1064. Hidden Agendas!PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation #54, DC Comics, November 1993
CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Pablo Marcos (artist)
STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)
PLOT: Picard uses his wine knowledge (since his brother got him the program) to solve the Dixon Hill mystery and Nazi sympathizer melodrama ensues. The scenario is resolved just in time for Q to return Worf and Troi to their proper sizes, but they're still flying towards a ring a fire behind the humanoid cannonball. Worf saves their lives by grabbing the trapeze. Troi sensed something off while she was backstage in the cannonball's clothes and returns there to reveal an illegal smuggling operation. Though the away team gets waylaid by circus performers, Picard beams down with a security team after overhearing the action over Riker's combadge and they are arrested. Elsewhere, Data has repaired his shuttle's engines, but an alien ship is on a collision course with it...
CONTINUITY: See previous issues.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Wouldn't you know it, Geordi has to fight the clown.
REVIEW: I've been less than impressed with this particular story arc, but the third issue appears to be the best of the bunch. The mystery's resolution is clever and doesn't require me to go back and check what the suspects had to say, and there's at least a little action. Of course, it may be one of Q's lamest ploys ever, and though the melodrama is appropriate for the Dixon Hill setting, it's still melodrama. I'm ok with what the circus stuff does with Worf and proud Alexander, but the smuggling operation kinda comes out of nowhere. Well, it WAS foreshadowed, but it's resolved so easily as to be an afterthought. Maybe Data'll have better luck next issue.
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