Originally posted on Irish Comic News (15/Oct/2018)
Written by John Barber and Mike Johnson. Art by Philip Murphy. Colours by Priscilla Tramontano. Letters by Christa Miesner.
The Enterprise arrives at Cygnus Seven after the miners on the planet sent out a call for help in dealing with increasingly hostile activities by the Klingons. It is quickly established that it is not possible to communicate with the miners on the surface. Kirk assembles an away team and beams down to the surface to investigate. The away team materialize on the surface, where the Decepticons are in the middle of an attack on the mining colony. As with these types of crossovers, alliances are quickly formed once the initial battlefield confusion passes.
The art (by Murphy and Tramontano) does really well in capturing the style of the two cartoons that this crossover is using as its source material. The comic has some good use of angles at various points in the story. A particular favourite of mine is the splash page where Optimus Prime and Kirk have their first face-to-face. The page really gives the sense of Prime towering over Kirk (and the reader to an extent). The line art combined with the colour art would easily convince the reader that they are looking at stills for the respective cartoons at times.
The comic quickly establishes the conflict, as well as the sides that will do battle over the course of the story. The story itself doesn’t require any real knowledge of the source material. Characters are identified as the story progresses. So while the comic should appeal to fans of either franchise, there’s no barrier to readers diving in. That said I did like some of the dialogue that is almost certainly dropped into the story for the fans enjoyment.
An enjoyable story for fans of Star Trek and/or Transformers cartoons to check out.
Art by Philip Murphy. Colours by Priscilla Tramontano. Letters by Christa Miesner.
