stories in this omnibus are great, and give an impression of two particularly fun episodes of Strange New Worlds, the pages at the end of the book are my favorite. Three pages share character designs by Megan Levens, which are a wonderful insight into an artist’s adaptation of Una, Spock, and Kirk. There are also numerous colorful alternative covers (seventeen, at my count), which I spent just as much time studying as I did reading the remainder of the omnibus.

I loved these extra entries into the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds canon.

Did you read them when they were originally published? What did you think?

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