Star Trek 1212: Four Funerals and a Wedding

1212. Four Funerals and a Wedding

PUBLICATION: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #11, Marvel Comics, November 1997

CREATORS: Michael Martin and Andy Mangels (writers), Terry Pallot and Al Milgrom (artists)

STARDATE: Unknown (follows the last issue)

PLOT: Rom goes after Leeta alone and finds her in the waste extraction unit, along with the other abducted women, in the slime creature's nest. It apparently requires female hormones to reproduce and is harvesting them from its captives. Rom manages to rescue the women, but it catches up to them at Lwaxana's wedding. Lwaxana gives herself over to the creature and overloads it with her own excess of hormones. The creature's natural ability to interfere with communications equipment also downs a telepathic implant in Lwaxana's fiancé's head which sent out false thoughts to cover the fact he was only marrying her for her fortune. She doesn't go through with it and finds out her divorce with Odo didn't yet go through.

CONTINUITY: See previous issue (Lwaxana Troi, Mr. Homn, Rom, Leeta, Garak). We finally get a look at waste extraction, and it's a sewer with Cardassian voles (Playing God).

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Best. Ferengi swear. Ever.
REVIEW: A fun conclusion to the story, with Rom going commando (uhm... literally, I mean) to get his fiancée back, and Lwaxana defeating a monster with the very thing that makes her HER. Waste extraction shown as a sewer may not be a very Trek-like idea, but that's why it's perfect for Deep Space Nine. The last-minute reveal of the Bolian's telepathic implant comes out of left field a bit, but no harm done. The story scores enough points before then to make up for it. A pleasant read with strong art.

The Telepathy War crossover looms once again. We'll take a break, run through a year's worth of Voyager issues, and come back when all the Marvel series sync up. Too bad, because things were picking up.