Star Trek 1411: Captain's Log: Harriman

1411. Captain's Log: Harriman

PUBLICATION: Star Trek - Captain's Log: Harriman, IDW Comics, May 2010

CREATORS: Marc Guggenheim (writer), Andrew Currie (artist)

STARDATE: 9856.4 (six months after Generations' prologue)

PLOT: Dr. McCoy has been drafted back into Starfleet to deal with a plague on Antares. He's being ferried there by Harriman's Enterprise-B, which gives him time to reflect on Kirk's death. He has some hash words for Harriman, who is leaving Starfleet after this mission - the first since the Nexus incident - having lost his crew's confidence. McCoy later apologizes and gives Harriman some friendly advice about acting the part to become the part. He soon has a chance to put it to work when a Klingon ship which may be responsible for the plague decides to attack the ship for being in Khitomer-disputed space. Harriman has to deal with the lack of trust from his crew, but authoritatively gets his orders executed. He feigns surrender, then beams his ship's stores of photon torpedoes onto the Klingon ship in exchange for its crew. The voyages continue...

CONTINUITY: Harriman and his Enterprise - including Demora Sulu, the unnamed navigator played by Glen Morshower (dubbed Marruu here), the unnamed communications officer played by Thomas Kopache (dubbed Mark Tobiaston in the STCCG) - appeared in Generations (a flashback to Kirk's apparent death begins the issue). McCoy was last seen in ST VI, but visits the site of Kirk's death here. He remembers Kirk's words in ST V about dying alone. The Klingons muse over Chang's words that "there shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives" (ST VI). McCoy tells Harriman about Kirk's actions on Genesis (ST III).

DIVERGENCES: Mr. Marruu was called Thomas Singer in the novel The Captain's Daughter.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Hurts, don't it?
REVIEW: This issue starts redeeming Harriman very efficiently, though it's McCoy who's the heart of the story. You'd think the various flashbacks would kill this issue, but not at all. McCoy's mixture of grief and wisdom is as brilliantly executed as Harriman's trademark hesitation (before every speech bubble until he learns his lesson, in fact). McCoy has a brilliant speech about how Kirk didn't die while about Harriman's ship because he wasn't in command, Kirk was. And his advice later is just as strong. When the Klingons attack, it starts to feel like the second part of Redemption (when Data had to earn his crew's respect), but it works nonetheless. And throughout, there's a real sense of being in the wake of Kirk's death, a death that has interstellar ramifications. So Guggenheim hits the ball out of the park, though much credit must go to Andrew Currie's wonderful likenesses and expressive faces. I don't think we've had such strong art on a Star Trek project in a while.