1100. The AbandonedPUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation #80, DC Comics, February 1996
CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Gordon Purcell and Terry Pallot (artists)
STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)
PLOT: Though Dr. Crusher has already signed the colonists' death sentence, Data doesn't give up. He eventually discovers that the virus is a different strain than the one diagnosed by Crusher and further that it comes from a pirate-controlled area. These pirates were abandoned by their fellows because of their illness and the actual colonists taken as slaves. Data foils their commandeering attempt and forces them to reveal all this. The Enterprise then flies after the pirates and using their android targeting capabilities, they defeat an entire pirate fleet and free the colonists. Q restores everyone to their biological selves, hoping to have proven that android are an inferior species, but Picard disagrees because Data saved the day.
CONTINUITY: See previous issue (Q). Troi visits the Lake Cataria holodeck program (the real lake was the site of the picnic in Ménage à Troi). The program includes her father (Dark Page). The ensign at the conn is identified as Rager (Schisms, etc.).
DIVERGENCES: The title was also used for a Deep Space Nine episode. Data spends a page in a red uniform. It wouldn't actually be confusing if everybody wasn't a yellow-skinned android at this point.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Learn the piano in one easy android lesson.
REVIEW: Perhaps predictably, Data is proven to be the most human of androids, acting on hunches, having imagination, making decisions for Picard who seems stuck in a logic loop half the time, and showing empathy. It's nice to see how he has evolved over the 7 seasons of the show, with all the other androids more or less acting like he did in his naive first couple of seasons. And just before he gets the emotion chip too. As for the rest of the plot, it does its job and not a whole lot more. It's a strange story to end the comics series on, with the characters not really being themselves, but I suppose you can't always plan that kind of thing in licensed comics. For fans of the DC series, don't worry, there are still some annuals and mini-series to review before we jump companies.
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