Star Trek 1224: Leviathan, Part Two

1224. Leviathan, Part Two

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Voyager #12, Marvel Comics, June 1997

CREATORS: Laurie S. Sutton (writer), Jesus Redondo and Sergio Melia (artists)

STARDATE: 50787.3 (follows the last issue)

PLOT: Sent back to the human habitat, Janeway and crew work on a way to free the ship from the gigantic Leviathan's collection. While they and the Elessians work hard to get Leviathan's tendrils off their ships, Paris remotely pilots a probe with a paralyzing agent to the core, knocking out the A.I. They break their ships out, but catastrophic failure of Leviathan threatens to destroy hundreds of habitats and thousands of beings. B'Elanna is beamed to the core to restart the A.I., and beam back when it is online again. It soon heads out of the galaxy, humanity having left a bad taste in its mouth. Files recorded by B'Elanna point to a connection between Leviathan and V'ger. The Elessians invite Janeway to a celebration party...

CONTINUITY: See previous issue (Jem'Hadar, Vidiians). Lt. Carey (Caretaker etc.) appears. Leviathan appears to be related to V'ger (The Motion Picture) and has a similar mission.

DIVERGENCES: Lt. Carey looks nothing like the actor who plays him.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Tom Paris' best Kirk impression
REVIEW: Though there's a lot of technobabble in this issue ("metatronic synchronet" is a new one), the previous issue set things up well enough that it goes down easier. There are some exciting and unusual, if brief, sequences, like the crew getting rid of the crabgrass on Voyager's hull and Tom piloting the probe "like a torpedo", and Sutton keeps the series now connecting from one issue to the next (which creates nice continuity). I don't think the V'ger plug-in was necessary, and it seems unnecessarily ambiguous to me now, but overall, a good finish to the Leviathan storyline.

And as the Telepathy War intersects Voyager with the next issue, we will once again shift focus... this time to the Telepathy War itself, its chapters in the proper order.