Star Trek: Year Five, Book 4: Experienced in Loss
by
Jackson Lanzing (Author), Collin Kelly (Author), Brandon Easton (Author), Jim McCann, Paul Cornell (Author), Ángel Hernández (Artist), Sylvia Califano (Artist), Stephen Thompson (Artist), Christopher Jones (Artist)
(Collects issues #20-25)
My rating: 5 of 5 stars!!
This was a truly wonderful final arc to wrap up the final year and final voyage of the U.S.S Enterprise and the original crew under Captain James T. Kirk. If you’ve seen my reviews for this whole series led by crew captain Jackson Lanzing, then you know that I have had naught but high praise for the great story-telling choices and some excellent characterisation across the board. Of course, the art team continues from the previous volumes and they do a great job bringing it to life.
This final arc see’s some of the most dramatic events in the tenure of this crew during their Five-Year Mission as challenges new and old come neck and neck to vex our heroes and things hurtle toward oblivion (almost literally) for not just the Federation, but for the Galaxy as a whole!
The first part of this finale follows our crew preparing for the end of their mission and a return to Earth and Starfleet Headquarters, only for Spock to have been pulled out of their present time to the far distant past of Vulcan, where he is faced with the birth of the Vulcan race as we know it – the transition and war-like period when those who pushed for purging emotion in favour of logic, were faced with resistance from those who felt this was suppressing who they were as a people. This sojourn pushes Spock in ways he never would have considered and makes him face his inner turmoil about his half-Human, half-Vulcan heritage in a way he couldn’t have expected; all this while his crew-mates try to stay alive and find a way to bring him back.
Past this sojourn for Spock, we come back to the main story: The series started with a bang when the Enterprise came to a Tholian world that had been completely decimated and rescued a Tholian child who became a loved part of the crew (informally) and came to be called Bright Eyes; it is this storyline from all the way in issue #1 that comes full circle as the plans of the Tholians comes into effect with the stakes literally being EVERYTHING. Simultaneously, the machinations of Gary Seven and his masters, The Aegis, start to make themselves known – what we the reader know from the previous volume but the crew doesn’t, is that the Aegis are seeking to save everyone and everything by benevolently using the Tholians to freeze everything in crystalline, unchanging perfection so nothing bad can ever happen. Yes, it’s special levels of creepy.
To top it all off, Gary Seven is now extra-pissed-off because his “best friend” and handler, the shape-shifting feline Isis, has been shuffled loose of her mortal coil and the targets for his vengeance? Who else but the Enterprise and James Tiberius Kirk. So that is where we find ourselves: a crew facing their own uncertain future in every direction, war for the fate of the galaxy and beyond approaching and enemies at every gate. It truly does feel like the darkest hour for our heroes.
In the midst of all this, have to say that I could almost see the growing comfort of the entire art team as they’ve hit a groove in the last volume and this one that was really pleasing! From the intricacies of the characters and their expressions to the alien life, the space sequences and quite strikingly, the brightly lit and colourful vibe of it all really made every single page “pop!” and I loved it all!
The crafting of the story was everything I wanted from this tale and in fact was reminiscent of an aspect I love in the new Star Trek: Strange New Worlds tv series, i.e, it is modern, it is culturally evolved, it is creative and carries forward the very best of what Star Trek TOS was while tweaking it just enough to brush away those smaller less-desirable elements (like the odd racist/sexist/etc moments that are functions of the era in which any show is made) and given us a wonderfully distilled blend of what makes Star Trek great and brought us a sensibility that hits the nostalgic bullseye while still giving us something new and fun.
There are many moments and many highs and lows as our crew faces down and fights through all the above, but it is handled with a deft touch to balance the high-octane action – be it a space fight or a punch-up – alongside the diplomacy, dialogue and the emotional and personal moments that truly define and showcase the ethos and spirit of the Star Trek franchise. To me this volume and the ones before it make me feel that the team crafting it all had an understanding and love for Star Trek and the philosophies and ideas that define it; this is clearest when we reach the final chapter, i.e, issue #25 which is entirely an epilogue that is not “needed” to finish the last story arc, but it is very much needed to close out this whole series as well as (in my humble opinion) the Five Year Mission, to boldly go where no man has gone before!
Highly, highly recommended for fans of the Star Trek and for fans of TOS! Kudos to the whole team for putting this together the way they did and while you can’t please everyone, at least this reviewer thinks that this is a worthy entry in the franchise and a great close to this chapter of this crews’ journey.
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Click below for the reviews of the preceding volumes:
Star Trek: Year Five, Book 1: Odyssey’s End
Star Trek: Year Five, Book 2: The Wine-Dark Deep
One Happy Monk 
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