Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5: Preaching to the Choir

Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5 wraps up the series’ main plot well enough. From the first page until roughly the issue’s halfway mark, the story proceeds at a break-neck pace as the crew attempts to escape fluidic space. The reader hardly has a chance to catch their breath, and a healthy dose of delivered-under-the-wire exposition doesn’t help matters. There is a lot to cover here. But that’s because, frankly, the issue is only barely concerned with the series’ plot.

The main focus of Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5 is communicating what Star Trek is about. Via a long speech where Janeway is spelling out the Federation’s beliefs, the Bridges’ communicate to the audience how they see Star Trek. It is a long speech, delivered in caption boxes over the course of the issue’s second half. The message largely boils down to a mutual respect and acceptance among all people which leads to cooperation in common cause, an idea that has been central to Star Trek in one way or another since its beginning (and especially since the 90s when a more utopian vision of the future was first established). This idea is reinforced in some of the character resolutions, most notably Chakotay and Seven. The speech is overwritten at times, and probably longer than it needs to be given that there is a preaching to the choir element to the whole thing (this series is likely being read by established Star Trek fans more than anyone else, after all). But its heart is in the right place.

Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5’s most satisfying narrative element is the ship’s long awaited homecoming. This, too, is fairly rushed with each major character getting about a page’s worth of material. And certainly there are some particularly treacly moments. But arguably one of the flaws of the television series’ ending was that these moments of the crew being reunited with friends and family weren’t shown. While a comic isn’t the same as television, it’s satisfying to see these interactions play out.

A significant reason for the homecoming sequences’ effectiveness is Hernández’s ability to deliver expressive characters with easy to read emotions. In most cases, the default emotions are happiness and outright joy. A few instances are more complicated. Seven, for instance, shies away from eye contact with other characters as she discusses a new situation; she comes across as pensive and uncertain. B’elanna at one point belies her angry dialogue with a more measured look, suggesting a reason for optimism for her future.

Hernández also captures a nice monster-horror story vibe in the first half of Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5. Species 8472 makes for a good monster to begin with. On top of that, Hernández draws a compelling setting overall. The environment is asymmetrical, and the detail on its walls somewhat resemble the line work on Species 8472 themselves.

Kirchoff’s coloring scheme for these first half sequences plays into the same monster-horror feel. The palette is primarily grays and sickly dark greens. And as is the case with Hernández’s art where Species 8472’s details were not unlike the details of their surroundings, the same is the case with the coloring. Kirchoff does maintain just enough color differentiation to keep individual Species 8472 from getting lost against the surroundings.

Star Trek Voyager Homecoming #5 at times feels like it’s overflowing with text, especially in the issue’s latter half. It’s often not possible to limit caption boxes and dialogue bubbles to the edges of panels. Uyetake does an impressive job keeping them all organized around the most important art in any panel and on any page.