1370. The Ends of EternityPUBLICATION: Star Trek: Crew #5, IDW Comics, July 2009
CREATORS: John Byrne (writer), John Byrne (artist)
STARDATE: Unknown (it's been 3 years since the last issue)
PLOT: While Number One was a Lieutenant and refusing promotions, the Enterprise discovers many star systems have disappeared. The ship is sucked into an anomaly that sends them billions of years into the future, where the crew witnesses the missing star systems go nova. As Pike, Number One and young Spock visit the white wasteland at the end of the universe, the crew starts experiencing life-threatening mutations (a third of the crew dies). The landing party encounters the One Hundred, last survivors of the universe, who try to fight entropy by bringing in star systems, but these quickly die because the end cannot be stopped. Number One helps the One Hundred realize they can't fight nature and perhaps will be part of the universe's next cycle. They return the landing party to the Enterprise, and the ship back to where it belongs, curing everyone except the dead.
CONTINUITY: See previous issue (Enterprise, Number One, Robert April, Sarah Poole-April, Christopher Pike). Ensign Spock serves aboard April's Enterprise. At this point, ships' engines use lithium crystals, not dilithium.
DIVERGENCES: All other sources have Spock be recruited by Pike, not April.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Botox problems
REVIEW: Bit of a talky, with an anti-climax of a resolution in that we can't know what happens to the One Hundred. These guys looks cute, and the characters are as usual well written, but it's all a bit metaphysical and I'm not sure Spock really needs to be in the issue. It seems to contradict other extra-canonical material for one thing, but in the story, he needn't have been the famous Vulcan. The story of Crew seems to end a bit abruptly, and that's a problem too. Once again, we have a John Byrne series that could have a sequel, and I wouldn't mind seeing it. Number One and a younger Pike make a interesting pair, and I'd like to see how their relationship further developed before they both got promoted to their positions in The Cage. Any chance?
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