Review by Frank Plowright

Nurse Christine Chapel is finding the current selection of planetary explorations boring, so is pleased at the chance to join a friend excavating beneath the vast ice crust of an uninhabited planet. However, when the Enterprise arrives in orbit there’s no response to signals. This could be due to interference from the ice crust, or it could be something more serious.

Robbie Thompson defines the cast well, each given insecurities relevant to what follows. Is Una actually boring, for instance? The perceived characteristics all feed into the mission, which becomes something far more dangerous than expected. Thompson rolls out the clues well enough, but alert readers are probably going to be a step ahead of the Enterprise crew in picking up on meanings as one threat beneath the ice activates another in orbit.

The art is shared between Travis Mercer (sample art left) and Serg Acuña (sample spread right), with Acuña the better artist for figures not so often transmitting as static. Both, though deliver solid action and good cast likenesses and both put the effort in to make the threats credible. This takes a lot of drawing.

The general direction might be relatively predictable, but the underpinnings are solid, with Thompson conceiving backgrounds for two alien species and their particular motivations. The more Seeds of Salvation continues, the better the adventure becomes, and by the end Thompson has neatly tied together assorted plot threads in a manner befitting the Federation. Ideally, what you want from any graphic novel connected to a TV show is to read it and feel it would make a good series episode, one you’d like to watch. Thompson, Mercer and Acuña bring that home.