Last year, I wrote a column about Star Trek storylines I wanted to see explored in future, and the first choice was, unsurprisingly, the Vulcan Time of Awakening. I described Surak, the father of Vulcan logic, as his people’s messiah, and it’s true, he saved them from themselves, but Star Trek is a humanistic series, and no one is perfect, which is something that IDW Publishing’s “Star Trek: Year Five” #20 brilliantly unravels. Minor spoilers after the jump.
Written by Brandon M. EastonCover by Stephen Thompson
Art by Silvia Califano
Colored by D.C. Alonso
Lettered by Neil UyetakeAs the crew of the Enterprise moves toward an uncertain future, one of their own will be pulled into a violent past! While investigating a mysterious structure on Vulcan, Spock vanishes. As the crew tries to find him, Spock must fight to survive as he navigates the painful past of his home planet. The final voyages of the original crew continue in this time-hopping adventure from writer Brandon Easton (Transformers: War for Cybertron, Thundercats) and artist Silvia Califano (Star Trek: Year Five, X-Files: Case Files).
Even if you haven’t been reading “Year Five,” writer Brandon M. Easton provides a great jumping on point by starting with Spock’s first officer log — you realize quickly that this is a lost classic series episode, another standalone mystery for the stalwart Enterprise crew many of us know and love. After Spock helpfully explains who the new Tholian character (“Bright Eyes”) on the bridge is, the crew beam down to check out the new anomaly on Vulcan, which whisks away the science officer to a less familiar, and significantly more savage era, where blades spill the green blood of the Vulcan people onto the planet’s dunes.
Spock is captured by Surak’s followers, and learns of their prisoner-of-war camps, where captured Vulcans were “reeducated” to overcome their violent nature, something that included separating children from their parents. It’s a jawdropping possibility to consider, that history might’ve softened Surak’s edges, and that he was nowhere as benevolent as the TV series have made him out to be — he was no hero, but simply another politician who believed the ends justified the means. You can’t help but think about the family separations at the US-Mexico border, or the reeducation camps in Xinjiang, and that’s great, Star Trek has and always should be topical.
Our stoic hero muses that encountering his emotional ancestors would be akin to a Starfleet officer meeting their 19th century counterpart, but the situation led me to ponder what would it actually be like to meet a major historical figure, especially one who’s been deified. Given Surak’s role in Vulcan society, there’s a clear parallel with learning that the Founding Fathers of the United States, as noble and brave as they were, owned slaves and participated in the genocide of the Native Americans: it was a topic that was more taboo in the ’60s, when the show was created, and only now is it something the original crew can explore.
Speaking of whom, Califano expertly captures the cast’s appearance: there are a few panels where Spock or Kirk’s eyes look larger than Leonard Nimoy or William Shatner’s did, or when a lack of wrinkles makes them look closer to Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, but overall, you’ll feel like you’re watching a restored episode. She does a great job of imagining ancient Vulcan hairstyles (yes, the bowl cut wasn’t the only look back then) and robes, which live up to the elaborate costumes established in the shows and movies, as well as the vehicles and architecture — she does a great job rendering the Enterprise and other starships, but also designs some cool, Mad Max-esque chariots/buggies.
Alonso’s colors are sumptuous, full of rich, realistic shading and reflections, and they do a great job of distinguishing the clean, sterile environment of the Enterprise with the earthy, dusty Vulcan of the past. It might sound strange, but the best part is Surak’s robes: they have a scattered pattern that’s not distinctive and simple to recreate, as if it were made from red marble, which makes it an incredible accomplishment that would be easy to overlook. The saturated colors really help make this feel like an original series episode, with Uyetake’s blue narration boxes adding to the warm and invitingly familiar feel too.
I have to admit, when I heard “Year Five” was doing a time travel story about the Time of Awakening, I was disappointed, because I wanted IDW to greenlight more expansive explorations of Star Trek mythology. Time travel is a pretty overplayed element across the franchise, and the premise does admittedly resemble The Animated Series episode “Yesteryear” (where Spock became a participant in his own childhood), but I’m glad this visit to the era happened this way, because it took this backstory and made it into a thought-provoking piece of social commentary, like any of the best Star Trek tales.
Final Verdict: 8.9 – whether or not the next issue lives up to this, this was a great idea, and the subversive take on Surak should be acknowledged and canonized in the TV shows.
