Customer Reviews

Star Trek Omnibus

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(6)

 

 

Like most Star Trek comic efforts, these are not fantastic stories, but there is some nostalgic enjoyment here. Unfortunately, the creative teams changed often during the short Marvel run, and sometimes the books feel like they were rushed.

That said, the real problem here is with IDW's reproduction quality in the omnibus. The colors are often faded and muted, and I noticed a few examples where I could swear that the color was just incorrect. Same goes for black inking and lettering -- these are often thin and faded.

I know color reproductions are expensive and time consuming efforts, but this is just a disappointing effort. I really was hoping to build a comprehensive ST comic library (like the excellent Star Wars series from Dark Horse) but there's no way I will do that given this quality.

Back to the drawing board, IDW...

Sure, the first Marvel STAR TREK series was goofy... but it was a lot of fun. I was very excited when this omnibus was announced -- but boy, did IDW drop the ball. The reproduction and restoration of these books is TERRIBLE. My beat-up original issues circa 1980 look better. I cannot recommend this book at all.

I have to agree with the other reviewers: STAR TREK OMNIBUS was a real surprise, and not a good one. I had quite a few of these comics in my youth and was looking forward to adding a collected edition to my shelf, but I am not buying it for two reasons:

1. The reproduction quality is quite possibly the worst I've ever seen in a reprint. Lines are blurry, colors are muddy... heck, words can't accurately describe it - this is absolutely horrible.

2. The book doesn't even collect the entire 18-issue Marvel series. It omits issues 1 - 3, which adapt Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I'm assuming that they were not included because they will be part of the Star Trek Movie Omnibus. Well, so what? Why not get it all under one cover?

The original comics contained some great artistic collaboration between Dave Cockrum, Klaus Janson, and Frank Springer, but STAR TREK OMNIBUS doesn't give their work the treatment it deserves. So to IDW: put a little more effort into your handling of these Star Trek reprints. If they're worthy of being reprinted, then let it show. When you acquire a major licensed property, you have to do it right or you'll be wasting everyone's time: the fans, the newcomers, and even your own.

As befits its theme, the incarnations in the Star Trek universe is very broad. There were four major television series, an animated series, countless books and many movies. Often lost in all of this are the stories that appeared in comic book form. In many ways these stories can be more imaginative than all others that would require complex and expensive special effects to carry them out.
This book is a collection of comics depicting the adventures of the characters of the original series after the "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" storyline as they appeared in IDW's "Star Trek Omnibus" issues #4-18. The stories are highly original and depict the crew in their encounters with other species as they face danger, moral and mortal conflicts, the Klingons and issues from their personal pasts.
After viewing Star Trek action on screen, reading comic books requires you to shift your mental focus a bit. The action is still there, it just has to undergo a great deal more mental processing to be enjoyed. Star Trek appears in many forms, the comics is one that is a bit more cerebral in nature in that the user must be more mentally involved to appreciate the plot.

I bought this book sight-unseen because I like Star Trek comics. Even when they're bad, they're at least fun; see any of the Whitman/Dell Star Trek comics (collected by Checker Books). The Checker reprints are meticulous; I even acquired one of the 70's collected books and the colors are identical (save for better paper).

That said, it's obvious that the comics in this book have been digitally recolored. There are various texture effects everywhere, and the transporter "glow" has been rendered as an airbrush line. But the coloring job is horrendous, and not anywhere near what I would have expected from IDW. It looks like it was done by a child just learning to use photoshop. Characters have red faces instead of flesh-tone, some backgrounds have no color, colors run over the lines, the light-blue uniforms of the first Trek movie (these stories take place immediately after that film) are depicted variously as white with blue highlights or dark blue. Compare that to the colors on the cover image, which is a nice professional job. Even unretouched scans of the original comics would have been better than this hatchet job.

It's not impossible to recolor old comics in modern techniques. Marvel and DC have been doing it for years. I've seen a few of the other reprint volumes IDW has done, and while also not the best, they're miles above this. I'm apprehensive about the upcoming movie-adaptation reprint book because of it.

the stories in this comic are pretty good but the coloring is absolutely aweful
they couldnt even stay in the lines in some panels
my 3 year old cousin could color better then this
the pencils and inking are just fine tho

Okay, these stories aren't great. The artwork does look awful, and while I haven't seen the originals, I can believe that this reproduction is disappointing. It is obvious though, that the original artwork wasn't great. The writing is barely passable. In short, this is a good representation of the state of comic books circa 1980.

If you enjoy classic comics, well this is a trip down memory lane. It is even better if you are a fan of classic Star Trek. When these comics were written, there was no Next Generation, no Deep Space Nine, and certainly no "Enterprise." Star Trek was still pure. There was only the original series, the animated series, and the one (very bad) film. Well there were several novels by then as well. The point is, that these stories are a look back at a Star Trek that could have been, and they are stories which echo the original series very nicely. They haven't been "contaminated" by concepts that were formed later.

Each adventure is very much like an episode of the old TV series, but with different-looking phasers, ships, uniforms, Klingons etc. All of the visuals are drawn very much from the Star Trek Motion Picture. We only got to see some of these things (especially the uniforms) in that one film, as many of the sets and costumes were redesigned for the second film. Anyway, it's a fun look at a different era of Star Trek. It blends the original series with the movies in an unusual way.

The stories are cheesy, but very much in keeping with the spirit of the original series.

I regret that I must concur with the reviews blasting the quality of the reproduction. This is substandard work by any stretch of the imagination. In comparison with the issues as originally published, the colors are not true. In many places, it looks as if the cyan (blue layer) film has gone missing - what was brown has become orange, or in some cases, yellow, purples have become pink, and pale blues have vanished in many panels. A great disservice has been done to the original coloring work of Carl Gafford, especially on issues #8 and 9, which look nowhere near as pleasant as the original printings. There can be no excuse from a professional outfit for putting out a product this shoddy.

I picked this up in the library. Not being a Trekkie fan nor having read the original comics, I can safely review this without any hangups.

The first story was just about the most stupid thing that I have ever read. Capt Kirk and team has to deliver some kind of alien back to the planet Thallus. The alien looks like a cross between Ripley's alien but with a touch of Spielberg's Jurassic red combed dinosaur drawn in. Along the way, the crew gets visitations from werewolves, spooks, vampires, even Dracula shows up. There is a whole gothic horror house free-floating in outer space near Thallus. There is a firefight with the Klingons, Mr Spock is captured, and the cause for all this is some elaborate ruse by the Klingons to use the mind of a cinema buff to create these gothic creatures, because his dead but lovely wife is running loose out there. So Mr Spock telepaths (is this the correct word?) to Kirk to shoot the woman dead and all these hallucinations then disappeared.

I stopped reading there. Would any sane person go further than no Trekkie has gone before?