An Unexpected Masterpiece

A review of the "Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way" graphic novel

As a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure novels—at least until I really, really didn’t. For a lonely, cerebral kid like me the concept was irresistible. I would get to escape into a story, but I would also be able to control the events! Something similar drew me to video games, but I gradually discovered that, like the earliest Nintendo games, CYOA books tended to be punitively difficult and maddeningly frustrating. No sooner had I worked my way to something interesting, finally, when I would invariably make some arbitrary error. Somehow I was just supposed to know that you shouldn’t mention the South Pole when time-traveling to the Middle Ages, or that saying “hi” rather than “hello” would lead to me getting pushed out the airlock. When my mom finally decided to defy my wishes and buy me a regular, linear novel at the book fair instead of yet another CYOA, I was initially annoyed, but I quickly learned the pleasures of a story that is carefully crafted not to kill the hero in dozens if not hundreds of random ways.

And with that, my love affair with the Choose Your Own Adventure format ended—or so I thought. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in, by means of my love of Lower Decks. As readers of my forthcoming book will someday learn, I view this animated parody series as one of the true gems of streaming Trek. Now that it is coming to what I regard as an unjust premature end, I am looking to the new ongoing comic book series to fill the gap. (In fact, so urgent is my need for a periodic Lower Decks fix that I broke down and set up a “pull list” at my local comic book shop—finally admitting to myself that I am an adult comic book collector, not just someone who occasionally pops in on a whim.)

Yet my hopes were not really high. There was a Lower Decks miniseries a couple years ago, now available as a trade paperback compilation, which was definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, the writer Ryan North and artist Chris Fenoglio largely captured the feel of the characters and their world. But on the other hand, the pacing was glacial, stretching a single episode’s worth of plot over four issues, and the story itself was overly focused on the Moriarty-style sentient Dracula hologram our heroes accidentally created, to the detriment of our heroes themselves. Most disappointing of all, though, was the decision to cram “extra” jokes into the margins of the pages, which were invariably unfunny and try-hard in a way that clashed with the tone of the show. I had to train myself not to look at them because they annoyed me so much. (Though I have not been able to pick up my copy of the new ongoing series due to an unexpected snowstorm in Chicago, I hear tell that they are continuing that “feature”—alas.)

As a kind of lead-in for the ongoing series, North and Fenoglio put out a new graphic novel. Entitled Warp Your Own Way, it revives the Choose Your Own Adventure format, as the reader guides Beckett Mariner through her day, with momentous choices such as which morning beverage to drink or which of her friends to pester. I was unsure whether I would pick this one up, but Star Trek scholar and friend of the Substack Gerry Canavan messaged me to tell me that it was the greatest Star Trek tie-in narrative ever, in comic or novel format. The next day, I went and picked up a copy. I had to see for myself.

As in the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, seemingly minor decisions have major consequences—choosing coffee or raktochino, for instance, leads to the ship being menaced by completely different aliens, and there are dozens upon dozens of ways to die (including one that is impossible to get to). Ryan North is almost exactly my same age, and it’s clear that he immersed himself in the genre as a kid as well. But more than just imitating it (which he does perfectly), North deconstructs it from within, by building a CYOA mechanic into the plot itself. As we readers work our way further and further into the decision tree, we begin to see mysterious figures enter the scene after the characters all die, complaining that they failed yet again. We seem to be dealing with a time-loop situation, and eventually the reader plays the crucial role of transmitting information between loops, because we gain the ability to communicate directly with Mariner. As we help Mariner unravel the mystery, we get to experience the equivalent of maybe a dozen different Lower Decks episodes, all jam packed full of jokes and references (though none, mercifully, are inscribed in the margins). Unlike the old CYOA novels, it never became frustrating—and I even managed to get to every single path!

So is it the best Star Trek tie-in ever? I’m not sure I’m ready to rank it above the classic tie-in novels of Diane Duane and John M. Ford, but it certainly belongs in the very top tier. Part of what makes it great is that it’s just so much better than it has to be—more thought-out, more creatively structured, more dense with amusement and incident. It belongs at the center of the Venn diagram of “low” culture—a comic book based on a cartoon, a tie-in work based on a spin-off several times removed, and even a freaking Choose Your Own Adventure novel—and yet, in a dialectical inversion at once unexpected and absolutely necessary, it somehow manages to rise to the level of art. There are few better ways to spend an afternoon, and few better gifts for a Star Trek fan this holiday season.