1302. Avalon RisingPUBLICATION: Star Trek: Voyager - Avalon Rising, Wildstorm Comics, September 2000
CREATORS: Janine Ellen Young and Doselle Young (writers), David Roach (artist)
STARDATE: Unknown (between The Haunting of Deck 12 and Unimatrix Zero)
PLOT: In orbit around a planet in its Medieval stage, Voyager encounters the last of an alien race who with his dying breath asks for the crew's help in retrieving a cache of weapons left on the planet. Because of ion storms, Janeway sends only the Doctor down there to get to the "blind tower". The Doctor meets a dishonored squire whose knight was just killed and takes him under his wing, teaching him Starfleet lessons under the guise of medieval tales. Together, they get to the blind tower, get inside and open a window in the ion storms that allows Voyager to retrieve the wizard/Doctor and the equipment. The Doctor thus accidentally inspires the young squire into creating an order of knights based on Starfleet's ethics and vocabulary.
CONTINUITY: None.
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Lost at sea, but magically repairs itself.
REVIEW: Practically an Elseworlds, only the Doctor's Starfleet uniform tells us this is occurring in continuity, at least for the first half of the book. And though, yes, it's a Prime Directive disaster (not all that uncommon on Voyager anyway), it's quite a fun one. Many of the characters' origins are retold as fantastical tales (Chakotay as an outlaw, Seven as the "ice maiden" and the Doctor himself as a homunculus who willed himself to become a wizard, for example). The characters, locations and creatures are a bit on the "La Morte d'Arthur" side of things, odd on an alien planet, but Roach does a good job with this fantasy, the likenesses and the action. Finally, a good Voyager story, and an offbeat one at that.
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