Comic Review: Star Trek – Lower Decks Issue 4

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

A creature emerges from the Vacuum Collapse and possesses the crew, leaving Tendi and Rutherford to save the ship!

OUR TAKE

We’re finishing up this two part story about the ship finding out there was some possible world ending cosmic phenomenon with the reveal that inside that phenomenon…is an entity named Koj, who likes calling everybody babes, but becomes worried that regular life might come to kill it if they feel threatened by the Vacuum Collapse, so they’re gonna kill everyone else first! As someone who has been watching all of the modern Trek shows, my mind pretty much immediately went to the plot of Discovery’s fourth season, wherein another odd species was also accidentally potentially killing things because they did not understand the effect they were having on others. Thankfully that was cleared up the moment they were able to discuss it with that show’s cast, but here, Koj almost immediately turns to possession and murder, so…that’s strike one. Fortunately this doesn’t become a problem as the collapse of the vacuum collapse ends up killing Koj. Which I guess is actually unfortunate.

But what really surprised me about this issue, for the better, is that it actually ends on a pretty solemn note, which is strange for Lower Decks stories in general, let alone ones relegated to the comics. Koj just sort of ends up dying as a result of the thing that kept them alive dissipating, not anything to do with Tendi or Rutherford (not that I would’ve necessarily wanted them to have to kill if we can avoid it, but you know what I mean). The issue takes a few pages out for our Beta Shifters to just mourn the being they got to see come into existence and just as quickly leave it, with Tendi vowing to learn how to replicate these circumstances so one day everyone can live. For what could have been a pretty average and disposable story, especially as a comic, the ending really elevates it by linking it back to the core of what Star Trek is about: seeking new life and new civilizations, and making sure everyone in our universe has a safe place in it.  if you miss the show, pick up this comic.