Shadowhawk Reviews @IDWPublishing Star Trek: Khan #3

Here is today's Guest Review by Abhinav Jain from Shadowhawk's Shade, The Founding Fields, and Just Beyond Infinity, for IDW's Star Trek: Khan #3. I have also added my rating after each review. If you have any questions about my rating or want to discuss anything just leave me a comment.

See the Review Rating Overview page for more information on how I rate each comic.

Star Trek: Khan #3

The exclusive never-before-seen origin of STAR TREK's greatest villain continues here, in the official tie-in to the blockbuster hit STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS! The legendary Eugenics Wars lay waste to the planet as Khan fights to preserve his empire! Don't miss this all-new epic overseen by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci!

Preview

Khan

Another month, another Star Trek: Khan comic from IDW Publishing hits the shelves. Writer Mike Johnson has used the first two issues fairly well in most respects, adding to the entirely new continuity of films that Director J. J. Abrams established with his two blockbuster movies and showing off how Khan as he was in Star Trek: Into Darkness came to be. Its not something that I've particularly liked, since I’m a fan of the older established continuity, but I've been fairly interested in it all the same.

The third issue here goes into much more depth about Khan’s reign during the Eugenics Wars and gives a lot of information on the state of the world at the time. So far, we had only seen the private moments for the most part and with the new issue Johnson expands the scope of the story and the events so that he is properly contextualizing Khan as a product of his times, more than anything. Nature AND nurture so to speak. So, as a character study, this issue definitely holds some weight. But its not all song and roses.

What I liked about the previous two issues was definitely the personal focus on Khan. We got to see how he turned into the man he was during the Eugenics Wars and how he removed each and every obstacle in his way to his success, success that he thought he deserved, that he believed was his birthright because of his innate genetic superiority. With this issue Johnson takes a few steps forwards and he goes for a wide focus and shows us the state of the world itself during the Eugenics Wars and what the different “superior” tyrants were doing in their various power blocs. The wide approach didn't work out that well for me, and I was somewhat disappointed by the perfunctory nature of it all.

My problem with this issue also lay in Khan’s characterization. Like the previous issue, this one is all narration and little substance to go along with that. Thus we see that things happen to Khan as an audience removed from the proceedings. We are not in there right with the character and seeing things through his perspective. There’s very little of that in this issue and this was a major failing since I wanted to see how Khan reacts to things around him. That sort of detachment with the character is doing nothing but hurting the character in the long run.

Read the rest of Shadowhawk's review on Here

Images Unplugged Rating

Cover & Solicit - 4
Art, Colors & Inking - 4
Layout & Flow - 5
Story - 5
Verdict - 4.6 (9/10) - (Buy Star Trek: Khan) SAVE 10%

Purchase IDW Publishing

Shadowhawk is a blogger at http://sonsofcorax.wordpress.com/, senior reviewer for The Founding Fields book blog, a contributor to the Just Beyond Infinity mixed-content blog and a comic book reviewer at Comic Vine. The use of these reviews has been authorized by the original author.