Star Trek: Holo-Ween II #4 is written by Alex Segura and published by IDW Publishing. Artwork is by Bailie Rosenlund, colours by JP Jordan and letters by Jeff Eckleberry. Main cover art (left) is by Rosenlund.
Star Trek: Holo-Ween II #4 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
The terrifying finale of the Halloween event! Time has run out. Lives hang in the balance. And the nightmare consuming Deep Space 9 is finally ready to show its face. Cut off, outmatched, and pushed to their limits, the crew must confront the true force behind the chaos before the station—and everyone on it—pays the ultimate price. Shattering revelations ignite desperate gambits, fragile alliances strain to breaking, and survival demands impossible choices. Enter a final confrontation where horror meets heroism, morality is put on trial, and the fate of countless lives turns on a single perilous moment.
Review
IDW’s brilliant Star Trek: Holo-Ween II comes to a dramatic conclusion this week. With part of the crew stuck in a holosuite, Captain Sisko staring down the barrel of two Maquis ships and Odo locked up in the brig, all is looking bleak on Deep Space 9. Alex Segura’s fun twist on Star Trek has just one issue to cover a lot of ground before Halloween night is upon us…
Events in the holosuite take precedence this issue with crews on the station and the U.S.S. Defiant playing supporting roles. There’s less of a coalescence of the three different tranches of the story and more an air of commonality as they reach their conclusions. It could leave this finale feeling overstuffed, but each of the stories complements the others so well that the whole issue flows really nicely towards a very satisfying endpoint. Segura clearly knew where time was needed and focusses the book perfectly to make sure all three stories are able to find organic and rewarding endings.
Coming into the finale I was a little concerned about how much Team Holosuite would be able to accomplish. The reveal that the Blade of Jerrado was the entity controlling events came so late in the game that it didn’t feel like there was a lot of room to flesh out that narrative and give context as to why this was happening and why now. But Seguar is able to navigate around all of that, focussing more on Dax and her need to uncover Warmoth’s killer and how that leads to revealing what’s really going on.
I’m not going to reveal all the gory details here. But pinning the final thrust of the narrative on Dax works really well in landing the Star Trek: Holo-Ween II ship. With her character voice well intact from the series and connecting to her history in the “Invasive Procedures” episode the story feels authentic to who she is and how she would react in this situation. Likewise Segura succeeds by pulling at plod threads from the wider Star Trek universe by including the Maquis. Round of applause to artist Bailie Rosenlund for doing nothing to embellish their ship design either, making them perfectly recognisable on the page. It makes it easy to root for Holo-Ween II’s success when it’s clear all involved wanted the story to remain inherently Trek.
Outside of the holosuite matters seem to be moving as quickly as they’re escalating. With Odo and Bashir locked up in the brig it takes a delightful intervention from Quark to get things moving. Whilst Sisko and Kira appear to be at the mercy of the Maquis attack vessels. Naturally, there’s less room for both of these stories in the final issue but what works well is that neither story is predictable. In particular the events out in space take a very unexpected turn in this finale. Again, I won’t be spoiling anything here, but much like a classic episode of Deep Space 9, Holo-Ween II ensures the reader keeps guessing until its closing moments.
Rosenlund and colourist JP Jordan are having a blast again this month. The holosuite scenes continue to offer the art team a chance to be a bit more inventive with a very well-established format and world. In these moments there’s a lot of fun to be had with costume design and scenery. Add to that events on the station and a potential space battle with multiple ships involved and you’ve got the makings of a blockbuster finale.
The series wraps up in traditional Trek fashion, allowing a moment for our characters to breathe a sigh of relief and even bring in a little humour before signing off. Even with all of that ground to cover Holo-Ween II is able to wrap things up well, tying a neat bow around this second attempt to marry the franchise with spooky season. The Blade of Jerrado still remains somewhat of a mystery but I absolutely can’t argue with Segura’s approach to tackling the story through beloved characters rather than through a mystical object which could easily have required an entire issue to explain.
Roll on next Halloween…
Verdict
Star Trek: Holo-Ween II #4 wraps up this year’s Halloween-themed story well, neatly stepping between its dangling plot threads to tie everything up. In the end it’s less spooky than last year’s story but Alex Segura does prove without that fail that done right, Star Trek can lend itself to great horror storytelling.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
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