Star Trek 1347: My Name Is Legion

1347. My Name Is Legion

PUBLICATION: Star Trek - Assignment: Earth #3, IDW Comics, July 2008

CREATORS: John Byrne (writer), John Byrne (artist)

STARDATE: Unknown (1970; a year after the last issue; epilogue on Christmas Eve 2008)

PLOT: Gary and Roberta infiltrate a university campus as a professor and a hippie student respectively, based on Beta Five's intuition. Participating in peace rally activities, Roberta falls in love with fellow protester Curtis, who is kidnapped by the military after a night of love making. Coincidentally, Gary Seven is investigating a fellow professor and his military contact who are behind the abduction. The team follows them to an underground complex where they've been growing a clone army to help them win the Vietnam war. They rescue Curtis and Beta Five teleports all the clones to another planet to live out their celibate lives. Curtis is made a part of the inner circle, but that is short lived as he is drafted into the army. 38 years later, Roberta and Isis meet at the Vietnam Memorial to remember Curtis, who died Christmas 1970.

CONTINUITY: None.

DIVERGENCES: None.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Welcome to the 70s!
REVIEW: I'm actually liking how the series is jumping a year ahead with every issue. It gives the sense that had Assignment: Earth been picked up, it would have lasted for several years, and Roberta's hairstyle would have evolved. Byrne also uses American history to good effect as a basis for both his science fiction stories and his character development, with Roberta falling for a young black man who goes off to fight in Vietnam. At this point, she doesn't know that Isis can turn into a sexy gal, so Isis can go undercover too without Roberta knowing. The ending is also fun, though it's a huge deus ex machina. I bet the tv series would have been full of them, between the magic hypnosis pen and the magic teleporting computer. The overhanging arc about advanced technology making its way into human hands is serviced, though we still don't know who's doing it. There's a strange confusion about where the cat is at one point that makes me suspect another Isis, so some (enemy?) Aegis involvement. But it's that 2008 epilogue that makes the issue. It's a sweet revelation that Roberta and Isis survive to this day, and that the former knows the latter's human form and even has a family.