Sci-Friday

So IDW is doing Star Trek. Does anyone realize that this is the first time the same company has held the licenses to both Star Trek AND Doctor Who at the same time? I find this really exciting as these were the two most influential SF shows in my youth. (Never was a big Star Wars fan, sorry. I like it…just not in that way….)

Whenever reading Star Trek in the comics, it is inevitable that I will compare it to DC’s run during the 80’s and 90’s. To me that is the pinnacle of Trek lore (but we’ll explore that another time)

This is not a bad job. I skipped on some early IDW offerings because they were too predictable. In fact I was probably deliberately avoiding them because it's irritating when we get a new publisher every five minuets. I’m not into kilingon stories. I think the year four series is unnecessary (it’s been covered to extremes in the books). Aren’t there enough alien spotlight kind of stories? Assignment Earth is an okay idea but it wasn’t good enough for a spin off back then and it still isn’t. New frontier is a good idea, I’m just not into that series.

Does that about cover it? On to the “Intelligence Gathering” story. I love that it focuses on the Romulins (on of the more underrated villains in the Trek universe. Why is everyone so obsessed by Klingons?) and the memory core Riker and Data travel into is beautiful (24^th century equivalent of a RAID array). It reminds me a bit of the showroom in the HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film. I also love the revelation (and a practical one at that) that not every vehicle in the federation has weapons attached. It also is a good stopping point. If you want to get off the ride here and now you can, and still feel like you read a complete story. I do like that, so much in fact, that I plan to pick up the next issue!

A note about the art on Commander Riker. I have no doubt that some folks will complain that he dosen’t really look like that. I think this is the best example of drawing a character that looks like the character rather than the actor playing them. Riker looks a lot better than Jonathan Frakes. This is one of the advantages of the medium. I’m pleased to see them taking advantage of it. I do wish the bridge was made to look a little bigger though. I would even go as far as to say it’d be nice to see the bridge and uniform scheme from Generations. Again, it’s the ability of the medium to make things better.

One last note, the way the title of the story was displayed in one frame at the top of the first page. Perfect. Perfect idea, now if you can just learn how to draw the ship, it would be flawless.

I’m off now to get a copy of Doctor Who.