Star Trek 999: Murder, Most Foul

999. Murder, Most Foul

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation #2, DC Comics, November 1989

CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Pablo Marcos (artist)

STARDATE: 42307.2 (follows the last issue)

PLOT: Tardol and Picard both stand accused of the Raimonian Primarch's murder. Tardol claims Picard's motive is that the Primarch was going to end the mining agreement between Raimon and the Federation, and invokes a traditional trial by combat. Whoever survices has been deemed innocent by the gods. Riker tries to convince Picard to let him fight in his place, as is allowed by law, and after Troi implicates the Primarch's daughter, Lutina, he allows him to do so while he confronts the girl. She readily confesses that she did it to preserve the ties between her world and the Federation, but as Picard had the judge behind an arras, she is caught and the fight between Tardol and Riker is ended before the latter gets his head popped off.

CONTINUITY: None.

DIVERGENCES: Troi's TV room is like nowhere on the ship.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Move over, Lincoln in Space... there's a new man in town!
REVIEW: A reasonable solution and ending to this simple mystery, with some nice touches like the murder weapon and the Lutina's complete lack of remorse. Not much of a mystery after all, but some decent action and Picard getting to do a little oratory. I do wonder why no one thought to propose Worf or Data as Picard's proxy in the fight. Either of them would have had a fair chance against Tardol. And I'm afraid the McRobb subplot is more annoying than anything at this point. Now we discover that he's got a hot wife, but is totally emo about being less than a man in his father's eyes, or somesuch. One would think there are enough regular characters (including O'Brien and Guinan) that Friedman wouldn't need an original character, and while I do find those of value (see Peter David's TOS issues), McRobb is quite lame. Lamer than Geordi even. Artwise, Marcos turns out some rushed work in comparison to the first issue, so perhaps the monthly grind will lower the quality of the work, we'll see.

Tomorrow, a break from TNG as I grab a graphic novel to celebrate 1000 days of Star Trek on Siskoid's Blog of Geekery!