Star Trek: Red Shirts #3 is written by Christopher Cantwell and published by IDW Publishing. Artwork is by Megan Levens, colours by Charlie Kirchoff and letters by Jodie Troutman. Main cover art (left) is by Chris Shehan.
Star Trek: Red Shirts #3 is available from today, in comic book stores and on digital platforms where all good comic books are sold. Grab your physical copy from Forbidden Planet or digitally from Amazon Comixology UK.
Synopsis
It’s a race to the top as the anti-Federation spies and the Red Shirts summit the towering antenna on Arkonia 89. The spies seek to escape a transporter disrupter and make it back to their ship with their stolen data, and Raad, Grash, Vesta, and Miller will try to stop them by any means necessary. The climb is made all the more difficult by fire raining from above via a cloaked Warbird captained by a young Romulan and a mysterious Tal Shiar officer. Meanwhile, on the ground, Lanier, Amiga, and DeMatrio realize a hidden secret about the deceased Cromarty’s base. It just might be their ticket out of this mess alive, but as more lives are senselessly lost, the Red Shirts start to wonder if Starfleet would even care if they made it back at all.
Review
Things are about to get even more complicated for the away team in this week’s Star Trek: Red Shirts. As Christopher Cantwell’s riveting series hits the mid-way point there are yet more twists to be uncovered. But with the enemy still yet to be revealed to our Starfleet heroes. Can the series maintain its momentum amongst all the mystery?
Our team of “heroes” is in quite the predicament coming in to issue #3. Five of the Red Shirts have been killed off. Now only seven remain. Seven officers with little experience in the field. The yet-to-be-revealed Romulan spies have stolen classified Starfleet data and are making their escape. As ensigns Miller, Raad and Vesta try to cut them off they’re flanked by a lethal sniper. Meanwhile the rest of the Red Shirts are discovering that not everything back at basecamp is quite what it appears.
This is easily the most action-packed issue of the series so far. Cantwell is balancing a bunch of different set piece moments which builds towards an unexpected conclusion. The pacing is delicious from start to finish, playing neatly in to modern-Trek’s sense of action-adventure. As an observer to the story it’s also intriguing how much we’ve learned that our characters are yet to discover. Cantwell is opening up the story to us as readers a lot more rapidly than to the characters. It’s adds a flavour of mystery which would have us shouting at the screen if this were a TV series. “It’s the Romulans!” we’d be shouting… or is it!?
The point is quickly made that we’re soon able to care for these characters. Between their bios at the beginning of each issue and seeing their interactions we’ve made a connection. Traditionally these offers would barely exist beyond rank and name. But under Cantwell’s watchful eye they’ve become characters worth rooting for. In that regard it’s mission accomplished for Star Trek: Red Shirts meaning there’s plenty of room for more action in the final two issues.
Circling back to the Romulan threat, Cantwell pulls a great switcheroo to end issue #3. Given our place in the timeline Starfleet knows little about major threats which exist out in space. So to see a second species with whom Starfleet has already been at war brilliantly complicates matters further. If the purpose of Red Shirts is to move so far beyond the trope that we see this cast up against a Kirk or Picard-level threat then we’re taking strides in the right direction. Of course there’s still enough peril that there’s every chance the series comes to a close with none of these characters having survived. The ultimate bleak ending which would play directly into the red shirt trope…
Megan Levens has a lot to contend with this issue. Those set piece moments bring a huge scale to the book for issue #3. We’ve seen these characters in plenty of smaller scale survival moments. But now we’re getting to see them on a more grandiose level that their senior officer colleagues are more likely to contend with. Levens handles all of it in her stride, of course. All of the adrenaline which is wrapped up in Cantwell’s expeditious storytelling radiates from the page. The sequence of the officers climbing the tower is particularly alluring to behold.
Verdict
Christopher Cantwell’s Star Trek: Red Shirts #3 delivers the series’ most action-packed instalment yet, masterfully balancing multiple set pieces while deepening our investment in characters who would traditionally be expendable cannon fodder.
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