Star Trek 1075: Brothers in Darkness

1075. Brothers in Darkness

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation #61, DC Comics, July 1994

CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Deryl Skelton (artist)

STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)

PLOT: The away team rescues a human and a Chalnoth from the creature's cocoon and find out its brains were scrambled by Chalnoth disuptors. It has abandonned or destroyed its eggs, and is cocooning enemies as if THEY were its children. The Chalnoth away team try to kill the creature and the eggs saved by the Aquitaine's away team, so Riker and crew must defeat them again. This time, Lt. Takamura is badly hurt, and with the cave walls preventing beaming, Crusher lets her be cocooned, a process that seems proven to heal wounds on just-rescued personnel. In space, Picard takes a cue from his younger self and slings a disabled Chalnoth ship at the others with a tractor beam. The two sides strike a peace after Crusher sedates the creature and frees cocooned personnel on both sides. She also operates on the creature so that it cares for its eggs again.

CONTINUITY: See previous issues.

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Awkwardly stunned.
REVIEW: That's a pretty crazy story. I was afraid it was going to make the creature the secret mother of the Chalnoth race, but the truth is lame rather than stupid. That's pretty specific behavior to be caused by disruptor blasts to the chest. And then there's the deus ex machina of the healing mucus! The outer space stuff is much better, with Picard minting a new maneuver. And it might all have passed inspection if the art was any good. But Skelton really sinks the enterprise here. Awkward poses, incomprehensible starship battles, and faces drawn from likeness that fail to have any coherent expressions in whatever panels they appear in. The closer you are to a person or object, the more likely it is to be detailed and well drawn, but it gets sketchy very quickly once you move the "camera" away, and technical drawings of ships and phasers seem to be pasted into the art when necessary. Nothing here redeems the silly story elements in the least, and sadly, neither Takamura or the Chalnoth captain truly realize the potential of their introductions.