Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Crew

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anyone who has seen the original Star Trek pilot has probably asked that question. Who was Captain Pike's first officer? She is referred to only as "Number 1" in the episode, but she seems to be the most professional member of the crew. She was dropped from the reboot because Paramount officials didn't believe that anyone would follow the orders of a woman? I have to wonder what their mother's would have to say about that.

This trade paperback gives us the highlights of her career, from ensign to Enterprise and it also reminds us that Captain Kirk wasn't the only person in Starfleet having all the adventures. The art by John Byrne really sells the stories as they take advantage of the being in a comic book and not having the limitations of a Television series.

A great read for any Trekkie.

I'm one of this rare breed: a French Star Trek fan! And also a Byrne victim!
Knowing that comic book legend John Byrne was getting involved in Star Trek comics was great news for both ST fans and "old-school" comic fans. Being both, I certainly anticipated reading the Gary Seven comics last year as well as this release: Crew. To make a long review short, Crew is a fun take on Star Trek. Fun being the key idea here, where action and adventure take precedence over brainier, sometimes ponderous stories. The story centers around a tantilizingly anonymous future number one and her rise through the ranks (to a point). Byrne is great at creating strong, smart and vivid female leads who still retain their femininity. The stories also retain the pulp feel of earlier Trek while managing to make the retro-futurist feel of the 60's sleek and advanced. Byrne seems to have found a great new playground. Thanks IDW for releasing fresh, interesting and -first and foremost- well thought-through Trek comics. I must also point out that Amazon does a great job with international orders - although I do recommend that European customers choose a faster option than standard delivery - which seems to be done by sail boat (row boat for my blu-rays apparently)...It is worth the extra bucks.

What an awesome TOS-style series! I'm a big John Byrne fan anyway, but this is my favorite stuff I've seen from him lately. If you are a TOS fan and haven't seen this yet, pick it up!

There are at least two Starfleet ship classes that I don't believe I've ever seen before. U.S.S. Fortune is a smaller ship that doesn't look quite like any of the other ship classes I've seen, but in terms of design really fits into the fleet. I'm not sure the class of U.S.S. Ventura, either, but its design cleaves a little closer to the usual than does that of the Fortune. The science officer, Luabba, in Issue 4, is a a particularly cool looking alien of a species I've not seen before. Really the design elements, from the ships down to the settings and "costuming," really evoke TOS without seeming totally derivative. Byrne seems to be channeling Matt Jeffries.

Each of the five stories stands alone, though Majel Barrett's unnamed character is the primary character throughout and a few other characters recur. Although I'm a sucker for TOS Klingons, who figure prominently in Issue 1, Issue 4, which features the above-mentioned Luabba, was my favorite of the five. Even more than the other issues, it felt like an unproduced episode, and I'd love to see the planet from this issue revisited in a sequel.

The original, uncolored, unlettered art from Issue 3 are presented as an extra, which is a real treat for aficionados of comic book art. I think the true test of comics art is whether it depends on the coloring or can "work" in black and white. John Byrne's art always passes that test, and this is no exception.

I can't recommend Crew highly enough for any TOS fan, and for any fan of solid comic book storytelling.

I have to hand it to John Byrne for singlehandedly rekindling my interest in Star Trek comics. His Assignment Earth miniseries and Romulans stories are labors of love from someone who is obviously very well-versed in Trek lore. Now his STAR TREK: CREW has been collected in trade by IDW, and I am happy to say that the magic continues. For the most part, I haven't been impressed with IDW's handling of the Star Trek license. The quality of their classic reprints is absolutely horrible, and their various new titles suffer from either awkward scripting or lifeless artwork. It's a different situation when Byrne is at the helm: stories are reader-friendly, well-plotted, and illustrated with care - in fact, his artwork for CREW is greatly improved from what we got with Assignment: Earth and is perhaps the best I've seen from him in years. In CREW, he breathes new life into the character of Number One, chronicling some of her earliest adventures prior to the original series pilot "The Cage". Interestingly, while Byrne does provide us with a few details of Number One's background, he crafts the stories to obscure her real name - a little trick that I enjoyed immensely - and the final issues ends with a nice bit of foreshadowing.

The miniseries contains appearances from Spock, Christopher Pike, and Robert April, and you'll also see a Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln flashback in a story based on an issue of Byrne's superb Assignment: Earth miniseries. CREW ties in well with both the original TV series and Byrne's other works. He's building quite the extended universe with his comics for IDW, and I'll take all I can get.

This graphic novel is set in the years before Christopher Pike was captain of the Enterprise and it chronicles the early career of the woman that became "Number one" in the original Star Trek pilot. In the opening story she is just a cadet and in the last caption of the last story she professes her desire to be the new "Number one."
The stories are all excellent and in general are consistent with other threads of the Star Trek storyline. Spock is introduced as a young ensign, Robert April is the captain of the Enterprise and the phasers look just like the ones used in "The Cage." My favorite is the first one, where a team of Klingon agents try to steal a starship that is being taken out for a test flight by a largely cadet crew. The future number one shows herself to be extremely resourceful, unconcerned about danger and very humble when receiving accolades for her actions.
All of the stories present extreme challenges, which is what service in Star Fleet is all about. The action is both physical and cerebral as the people of Star Fleet struggle to make sense of apparently nonsensical situations, and the reader comes up with logical solutions of their own. This is a great addition to the Star Trek genre.