Review: Star Trek – The Next Generation – Hive / Author: Brannon Braga, Terry Matalas, Travis Fickett / Artist: Joe Corroney / Publisher: IDW Publishing / Release Date: March 12th
The Borg are Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s big idea – at least that’s the impression you get when you look at the various Next Generation spin-offs. Hive revives these techno-zombies yet again, but this time manages to make a big idea seem small.
We begin in the current Next Generation continuity, with Jean-Luc Picard once more having a series of nightmares about his brief stint with the homogeneous cybernetic monsters. Sadly, it’s handled in a way that makes the famous captain look weak and distracted. The Borg are coming (again), and they seem to have discovered a threat greater than themselves (again). The story keeps skipping to a future when Picard has become Locutus of Borg yet again and the entire galaxy has been conquered by the Borg. The main idea is that Locutus has decided to change the past to prevent the inevitable stagnation of his adopted race. This is a nifty narrative device, but doesn’t really do anything for the narrative as a whole.
Another problem with Hive is that it features Seven of Nine and Jean-Luc Picard swapping survivor stories, and yet somehow manages to make this dull. It should be one of those iconic moments and instead it’s a… sorry, nodded off just thinking about it.
Thorough though it is when it comes to detailing the techno-zombie aesthetic of the Borg, Joe Corroney’s art isn’t terribly remarkable. But he’s certainly not to blame for Hive‘s shortcomings. Three writers on one comic book is rarely a good sign, and between them this trio have failed to give the reader a new Borg story, instead cranking out the same old arcs in a slightly different order. Go watch First Contact again if you want a great story featuring these monsters, the captain of the Enterprise and a spot of time travel.
