Star Trek 1306: History Lesson

1306. History Lesson

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Space Between #1, IDW Comics, January 2007

CREATORS: David Tischman (writer), Casey Maloney (artist)

STARDATE: 41590.8 (between Symbiosis and Skin of Evil)

PLOT: The Enterprise-D visits the isolationist planet Tigan, and the away team (Data, Riker and Tasha) soon realize something's wrong. The leader of the Tigan people and their flag has changed since they were aboard ship. This is because the whole society is plugged into the internet remotely, and the government makes routine updates that change their very history and memories. The latest update was illegal. The new leader doesn't recognize Starfleet's invitation and plots to "update" Data and keep the other two in jail. The planet also shoots graviton beam at the Enterprise, sending it flying towards the system's star. Picard has the ship make a slingshot maneuver around it so as to reappear in the near future, beyond the beam's power. He succeeds and blasts the planet's defenses. At the same time, Riker and Tasha escape, but everything is resolved when the former leader makes a new update, reestablishing the old status quo.

CONTINUITY: Worf says he doesn't want to go to the Gamma Quadrant, an inside joke about his later days on DS9. The slingshot effect was first used in Tomorrow Is Yesterday.

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANEL OF THE DAY - The spirit of Snapper Carr survives.
REVIEW: IDW tested the waters with The Space Between, six unrelated TNG stories that occupy the "space between" different episodes of the tv series. The art by Casey Maloney is funky and dynamic (the above panel is not its best example), and Tischman's writing, while glossing over some parts of the plot, uses his obvious understanding of the series and its characters to craft interesting scenes. In fact, the best bits have little to do with the Tigan plot. It's Tasha and Data sharing a private moment in the conference room. It's Tasha detecting that the guard would more likely fall under Riker's spell than hers (now that's a rare one for Next Gen). I've got a good vibe for this iteration of the franchise.

A note on the covers: From this point on, we're in multiple covers territory. These Star Trek comics have photo covers, painted covers, funky covers, traditional-looking covers, heavily designed covers... I've selected my favorite (more or less) for each issue and left it at that.