990. DeadlockPUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #77, DC Comics, November 1995
CREATORS: Kevin J. Ryan (writer), Rachel Forbes-Seese and Mark Heike (artists)
STARDATE: 6121.8 (third season)
PLOT: Investigating attacks made to both Federation and Romulan facilities along their border, the Enterprise and a Romulan ship fight. Both suffer massive damage and race against the clock to effect repairs. They detect an unknown ship on long-range sensors attacking a Romulan freighter, so decide to collaborate on repairs to meet this common threat head on. In the ensuing battle, the Romulan ship collides with the powerful mystery ship and both are destroyed, leaving Kirk to tell Starfleet about this new threat.
CONTINUITY: The Romulans are using Klingon ships (The Enterprise Incident).
DIVERGENCES: With no time to spare, everyone on the bridge gets into green jumpsuits to conduct repairs. Deadlock is also the title of a Voyager episode.
PANEL OF THE DAY - And Scotty's assignment is to go get changed.
REVIEW: Not unlike the "mutual destruction" battle of ST III, the situation here could create suspense, and a new threat to both Starfleet and the Romulans is a good enough hook. However, it's the substandard art that destroys any chance the issue has of accomplishing any of its goals effectively. When I call it substandard, I mean that it is distractingly so. The uniform changes are gratuitous, match no situation we saw on the show, and makes everyone look the same. And the new ship looks like a canned ham. Though a lot of the blame goes to the penciller (still Rachel Ketchum despite the name change), inker Mark Heike has been a drain on the series for a number of issues now.
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