1326. The Old WaysPUBLICATION: Alien Spotlight: Andorians, IDW Comics, November 2007
CREATORS: Paul D. Storrie (writer), Leonard O'Grady (artist)
STARDATE: 47996.7 (after All Good Things...)
PLOT: Sharad is a Starfleet Intelligence analyst traveling to Andoria with the Enterprise-D. While Picard tries to appeal to the government to participate more than they have been in Federation affairs, Sharad visits friends and family. This includes a possible romantic entanglement with Thrynn, who is covertly a member of a traditionalist extremist group. She kidnaps him hoping to tun him, or at least wring information from him they can use against the Federation. To get out of interrogation, he challenges the traditionalist general to a duel (the Ushaan) and wins, cutting the dragon's head, so to speak. He further reveals that he'd divined that Thrynn was a member of the organization and let himself be captured to get at the group's leader. Now he faces the rest of the terrorists as a true Andorian, unafraid to die in battle.
CONTINUITY: The Andorian slang of the day calls "fades" those who have sold out to Starfleet or those with Aenar in their blood (The Aenar). Sharad invokes the Ushaan (Unified). Troi is the only TNG character to appear.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Andorian table manners
REVIEW: As far as the stories goes, this is a great Alien Spotlight. Storrie uses everything we know about the Andorians from Enterprise, and extrapolates TNG-era politics based on that depiction and the lack of Andorians in "later" stories. Andoria is falling back on its old traditions and ready to let the UFP go, and it sometimes feels like an allegory for the US and the UN, with Sharad firmly defending the latter side. In his case, of course, he knows very well the myriad threats Starfleet must face, as the Dominion threat looms. The issue creates a new hero and by the end, has you invested enough that the never to be resolved cliffhanger has some sting. Where the issue suffers is with the art. Leonard O'Grady is first and foremost a colorist, and that's definitely where his strengths lie in this comic. His line art is on par with amateur role-playing game art from the 80s. He's got a good sense of layout and composition, but anatomy and line work is vrey rough. Just letting someone else ink him would have enhanced his strengths, but there's just no getting around his weaknesses here. Based on the cover, he's better at painting.
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