1071. A House DividedPUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #4, DC Comics, September 1993
CREATORS: Mike W. Barr (writer), Jim Key, Aaron McClellan, and Bob Smith (artists)
STARDATE: 46759.2 (apparently simultaneous with Birthright Part II)
PLOT: As a pulsar bears down on the penal colony of Tantalus VII, the Enterprise is tasked with moving its most dangerous criminal, a psychotic Trill called Dalor, out of the system. Ambassador Odan, hoping for a reunion with Beverly, will accompany him. With the help of his mercenary friends, Dalor forces Crusher to place his symbiont into Picard, then uses his body and knowledge to take over the Enterprise. The crew soon escapes, but Dalor steals the battle bridge and attempts to destroy the saucer section. Ultimately, the crew manages to punch a hole through the battle bridge's shields and Data beams the Dalor symbiont into one of the mercenaries. Odan and Crusher part on similar terms as last time.
CONTINUITY: Odan first appeared in The Host. The story is certainly reminescent of DS9's Invasive Procedures. Riker mentions Bre'er Rabbit, prefiguring Insurrection.
DIVERGENCES: The stardate is exactly the same as Birthright Part II, but Worf is present so it can't be. There's a penal colony on Tantalus VII, while there's one on Tantalus V in Dagger of the Mind. Is the whole system penal? If so, why do they only need to evacuate VII? Then again, VII is a station, maybe it's not in the same system? Is "Tantalus" just the name they give every prison in the Federation? Not the comic's fault per se, but the Trill used here are from The Host and dissimilar to those seen on DS9. However, Odan and other Trill can use transporters, which they couldn't do safely in The Host. Beverly and girly Odan defeat a Romulan and Andorian hand to hand respectively. I'll call foul on THAT.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Data's "big boot" mod.
REVIEW: Though I think Mike Barr's work on Classic Trek comics is pretty good, this TNG adventure in more on par with his Outsiders work, i.e. pretty ridiculous. You've got a star flying erratically through the cosmos, and characters that have exactly the abilities required of the plot (if you can beam a symbiont out of a person, why would you ever need to force a doctor to perform an invasive surgical procedure?). There are plenty of convenient double standards as well. Dalor has all of Picard's knowledge, except when the plot says he shouldn't. Crusher spikes his tea, but drinking tea is just about the only trait of Picard's not overpowered by the Trill's personality. Not that it does much of anything. The pulsar scrambles communications, but not transporters or sensors. If at least the Crusher-Odan relationship had been explored a little more, but no, there's no growth here. It's like they stretched the last scene of The Host for an extra 60 pages, that's all. The art is uneven, I think largely dependent on who's inking Jim Key's rough figures. No help there. The potential for a good Crusher story was there though.
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