951. Deceptions! Part One: Coup D'EtatPUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #46, DC Comics, May 1993
CREATORS: Howard Weinstein (writer), Rod Whigham and Arne Starr (artists)
STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)
PLOT: Spock and Saavik are visiting the largely water-bound planet Mardelva, whose government is interested in Federation affiliation. However, there's a (all together now) dissenting faction that would rather get in bed with the Klingons. These guys attack a city, so the Vulcans and ambassadors leave in a shuttle. They're shot down by a ship and crash on an island, where Saavik must get everyone out of the burning shuttle, including a wounded Spock. Meanwhile, Kirk and the Enterprise face four birds-of-prey led by Klaa...
CONTINUITY: Klaa and Vixis are back (ST V).
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - What does it take for Kirk to call a Red Alert, anyway?
REVIEW: Rod Whigham's art is the real star of the show here. He gives Mardelva its own architecture and fauna, and is more adept than Gordon Purcell at staging outer space action (or action, period). His submarines have a cool hammerhead design too. Green blood gushing out of a Vulcan nose looks a heck of a lot like snot, but I'm blaming the shade of green for that one. As for the story, it's the usual Weinstein set-up, but at least he lets the artist work in a lot of wordless action to spruce it up. There is an annoyingly racist undercurrent to the story, however, with the other faction obviously being members of another "race" and Kirk saying something about all Klingons looking alike to him. Just to rile Klaa up, you understand, and not necessarily out-of-character as ST VI's events approach, but still unpleasant.
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