While some comic book fans were introduced to motion comics back in 2009 when the legendary Watchmen series was released, I consider the Marvel Super Heroes cartoons that I watched after school in the mid-70's to be the first true motion comics, even if they weren't called that. Those "limited animation" short stories retold many key classic Silver Age stories from Marvel's mightiest heroes and were a godsend to young comic readers like me who lived in a world where collector shops and trade paperbacks didn't exist yet.
It's in that spirit that I decided to release Holocaust as The Romulan War's first motion comic. Some of you may remember that this story, which has art by Yudhi Suryo and colors by Ulul Azmi, was released as a digital comic nearly two years ago. Now the story has been re-imagined using motion, sound effects, and music thanks to the amazing talents of our friends at Creative MQ and a great performance by voice actor Kyle Geary.
The story for Holocaust is simple... or so it seems. MACO grunts, including Sgt. Anderson Le (who we first saw in Star Trek Beyond as the mutated character Manas) drop into Romulan-occupied territory to liberate Altair VI. But what the MACOs find on Altair is more shocking than anything they'd imagined. This story fills in a plot point about the Romulans' ongoing search for alien artifacts - something Starfleet would have figured out two years earlier had they investigated the "mining operation" on Unroth instead of nuking it from orbit. We also get a first-hand look at how the Romulans' supremacist worldview allows them to treat humans as little more than animals (for purposes which have yet to be revealed). What MACO Sergeant Le sees on Altair will forever shape his opinions on aliens - opinions he will carry with him as he helps his former C.O. Balthazar Edison (aka "Krall") wage war against the Federation's ideology in Beyond.
I hope you enjoy Holocaust and I hope to do more digital and motion comics that take place in the world of The Romulan War: A Star Trek Fan Production in the near future!