Review by Frank Plowright
In the ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode of the 1960s Star Trek TV show the Enterprise crew encountered doppelgangers from an alternate universe whose nature and purpose was malign in working for an acquisitive empire. Writers Scott and David Tipton revisited that cast in Mirror Images, but from a period before they met their better inclined counterparts, yet it also included an out of context leap into the future of the Next Generation. The Tipton brothers now return to that universe to investigate the Next Generation crew in the Mirror Universe.
Mirror Broken begins with the surprise of the Terran Empire having fallen on hard times, with many holding Spock’s reforms responsible. An alliance between the Cardassians and Klingons has made humanity retreat back to Earth’s solar system, but a prologue chapter reveals humanity has learned no lessons and Commander Picard of the Stargazer is a remorseless believer in the superiority of mankind. Fortunately for him, it turns out that rumours of a new galaxy class starship named Enterprise are based in fact and he hatches an ambitious plot.
J.M. Woodward appears to have constructed the art around shopped in facial images, which ensures exact likeness of the crew, but at the cost of the figures around them being posed. Balancing that is his creating a viable atmosphere with dark art accompanying dark deeds on a dark world.
Mirror Broken is the first part of a quartet, so the writers to a certain extent are locked into a predictable course as they have Picard assemble his crew to abduct the Enterprise. They try to throw readers off the scent via an early murder, but it takes too long to reach the place every reader familiar with Star Trek: The Next Generation knows is arriving. However, their dialogue is convincing, and coupled with Woodward’s likenesses you’ll hear the characters in your head. In the fourth chapter some suspense is finally introduced, and from then on it’s a significant improvement on the last time the Tiptons visited the Mirror Universe.
Not every member of the Next Generation cast was around for the entire series, but they’re almost all here, the prominent absence explained by the political situation. By the time Mirror Broken finishes you’ll find yourself actually rooting for the evil Enterprise crew, and that’s decent writing to take them into Through the Mirror. There’s also a hint of something not quite right.
As an alternative, the first three graphic novels of the Mirror Universe are combined as Mirror Universe Collection, featuring extra material such as a Data story missing here.
