1112. Game, Set and Match!PUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Modala Imperative #4, DC Comics, October 1991
CREATORS: Peter David (writer), Pablo Marcos (artist)
STARDATE: 44398.7 (follows the last issue)
PLOT: The Ferengi have captured everyone except Spock who melds with Troi through a wall and allows her to nerve pinch her captors before they undress her. The Modalan leaders (official and dissident) are taken out to be shot, and at least agree on one thing - better to die than live as slaves. Picard offers a deal. If the DaiMon can defeat him at "Ferengi Challenge Cubes", he gets the Enterprise. If not, he loses the planet. These cubes provide a psychic assault each participant must withstand. The Ferengi is cheating thanks to an implant, but Spock telepathically bolsters Picard so he can win. The Ferengi leave just as the Enterprise arrives from its decoy mission, and Modala finds more stability in its reunified leaders.
CONTINUITY: See previous issues (Modala, McCoy, Selar). O'Brien makes an appearance. There's a reference to the Vulcan Death Grip (The Enterprise Incident).
DIVERGENCES: See previous issues (freighter-shuttle, Spock). Riker speaks to an admiral in a decidedly non-Starfleet uniform. The stardates make it appear like Data's Day happened during this adventure.
PANEL OF THE DAY - I know they say Betazoids can't read Ferengi, but I think Troi can just about feel the lust.
REVIEW: A couple of cool bits make the comic worth it. There's Picard stopping the Ferengi in their tracks with the words "Let's deal". And there's Spock's neat trick in giving Troi the "touch". In the end, though Spock is the big hero, the badass is still Picard. That's good, because for a TNG comic, it was really more about the surviving TOS guys. In the end, there's a real merger between the two, quite literally in fact. A fun and hopeful ending that makes the second mini-series much better than the first. Hey, and there's even a poker scene at the end. Lame joke there, but that still says "TNG".
Comments