Tischman on Year Four

Comic Book Resources have published an interview with David Tischman on his second Star Trek miniseries for IDW, Star Trek: Year Four.

Tischman describes writing Year Four as his personnel Kobayashi Maru, and to be very different from his TNG series The Space Between. Continuing the Star Trek II analogy he explains how he loves the film and Kahn, but (as one would assume given Kahn was busy being marooned at the time) Kahn will not be appearing in Year Four, and neither will the Klingons and Romulans which he feels are a bit over used, noting IDW are already doing Klingons in the miniseries Klingons: Blood Will Tell and Romulans were used in Nemesis not long ago.

Personally I disagree about Romulans, I don't see any Romulans: Ears are Pointy miniseries announced yet and Nemesis is there first film after no less than four films featuring Klingons and involvement from the species in most of the rest. Not to worry though, they are getting an issue in IDW’s Alien Spotlight miniseries later this year. Anyway, back to interview highlights:

Getting onto the TV TOS Tischman explains "I actually have a huge fondness for the lesser-used characters, Nurse Chapel and Commander Kyle and Riley and I wish Yeoman Rand was still around for the fourth season, but she's not." Nice to see the more minor characters might get some attention whilst Kirk Spock and McCoy still get to have all the fun.

Further on Tischman explains how issue one and two are done, issue three is being done and issue four is an outline whilst the final two issues are still to be sorted. The interview, which can be seen in full here, also has the first five pages of art from issue one and covers for the first three issues, one of which is premier. The artwork is a bit flat, certainly less dynamic than what had previously been released as preview for the series (link), however it is somewhat reminiscent of the Gold Key comics which I suppose is a nice touch and it's also nice to see both Arex and M'Ress from The Animated Series getting some page time.

I've enjoyed The Space Between, but have felt the series’ major flaw is the writing which has consistently delivered plot holes in every issue. On the flip side Tischman really does master the voices of the characters and in the interview states he'd consciously put more effort into Year Four, so here's hoping he delivers. I'm looking forward to it.