“Yesterday’s” Comic> Star Trek: Year Four–The Enterprise Experiment #1

“Is this the right time to be calling for a pizza?”

Star Trek: Year Four–The Enterprise Experiment #1

IDW Publishing (April, 2008)

WRITERS: D.C. Fontana & Derek Chester

PENCILER: Gordon Purcell

INKERS: Gordon Purcell & Terry Pallot

COLORIST: Mario Boon

LETTERER: Chris Mowry

EDITOR: Andrew Steven Harris

Kirk and Spock are in a shuttle looking for the Enterprise as it tests the Federation’s own version of the Romulan cloaking device. The test is considered successful but they aren’t responding to communications. Spock manages to remotely control the hangar bay doors so they can find and get into the ship but find the crew missing. Attempting to shut down the cloaking device causes the console to explode, which somehow allows Spock to see the phased Arex, who tells him about how the device started phasing everybody. As Spock and Arex work on a way to get some of the phased crewmembers back in phase to help with the device Kirk makes his way to the bridge and manages to get the scanners working…and see the Romulan commander they stole the cloaking device from in “The Enterprise Incident” mocking him.

What they got right: Fontana returns to one of her old episodes and sets it during the Animated Series period that she helped push. So far the story is off to a good start. The problem is set-up well and our heroes use their heads when it comes to trying to solve it. The characters we see look like their performers (within legal issues) or in Arex’s case looks like the character from the animated series.

What they got wrong: Kind of a coincidence that this is the Romulan sneaking into Federation space just as they’re testing a prototype cloaking device that turns out to be faulty and probably based on the one stolen from her.

What I think overall: This is the only issue I currently have access to and it’s well done. The plot is good and mostly set up well and I like the art. Might be nice to see how this continues someday.