874. Marriage of InconveniencePUBLICATION: Star Trek #50, DC Comics, May 1988
CREATORS: Peter David (writer), Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran (artists)
STARDATE: 8994.6 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: When it's revealed that the stunted albino "Moron" is a Klingon/human half-breed, Nancy Bryce gets cold feet about her wedding to Konom. Meanwhile, Spock determines there are three possible targets for Captain Zair's USS Renegade (actually a commandeered USS Zephyr apparently commanded by Zair's alter ego, Phil Burroughs, who is being fed advanced technology by some called the Cognoscenti). The Klingons take one, the Enterprise another. The other, less logical, is ignored for now. Since records show that the Zephyr's last mission was to Omicron Ceti IV, Kirk sends a shuttle full of volunteers on what could be a suicide mission. A heart-broken Konom leads the party, and Bearclaw, hoping to get back into the captain's good graces, tricks his way in at the last second. On Omicron Ceti IV, they meet heavy opposition from an army of androids. Meanwhile, Moron babbles about the ignored third target, and Kirk follows his hunch. Enterprise surprises Renegade and a party manages to beam in and capture the raiders, all except Zair who has taken a shuttle to Omicron Ceti. Kirk follows and fights his volunteers including Bearclaw whom he relegates to the brig, and the corpse of Phil Burroughs, dead for some two weeks! Having come to their senses, Nancy and Konom finally tie the knot...
CONTINUITY: Emperor Kahless IV from the start of this series and the Federation president from ST IV appear. The Enterprise is - all together now - the only ship in the quadrant!
DIVERGENCES: Kirk's cooperation with Klingons after his son's death goes against his feelings in ST VI. Omicron Ceti IV doesn't seem to be the same planet in This Side of Paradise, nor be in the same star system.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Kooky Klingon fridge messages
REVIEW: Here we go, here we go. There are some lovely moments in this double-sized issue, especially concerning Spock. He cleverly uses the Klingons' honor against them and later masterfully convinces Bryce of her error. His wisdom shines though. Bearclaw DOESN'T meet his end, but instead keeps digging his career's grave deeper and deeper, and I'm glad the cliché is being avoided. A near-collision between ships is as surprising and chaotic to the reader as it is to the characters. The story is generally told with humor and cleverness, though the plot is basically there to hang the scenes on. David shows his penchant for superpowered action (a staple of his New Frontier books) with original crew members like the broadcast telepath and a super-strong giant. Pretty sure I don't like that cover though.
7 comments:
They were really fond of using that "only ship in the quadrant" chestnut in the TOS movies, so why not in the comics covering that same era?
Fortunately, the Borg or Dominion or Cardassians never decided to strike at tsuch a thinly-defended Federation...
The Enterprise spent a lot of time on the Alpha/Beta frontier at a time when Starfleet just didn't go into the Beta Quadrant. And that's how I justify that particular bit of goofy recurring dialogue.
Yeah, but in ST I Enterprise is the only ship around to defend Earth (seriously?); in ST II an Enterprise filled with trainees is the only ship available to investigate trouble at Regula I; In ST III there's no ship between Earth and Genesis (to stop a stolen Enterprise (besides unarmed science vessal Grissom...if this were such a forbidden galactic hot spot, you'd think there'd be at least some kind of cordon...). It just seems as if Star Fleet didn't have very many ships. It's a good thing they never had to make a stand at Wolf 359 in this generation...
I have always assumed that when "quadrant" was used in TOS, it was as a sub-subdivision of the Federation. So the Omicron Ceti Region is divided into quadrants, for example. It wasn't until TNG that the quadrant usage was standardized to mean a quadrant of the galaxy.
The way I see it is that they have Defiant-like ships and automated defenses around the core planets, but none have the scientific or long range capabilities to handle the problems in the movies.
They could throw all the torpedoes at V'Ger and the Whale Probe, but they hardly dented a Borg cube, which is nothing compared to those space faring creatures.
That certainly is an...atypical cover.
Am I the only one who thinks the cover's an homage to the Gold Key covers? All it really needs is a nice caption, something along the lines of "Kirk and the Klingons--working together to stop a deadly foe!"
Post a Comment