The final voyages of the original Enterprise crew continue, and the Federation may never be the same! Your Major Spoilers review of Star Trek: Year Five #13 from IDW Publishing awaits!

You can purchase this issue via comiXology

Previously in Star Trek: Year Five: The Enterprise and her crew finally make it back to Federation space, but the Federation they find isn’t quite the same as the one they had left behind. Meanwhile, Aegis and Gary Seven’s grand design continues to take shape… and the consequences will be staggering.

“I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT SAM…”

After finally returning home to the Federation after a terrible sequence of events, we find a strangely subdued Captain James T. Kirk worrying about change and thinking about his late father. Things have changed in his absence as the Federation has upgraded to new uniforms (the ones seen in ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) and there’s even a group within the upper echelons who are trying to resist additional exploration and expansion of the group, worrying that there won’t be enough resources if they continue to expand. Things get worse when a cloaked Klingon ship arrives, demanding that Kirk answer for his crimes and specifying several moments seen in the Original Series among them, ending with the damining resolution that he works towards the greatest crime of all, at least in Klingon terms: The Crime of Peace! Kirk agrees to turn himself over to Klingon justice, while McCoy and Spock discover a conspiracy on a Federation hospital ship… and get captured for their troubles!

“WE DEMANDED PANTS.”

I always appreciate the skilled us of continuity that IDW brings to the table, so finding that Kirk’s defense attorney is Areel Shaw or hearing the references to ‘Errand of Mercy’, ‘Friday’s Child’ and other TOS episodes is nice, as is Areel’s explanation that the skirt uniforms had to go, but there’s a darkness here that I’m not thrilled with. When McCoy finds that Starfleet’s admirals are behind the disappearance of his injured crewmen, I cringed a little that we might be seeing another “conspiracy in the ranks” plot. On the other hand, it’s a good issue, and the balancing of McCoy’s plot against Kirk’s trial in the Klingon ship works quite well. The art is a little stiffer than last issue’s, meaning that Kirk feels slightly more like he’s referenced from static Shatner poses, but weirdly, Hernandez does a great job with McCoy, who looks both dramatic, dynamic and like DeForrest Kelley on each page. As the first issue of a new arc, it’s hard to tell where this is going, but I’m interested in seeing what Klingon justice looks like in the 2260s.

BOTTOM LINE: FEELS LIKE WE’RE BUILDING TO THE END

Even with my concerns on tone, Star Trek: Year Five #13 is a pretty good read, with art that works more often than not (especially on scenes of ships in orbit around the Starbase) and a story that feels like we’re entering the Year Five endgame, earning a well-deserved 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. I know that I’ve been wondering what happened to that missing year for a couple of decades (and have seen a couple of takes on the missing adventures after The Animated Series), but this series is making for some good stories.

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