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Space - the final frontier. These are non-canon
voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Their continuing
mission to expand the legacy of storytelling of some
of the greatest televised sci-fi on the planet.
I wandered into the bookstore last week
and found a four for the price of three sale on all
trade paperbacks, manga and science fiction books. I
was buying two trades already and I had been
interested in Star Trek: The Manga. I've read some
great Star Trek comics in the past. (The Trial of
Captain Kirk, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Abnett and
Lanning's run on DS9 and truly impressive "Modalla
Imperative".) I've also read some that I bought
because they were total cheese, like the Star
Trek/X-men crossovers. I held out real hope that it
might be good. How'd it do?
If you ever wondered what "Star Trek: The Animated
Series" would have been like if Chekov had been there
instead of M'ress and Arex, then this might be the book
for you. On the other hand, if you're looking for
real Star Trek stories I recommend Amazon or Ebay
hunting for any of the above mentioned comics.
Another strike against it is the art. I'm used to
mildly off model art in licensed books. (Sometimes
they can't get clearance to use the actual actor for a
model.) However there are two things necessary for
good Star Trek comics. 1) You must be able to tell
characters apart. It is sometimes hard to tell Kirk
and Chekov apart. Even worse Bones and Spock look
identical (aside from very hidden ears) in some
scenes. Hell, there are scenes where Scotty looks
more like yours truly than he does like James Doohan.
2) The characters race and/or species should be
apparent. It's bad enough most of the characters
look Japanese. But does Sulu have to look American?
Some artists go that extra and actually make Uhura
look black. Most of the time, she comes off looking
Hispanic or darker skinned Asian.
Now onto the stories themselves:
Side Effects by Chris Dows and Makato Nakatsuka.
Aside from the atrocious art (mentioned above,) this
story has two other strikes against it. One is
blatant predictability. The other is that it
shoehorns in two aliens introduced in Star Trek: The
Next Generation and attempts to make Kirk and Spock
indirectly responsible for the existence of one of
them. The plot involves the Enterprise investigating
a distress call from beings on a spaceship that are
cryogenically frozen. (Kirk seems to find a lot of
those. "Space Seed" being one of at least other two
other cases.) The people in stasis have a virus.
The automated station has captured ships' beings in
hopes of using nanotech and the alien DNA to create a
new super immune system to grow for their pod people.
Amongst the bodies of captured past victims is a
Ferengi. The planet closest to the station orbits a
black hole so centuries on the station are mere
minutes on the station. Once the cure is found it can
be mass distributed to the people below. The
surviving pod person escapes and Kirk and company
chase her through the event horizon and towards the
planet. They talk to the chief scientist who tells
them their planet's backstory. They fail to stop the
pod person who escapes through time using the event
horizon and surprise, surprise, she's the prototype
Borg Queen.
This is the third origin of the Borg
story I have read. This is the only one that almost
completely contradicts the one told by the Borg Queen
herself in First Contact and on Voyager. Seven of
Nine repeats the story. In "Q-Who" Q even says the
Federation has never encountered the Borg before.
He's omniscient. He'd know. Oh sure, Q has been
known to lie but only when it is fun to do so. Most
bad licensed Trek stories just have a few minor plot
holes. This whole story is one big plot hole. Aside
from that, the dialogue was a little off. The Bones
and Spock banter was there but was a little too
polite. The uniform and ship designs screamed
original series. They were like bickering children
then. They didn't develop a more polite rapport until
around Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. This one
makes "Spock's Brain" look like Emmy Winning Material.
Grade: F
Anything But Alone by Joshua Ortega and Gregory
Giovanni Johnson was a big improvement story wise. This
time the Enterprise runs into a colony of a species
thought to be extinct. They turn out to be robots
created by the one remaining survivor of the planet.
The problem with this story is that not only
has a similar story been done in Star Trek within
last ten years (Deep Space Nine's "Shadowplay") but
Kirk himself encountered an almost identical situation in
"Requiem for Methuselah." Still, it didn't
retroactively try to make anything uniquely late
era Trek its own or weaken a truly threatening
villain. It was just sort of a flat story with
really bad art.
Grade: C-
'Til Death by Mike W. Barr and Jenny Mo Yang.
This story's art and script were the best of the lot.
The story should not be surprising since Mike W.
Barr's involvement is what drew me to the book in the
first place. His run on the Malibu Deep Space Nine
comic was superb. His Batman (and Outsiders) was
incredible. Alas, what makes a good Batman story and
what makes a good Star Trek story are two very different
things. Perhaps I raised the expectations too high
because of Barr's previous Trek association and other
good stories. I don't think so. The guy wrote the
"Fill-in the Blank of The Demon" set for Batman.
When you know a writer is capable of more you should
expect to get more.
Star Trek has done the gender-embattled-aliens-make-
The-crew-members-fight-each-other before. In this
case it is almost like the Manga is purposely doing
"Ultimate' Star Trek. It annoys me.
