Star Trek: Year Five #19

Star Trek: Year Five #19

Publisher: IDW

Writer: Jim McCann

Cover Artist: Stephen Thompson

Cover Colors: Charlie Kirchoff

Artist: Angel Hernandez

Colorist: Fran Gamboa

Letterer: Neil Uyetake

Reviewer: Michael Nunneley

After picking up a distress call from Proxima Centauri, the crew of the Enterprise make a horrible discovery -- a deadly pandemic is ravaging the planet! Before they can find out who unleashed this new virus, and why, the terror comes home when Dr. McCoy discovers a tear in his EVA suit. Meanwhile Sulu and Chekov are confronted by Isis - who is hungry for revenge!

Art by JJ. Lendi

I am learning something about colorists in doing these reviews: they have a lot of control over how the art looks. What I means is that we have the same consistent artist (Hernandez) working on several Star Trek books, there is little to no change with his pencils/inks - he is a good, solid artist. However, each book looks a bit different because of the different colorists Hernandez works with. It really is quite amazing how different the same art looks in the hands of different colorists. Fran Gamboa colored this book and she seems to bring out the scratchy side of Hernandez work. I say that because with other colorists, as I've said in other reviews, the super scratchy element of Hernandez does not stand out. This is not intended to speak ill of Gamboa's coloring - she does a good job. Between Gamboa and Hernandez the likenesses in this book are great. I think it's the lighter toned colors that really spotlight the scratchy style - which is fine, as I have said, but I don't personally like the sketchpad look. I prefer tight, clean lines and blending.

Jim McCann's storytelling in this one was good but not great. McCann does a good job of writing in character - he really gets the voices of the individual crew members. The story itself is pretty good and apropos of the times being about a pandemic that ravages a planet. However, with all the build up of the story, the ending felt quickly wrapped up and anticlimactic. Not to say that the ending wasn't clever, just that it felt like it was forced to end in a page or 2.

All in all, if you've been reading along with this story, it's worth a read just to see how the story arc ends. But if you haven't I think you can safely skip this one.

Score: 2.75/5