IDW Publishing
John Byrne, writer and photomontage assembler
This is another modern photonovel dreamed up and brought to reality by John Byrne using existing footage and stills from the original "Star Trek" series to create a brand new adventure of the Enterprise crew. Byrne has proven in a number of past comics under the IDW Trek banner that he gets these characters and their respective voices. So far, he has completed three of these photonovel projects and each one feels just like a lost episode of the popular sci-fi series.
This issue finds the Enterprise crew summoned to investigate a 1,000-year-old distress call apparently made by James T. Kirk himself. That story is engaging enough by itself, if a bit predictable in places, but this second regular issue of New Visions also includes a small backup story that gives an in-story reason for the departure of Yoeman Janice Rand from the series.
I wish these volumes didn't carry such a hefty price tag. The first, trial photonovel, "Strange New Worlds," solicited as a special Star Trek Annual, along with each of these first two New Visions issues have carried a suggested retail price of $7.99 for 48 square-bound pages and heavier cardstock covers. I image at least a portion of that price includes some royalties for the use of the stock images, and I also imagine the creation of these volumes is pretty labor intensive, selecting and cropping all of the various raw images into a cohesive narrative. I get all that. And I am enjoying the finished products quite a bit so far. But $8 for these books still seems a little steep for most people's budgets, so I don't know how long this series will be able to continue.
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