959. Epic ProportionsPUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #52, DC Comics, September 1993
CREATORS: Diane Duane (writer), Rod Whigham and Arne Starr (artists)
STARDATE: 8752.5 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: The big three are asked to initiate first contact with the Atyansa specifically because they are part of the planet's prophecies. Seems like they were always meant to go on an important quest there. They make it up a mountain, defeating projections along the way, and find their way inside where they meet the living computer that forecast their appearance thanks to "tachyonic data". It asks for the Federation to restore its data banks and redeliver the wisdom of the ancients to the Atyansa. Meanwhile, Scotty stymies the Klingons by jamming their transporter beam, though ultimately it's the computer that slingshots the Klingon battlecruiser away.
CONTINUITY: Among the landing party's hallucinations, we see a Mugato (A Private Little War), a Gorn (Arena), a Talosian (The Cage) and the salt-sucker from The Man Trap.
DIVERGENCES: First contact procedures must have changed between Kirk's time and TNG, because the Atyansa only have 16th-century-level technology. Scotty refers to himself as a Lt. Commander, but wears a Captain's uniform.
PANEL OF THE DAY - "Word gets around."
REVIEW: Diane Duane guest-writes this odd story that, quite simply, doesn't work. The characters are supposed to find it strange to find themselves folk heroes of a people they've never even met, but all they do is go up a hill and get the premise explained to them. The title's "epic proportions" just aren't there. Nor is the science (and the computer's plan) very believable. Perhaps a longer set-up could have helped sell the premise. Scotty does get a good role standing up to a Klingon battlecruiser and using his wits to defeat it, and the dialogue is generally bubblier than Weinstein's usual fare, but a disappointment based on Duane's other work.
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