I’m sure writer Christopher Cantwell has a plan with Star Trek: Defiant, some overarching place for this crew to end up and a way to get there. But Star Trek: Defiant Vol. 2: Another Piece of the Action is frustrating. The crew begins in an uncertain place following the Star Trek: Day of Blood crossover, then they gain some new marching orders; four issues later, however, they’re balking at those orders and it seems the premise of this book might change again. I don’t think the book is actually aimless, but the story of these Starfleet officers being aimless might be a bit too convincing.

There’s also that, at four main issues plus an annual, Another Piece seems obviously an interstitial trade; there’s a time and place, but coming out of the crossover doesn’t quite feel like the moment. Also those four issues are formulaic, with three objectives set in the first issue and then each of the rest devoted to one of them. Granted that makes for semi-self-contained stories of the kind perhaps akin to Star Trek episodes, but it also makes the issues predictable — this will be about this and that will be about that, etc.