Grade: C+
Oban by Jim Alexander and Michael Shelfer. A cute
and lovable animal gets loose on the Enterprise.
Everyone on the ship loves it and then it causes
mischief. No, I'm not talking about a Tribble. I'm
talking a genetically engineered peace offering the
Enterprise is carrying between warring planets. Alas,
the life form is a genetically engineered Trojan
Horse. It transforms into a nasty dragon thing and
kills crew members. I found the idea of
psycho-killer Tribble amusing for about three pages
but it lost its charm much too quickly. Especially
since they used the same ending as "Trouble with
Tribbles."
Grade C-
Orphans by Rob Tokar and Ej Su. Kirk and company
are attacked by a society of mech piloting tweenage
maniacs. Kirk rescues one and tries to teach the kid
about responsibility. It seemed entirely out of
character for Kirk to go out of the way to mentor the
kid. Especially considering the way he treated David
Marcus, who gets a brief mention in the story. Sisko
would have done it with no problem. He fits into the
parental role naturally. Picard would have done it
under protest as he did with Wesley and the kid in
"Suddenly Human." The kid finally sees Kirk was
right when he finds out his commander
officer/girlfriend died in the attack that his men
started. It reads like Tokyo Pop just added art to
somebody's awful "Afterschool Special/Star Trek
crossover." What makes Kirk a good leader is he sends
the best person for the job to do it. He doesn't
parent well and would probably have given the job to
someone more suited to it like Scotty or Uhura. Or
maybe the whole point of the story was Kirk can be a
good parent, he just chooses not to and really is an
awful jerk. Which I would applaud if it were a little
more visible. If the author had played with the
hypocrisy of the responsibility element a bit, it could
have been just a tad better though not by much.
My biggest problem was, repeat after me, mechs don't
belong in Star Trek. (Mechs don't belong in Star
Trek, Professor Willey.)
Grade: F double -
Overall Grade: D-
Needless to say, Sargent Frog, my original choice for
the freebie, is now the one I paid for. I can't stand
the thought of actually paying money for this piece of
Targ'veq . . . If a volume two ever comes out, you'd have
to pay me ten bucks to read it.
How Much for Just the Planet
The other item up for review is a one that was very
dear to me when I was about thirteen years old. I was
in the Gifted/Learning Disabled class. I was with the
super gifted kids. My English class whizzed through
what the school told us to learn for that marking
period in about two weeks each report card session and
then we wrote our own curriculum the rest of the time.
We just had to read a book a month. I usually managed
to triple that. One of the oddities I picked up at
the library was "How Much For Just the Planet'"by John
M. Ford. The book is directly responsible for my discovering other great science fiction books. (Most
notably Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy," Robert Heinlein's "Between Planets/Citizen of
the Galaxy" series and Issac Asimov's "The Caves of
Steel.")
I learned that John Ford passed away on September 25th,
2006. I remember the afternoon I spent feigning an
asthma attack so that I could finish "How Much For
Just the Planet'. I remember some of those nights of
my freshman year of college spent playing Paranoia
(including some supplements written by Mister Ford).
In all my memories associated with his work, I was
laughing like hell. Which is about as a good a review
of a someone's work as I can possibly give.
I was trying to get an interview with Neil
Gaiman at a recent book signing. I was unable to get
an interview but I arrived early enough to get
something out of a book box of John Ford's various
works that had been set up at Mister Gaiman's request.
In that box was a faint memory of my adolescence.
I decided to find out if the book I so fondly
remembered when I was 13, half a lifetime ago, would
seem as funny today.
There are a lot of things young Star Trek fans would
find enjoyable in this book. Kirk drinking blue
orange juice, a computer that had gone nuts because of
a spilled milkshake, a slobby Vulcan and a send up on
science filmstrips. That's in first two chapters.
It doesn't even include golf playing Klingons. Oh
and that climax. In the words of Ted Kord:
"Bwhahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
I don't want to spoil the ending or much of the
plot. It would ruin too many of the jokes. That
would ruin it. Needless to say, there was stuff I
didn't get thirteen years ago that I found
uproariously funny now. Nice tips of the hat to
Hitchcock, Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan and even
the clichés of Star Trek. In true classic Star Trek
tradition, there are lots of Shakespeare plot lifts.
Only in this case the lifts aren't from the dramas,
but rather the comedies. It is obvious that John Ford
had knowledge (and respect) for his source material.
When an author doesn't respect what they're satirizing
it shows and comes off as just plain mean. "How Much
For Just the Planet" isn't Star Trek in the sense that
"Balance of Terror" or "Day of the Dove" was Star
Trek. (Though both episodes are mentioned.) Its
closest cousins in televised episodes are The Original
Series episodes "The Trouble with Tribbles" and the
Harry Mudd episodes. Also, it is the first time that
I even knew that Uhura had a first name. This is the
polar opposite of "Star Trek: The Manga."
Grade: A+
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