1308. StrategyPUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Space Between #3, IDW Comics, March 2007
CREATORS: David Tischman (writer), Casey Maloney and Aaron Leach (artists)
STARDATE: 47630.1 (between Eye of the Beholder and Genesis)
PLOT: The Enterprise-D is attacked by a hybrid of Federation, Romulan and Borg ships. It attacks Troi's quarters first, sending her to sickbay and throwing former flame Riker and current lover Worf in emotional turmoil. The ship is heavily damaged, but Troi reveals that there is no one aboard the hybrid. Data comes up with a plan to disrupt the signal controlling the hybrid, and the alien ship self-destructs when it loses that signal. Riker gives Worf and Deanna his blessing after she has recovered from her injuries.
CONTINUITY: The love affair between Worf and Deanna wasn't shown until All Good Things... The reference to remote controlled Romulan ships may originate with Babel One.
DIVERGENCES: Geordi refers to the sub-light engines (he means the impulse engines).
PANEL OF THE DAY - Worf walks in on a pillow fight.
REVIEW: The core of the story is most definitely the relationship between Riker, Troi and Worf. Though seeds were planted for the Worf-Troi romance as far back as New Ground and more solidly in Parallels, it pretty much came out of the blue in All Good Things, conveniently the last episode of the series. And was never spoken of again! In Strategy, we see that the affair had been going on for a bit longer, and how Riker came to accept it, rather gallantly, I thought. The A-plot, however, isn't so good. The strange hybrid ship is never explained (nor will it, according to my research) so it plays as random jeopardy with a random technobabble solution. To make things worse, Maloney is not adept at illustrating the space battle so you're never really sure what's happening there either, and I'm afraid his stylized art isn't helped by Leach as inker. The opposite, in fact.
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