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Review: Star Trek Nero #2 by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Mike Johnson, Tim Jones and David Messina

This is the making of Nero, the antagonist from the recent Star Trek movie. Much was made at the time over how two dimensional the character felt, and IDW's Star Trek: Countdown was published, fleshing him out a little, in his time before the jump back in time.

The same creative team are working on this new project, Star Trek Nero, telling Nero's stories after the jump, before his confrontation with Kirk and the crew when he was basically just hanging around waiting for Spock to turn up.

Which gives the comic enormous scope to expand what was a basic character, looking at his growth into revenge seeking genocidal maniac. And it turns out it was mostly the Klingon's fault. Captured, improsned, put in a labour camp and tortured. Did I miss the memo saying this was Torture Week in comics, I know Americans had to wait another day for their comics, but still…

Nero's own search for Spock has strong parallels with Moby Dick,  Spock' face obsessing Nero, his ship seemingly more alive than he is, a particularly strong scene sees Nero envisaging Spock's face in the mines that he works away in. The art has a kind of Tony Harris/Bryan Hitch feel, with strong colour work, giving the reader a real blockbuster comic feel.

However, despite a first person narrative,  Nero's character does not exactly progress, we learn little more of his motivations in the movie. Events don't so much impact on him as Nero seems to just plough through them all, the same man, honed but unsullied by events. The biggest change seems to be from his now-more-impressive biceps. He;s reactive rather that proactive, which is odd given his situation. And, at the end, when control is taken out of his hands, as if he ever truly had it, he sits back to enjoy the ride. Which is basically what he's been doing in prison camp, just waiting to find out what happens next.

So he's basically just as two dimensional as before. But there's a lot more paper to spread out on…

Star Trek Nero #2 is published by IDW today.

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