1339. Turnaround, Part VPUBLICATION: Star Trek: New Frontier #5, IDW Comics, August 2008
CREATORS: Peter David (writer), Stephen Thompson (artist)
STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)
PLOT: While both Calhouns' ships suffer from malfunctions, the alt-McHenry takes the two Calhouns into another plane of existence to talk things over. The alts come from the Mirror Universe, and alt-Calhoun was inspired to lead a resistance movement against the Alliance by visions of our universe given him by alt-McHenry. He and alt-Jellico came up with a plan to steal the Paradox and use it to go back in time to destroy the Alliance before it could flourish. As the rift opens, alt-Jellico attempts to go through it, but is attacked by the Trident and Bravo Station. Turning the Paradox into multiple temporal echoes, he has his armada attack both. Alt-Calhoun, seeing our Shelby in danger, allows Calhoun to dissuade him from carrying out his dangerous plan. They are both returned to their bodies, and all ships turn their guns on the Paradox, destroying it. Alt-McHenry saves alt-Jellico from the explosion, while the Specter does the same for Soleta and our Jellico. The alts go to through the rift and their McHenry reveals that he engineered the whole situation to make them see the folly of their plan.
CONTINUITY: See previous issues (Jellico, New Frontier). The Mirror Universe's Alliance first appeared in Crossover. Calhoun knows the dangers of fiddling with history, a reference to the New Frontier graphic novel published by Wildstorm, Double Time.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - If Picard can say "merde"...
REVIEW: First, Robin Lefler isn't in this one, so yeah, that little subplot could have be excised completely. That's my main beef with this mini. It's not isolated enough from the novels. But the finale's pretty exciting, with dozens of Paradoxes bearing down on Bravo Station and the astral forms of the Calhouns witnessing it from the station's hull. The alternates were indeed from the Mirror Universe, as expected, but their story works. Too bad it couldn't be a full on MU story, where we would have discovered everyone's alternate fate. At the same time, it's a nice change of pace and something tells me that would have been too many characters for the mini to hold (it practically was as is). Thompson saved his bets art for last, I think, bringing a stronger line to his face work. His ship stuff was always his strongest suit, and there's plenty of that here. Epilogue's a bit cheesy with its love theme, but overall, I think there's enough whiz-bang to keep readers satisfied if they stuck with it.
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