1086. Dreams DiePUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation #69, DC Comics, March 1995
CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Deryl Skelton (artist)
STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)
PLOT: On Altair III, Riker and his old colleagues brave various traps to return to bubble scriptures to their rightful monastery, while Riker ponders who killed one of their number. A critical clue tells him who the killer is, and that crew member confesses that he desperately needed to salvage his family's reputation. They had recently lost their fortune, and a Ferengi had told him the bubbles activated a map to a lost treasure he hoped to steal. Meanwhile, Dr. Crusher goes to a medical conference where a disfigured madman drops in guns blazing, blaming an innocent man of causing the explosion in his lab 15 years ago and threatening to destroy the starbase they're all on...
CONTINUITY: See previous issues. Dr. Selar has a silent cameo (The Schizoid Man). Crusher finally meets Pulaski. Geordi has fixed Soong's emotion chip recovered in Descent.
DIVERGENCES: See previous issues. If Data agrees to use the chip, it'll contradict the events of Generations.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Riker so wants to be Kirk.
REVIEW: When Friedman cuts off a thread, he starts another, so plenty of stories on the go here. The Riker thread has me wondering if the killer's motivation is believable or justification for choosing the least likely suspect (and why telegraph it on the cover?!?). The monks' treasure will probably be revealed in the next issue. I'm not expecting the Earth to move. The Crusher thread feels a lot like Riker's in that it introduces another big cast of new characters, most of which won't get more than cursory development. When the mystery is solved, we won't care much because we won't have known the characters very well at all. The villain is "comic book" in the extreme, spewing exposition and nursing ridiculous motivations. Good thing Pulaski's in it. She's pretty entertaining. Both threads have some action, but that's really not Skelton's forte. I'm not sure if that's a Data thread starting up or just a "cut scene" to explain what's been happening with the emotion chip. It probably should remain the latter.
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