OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Mariner overhears the Bridge Crew getting involved in a time travel related mission and recruits her friends to follow as the timeline rapidly changes around them.OUR TAKEWe continue the Lower Decks comics, which seem to still be set perpetually within the space between the third and fourth episodes of the fifth season, at least based on Boimler’s facial hair. Perhaps once we get enough distance from the show’s finale, the comic can start moving ahead into this season and maybe even beyond it. And if you’re kinda bored with me mentioning continuity, it has a point this time, because this is finally, FINALLY, a Lower Decks story that involves Time Travel. CHARACTERS from the show have already time traveled in the crossover with Strange New Worlds, but for some reason the show somehow never had a time travel story despite that being as much of a staple of Star Trek as phasers and warp drives. But yeah, finally checking off that box, even if it’s in dubious canon comics, and it pulls from what makes a Lower Decks story distinct from ones set in other Trek shows, namely being from the perspective of what are usually minor characters while the “main” ones (normally the Bridge Crew) deal with it. In this case, Star Fleet’s time travel division recruits Captain Freeman and her clique because the Cerritos is in a nice sweet spot between obscure and notable, as opposed to the Enterprises, Titans, and Protostars (which is fun for me because that’s a reference to Star Trek: Prodigy, whose events happen shortly after the end of Lower Decks. Also it’s just a good show and should get more love!).What comes from that is what you should expect by now from Lower Decks, specifically a deluge of Marianna Trench level deep cuts into the franchise that I won’t list here because otherwise we’d be here all day. But instead of it being just references tossed in to acknowledge that the writers are ultra dorks, it feels like it fits the nature of the situation, as Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and Rutherford feel their timeline shift and diverge with every slight change that is assumed to be happening due to Freeman’s mission pursuing the real culprits. Who that is will likely be revealed next issue, since the May solicitations are out and Issue 7 is already onto a different story arc. But as for this issue specifically, it’s a really fun approach to a type of story that I really wish we got to see in the show itself. But maybe this means there is hope for a crossover with Prodigy in a future comic.
Get the latest issue of Star Trek: Lower Decks comics here.