855. Death Ship!PUBLICATION: Star Trek #34, DC Comics, January 1987
CREATORS: Len Wein (writer), Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran (artists)
STARDATE: 8906.3 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: Excelsior finds Spock's USS Surak racing out of control towards a sun and Kirk promptly beams over with a team to prevent its destruction. Aboard, everyone has died from a mysterious plague, except a delirious Andorian and a dying Spock. Replaying the captain's log, they discover the Andorian is a plague carrier and that Spock had set the course to prevent the virus from spreading. Kirk finishes the job, only saving Spock, while the Andorian gets away in a shuttle. Excelsior races through the Romulan Neutral Zone after it, only hours after a call from Admiral Cartwright warns all Starfleet ships of the Romulans being on the warpath. Before Excelsior can reach the shuttle, the Romulans attack...
CONTINUITY: Admiral Cartwright will make his first appearance in ST IV, so we're close to the movie here. Dr. M'Benga gets a rare mention.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Surak, we hardly knew ye.
REVIEW: Kinda excited to see how they rejoin canonical continuity after this pretty big parenthesis, but it seems like the whole USS Surak thread was one big waste of time. They've had two full adventures, both of which were among the weakest issues of the series, and developped at least a couple of characters, all of which die unceremoniously here. No chance they might have been used again after ST IV's events? A big waste. As for this "Doomsday Bug" arc, it's at least interesting, especially with the Romulan threat rising. I also like it any time Uhura gets the center seat, which she briefly but meaningfully does here. Undoubtedly, Spock's illness will lead to the katra integration trouble seen at the start of ST IV. Let's see how it develops...
Comments