Star Trek 1104: A Little Seasoning

1104. A Little Seasoning

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Modala Imperative #1, DC Comics, July 1991

CREATORS: Michael Jan Friedman (writer), Pablo Marcos and Rafael Gallur (artists)

STARDATE: 3012.4 (between The Squire of Gothos and The Alternative Factor)

PLOT: 10 years ago, Kirk was part of a survey team that gave a decade to the planet Modala before it could be asked to join the Federation. Now he's back with the Enterprise to update that survey, and he brings rookie Chekov on his first mission to a planet. The duo soon realize that Modala has turned into a police state in the intervening years and that the cops are using much too highly advanced weapons against a budding resistance. They get in the crossfire and are wrongly arrested with no way to contact the ship...

CONTINUITY: The story takes place just after Chekov is assigned to the Enterprise.

DIVERGENCES: Mr. Kyle is suddenly an older, dark-haired man.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Everybody handles stress differently.
REVIEW: For Star Trek's 25th Anniversary, DC came out of its first Trek mini-series and this is it. The story is simple enough, a first contact scenario, but made more important by virtue of having it be Chekov's first mission, complete with a nod to his eventual friendship with Sulu. Friedman, as usual, gives each character in the cast at least one moment. The best thing about the issue though, is the art. Aside from the gorgeous Adam Hughes cover, Tom McCraw provides some of the best coloring on an issue of Trek yet. It's usually been pretty bad, with frequent uniform color snafus and dark, obscuring washes. McCraw has a lot of subtlety and experiments with abstract photography to create planet textures.
Pablo Marcos, by virtue of uncredited (except in the text piece) art assistant Rafael Gallur, has never looked this good. The thin lines (WHY aren't the Mexican guys getting proper credit as inkers again?) give the comic a slick, clean look far from Marcos' usual dirty expressionism. In short, the comic looks very good indeed compared to many issues of the main series. The first issue has some explosive action in a world reminiscent of Judge Dredd.