880. Finnegan's Wake!PUBLICATION: Star Trek #55, DC Comics, October 1988
CREATORS: Peter David (writer), Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran (artists)
STARDATE: 9002.8 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: Finnegan's psychic assistant determines that Bearclaw at least believes he didn't try to kill Kirk, and Finnegan finally realizes he's seen Bloemker's body on Omicron Ceti IV. When he confronts this doppelganger, she stuns him (phaser's too dry to kill) and takes his place. Kirk's revenge prank on Finnegan blows the fake Finnegan's cover and he is revealed as the shapeshifting Captain Garth of Izar, who had also been Captain Zair of the Renegade. One nerve pinch later and he is captured. Kirk pardons Bearclaw (pretty much everything) and sends Finnegan off with an arm-wrestling contest which he wins. By beating the ship's champion, Scotty, seconds later, Finnegan shows he was only playing with Kirk and has the last laugh.
CONTINUITY: Garth of Izar is from Whom Gods Destroy. He was apparently cured of his mental illness, but only given menial tasks after that, which embittered him until he went rogue. This is the last chronological appearance of the series' original characters - Nancy Bryce, Konom, Liz Sherwood, Bearclaw - as well as TAS regulars M'Ress and Arex. One can imagine they were transferred prior to the events of ST V.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Bearclaw's trial
REVIEW: There's one issue left, but it takes place during the TOS era, so this can properly be called the last issue of the series. It came back momentarily with a new number 1, but gone was the supporting cast created by Mike Barr. It's too bad too. Though Barr didn't do that much with them, and other writers often ignored them completely, Carlin and David put a lot of meat on their bones. And sadly, their stories end here. Did Bearclaw learn his lesson? Did Sherwood forgive him? Did Konom and Nancy live happily ever after? Did Sulu and M'Ress ever hook up? The two TAS characters showed up again in other non-canon media, but none of the others (I can live without Moron though). At the same time, I agree that more attention should be paid to the regular cast. But back to the issue at hand... The mystery villain's reveal is well handled, and for a while there, I thought they'd actually killed Finnegan. It would have been a loss, as he's an entertaining foil for Kirk. So a satisfying enough resolution, though wasn't there a thing about androids in the early Captain Zair stuff? Did David change his expected ending?
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