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.

Add to that some labored art and other difficulties, and Another Piece is an unfortunate step down from the great start of Star Trek: Defiant Vol. 1.

[Review contains spoilers]

After Day of Blood, the ragtag Defiant crew returns to Earth ready to fight to remain on the ship, if not to argue against court-martial. Instead, they become something like the Suicide Squad, or a disavowed Impossible Mission Force, officially bounty hunters but unofficially handling Starfleet’s dirty work. There’s no amount of strangeness in this first issue — that Worf is suddenly dying but then suddenly recovers, that Spock seems to travel from Earth to Deep Space Nine in seconds flat — but there’s a nice overarching theme to the story as to the value of names and what you’re known for versus who you are, and so on.

But after that, we get into the three “hunt” issues. There’s a certain amount of crossover happening here — Next Generation’s Hugh paired with the original series' NOMAD probe, Next Generation’s Berlinghoff Rasmussen paired with the original series' Talosians — that I acknowledge must be appealing to some, though it’s out of my personal Trek purview and felt somewhat campy. I like Hugh joining Worf’s team, though between Hugh’s presence and the super-top-secret thing happening in the Romulan Star Empire, the sense of Defiant as a Star Trek: Picard prequel is becoming heavy-handed.

Interesting overall in Defiant is that it’s the first Star Trek series to be able to use “old Spock” in light of his newest continuity, mainly the deeper relationship we’ve seen between he and Captain Pike on Strange New Worlds. That informs a few scenes in the book, not in the least when a vision of Pike appears to Spock as full on Anson Mount and his trademark hair. But all the poorer that this happens in the Talosian chapter, so any semblance of suspicion that this might be real is shattered. Worf is lectured here by illusions of Sisko and Riker, curiously, instead of Picard (when another theme of the story is Worf living up to Picard’s example); the illusions are so laughable that the crew sees through them immediately, again contributing to camp instead of any real suspense.

Guest art in that particular issue by Pow Rodrix looks rushed; there’s a panel looking down on Worf, Ro Laren, and the Orion Nymira where the heads are warped and Ro looks much younger than she should. At one point, Worf’s meant-to-be-disapproving crew are a bunch of bland, expressionless faces. But even artist Mike Feehan, who draws most of the book well, has begun to have trouble differentiating B’Elanna Torres from Ro, the two often having the same face with different alien ridges. (This occurs more toward the end than the beginning, and it’s hard to say if the difference is that Feehan is initially inking himself, but is later inked by Maria Keane.)

Worf seeks approval here, that side of Worf we often forget about that is not fierce warrior but Klingon orphan who often felt like an outsider, and so he goes along with Starfleet’s black ops duties. The rest of the crew is less sanguine, and though Worf wins points by flouting some of their orders, ultimately the crew decides they want to disband. They won’t, we know, but I’m curious if that comes in the form of their continuing to work for Starfleet in secret or if they succeed in their quest for recognition or if they set out independently.

Those latter possibilities are what give me a bit of whiplash. We’re only at the end of Defiant’s second volume and we’re possibility abandoning its second status quo; 10 issues in, one might expect even a book about renegades to find some footing. Again, I expect Cantwell isn’t floundering, just taking his time to get to the point.

Star Trek: Defiant Vol. 2: Another Piece of the Action closes with the title’s first annual, a spotlight on Sela. Really, this “Sela hates everyone but she’s going to find she wants to follow in her mother’s footsteps” arc is predictable, even reductive, but still I found the story surprisingly moving. We’ve been told forever that Sela alerted the Romulans to Tasha Yar’s escape, causing her death; it’s obvious in retrospect that’s a ruse, that Sela was young and scared and delayed the escape in her panic, and good on Christopher Cantwell for clocking it.

Maybe the Defiant gets waylaid on the way back to Earth; maybe Sela is what sends them toward their “true” mission. I wouldn’t have thought that was the solution, but the annual — too-easy time travel and all — is indeed the book’s best part.

[Includes original and variant covers]