869. GetawayPUBLICATION: Star Trek #46, DC Comics, January 1988
CREATORS: Michael Carlin (writer), Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran (artists)
STARDATE: 9212.8 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: The Enterprise takes shore leave on Christofi IX, a planet often savaged by alien raiders, but now protected by a starbase. Konom causes a riot by simply showing up, as the Klingons were among those raiders. In fact, he's been there before and is haunted by the atrocities he was forced to commit. Nancy Bryce doesn't care and they get engaged. A friendless Bearclaw starts to realize he's a jerk in time to let Cupid's arrow hit him on the behind. Ensign Sherwood is interested! Most of the bridge crew goes sand skiing, but the reluctant McCoy breaks his leg. And Kirk spends the whole vacation running from an internal affairs bureaucrat called Herbert assigned to the ship as a "watchdog". In the end, he ends R&R early and beams up the crew before Herbert can join them.
CONTINUITY: Kirk's superior office is Admiral Cartwright. Herbert used to go by the name Tongo Rad - he was one of the Space Hippies! (The Way to Eden) His real name is all the more ironic since "Herbert" is what the Hippies called "squares", a name based on that of a petty bureaucrat.
DIVERGENCES: Konom does a lot of power crying in this... for a Klingon without tear ducts.
PANEL OF THE DAY - It's terrible, but you can dance to it!
REVIEW: I personally love these "downtime" stories. It's a chance to see the regulars in a more relaxed, comic atmosphere (as in ST IV), and to advance the subplots of the original characters as well. Konom's story is actually pretty shocking, and though I find his romance with Bryce incredibly sappy, it's nonetheless something that's going somewhere. The insufferable Bearclaw has only the massive chip on his shoulder to talk to, and yet, he's still changed by it. A romance with the as-yet undeveloped Ensign Sherwood (she's basically been a blond Bryce since day one) can only mellow out his character. The art is particularly strong this issue, Sutton serving up some really interesting transitions between subplots. Characters might be in the background, then the camera pushes in and we follow them for a few pages, until the camera's eye catches something else. A lot of fun, though Sulu's jokes are the pits.
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