Review: Star Trek: Alien Spotlight, Volume 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido, Scott & David Tipton, Stuart Moore, J. K. Woodward, Elena Casagrande, et al.

Comic trade paperback, 122 pages
Published 2010 (contents: 2009)
Acquired July 2012
Read May 2016

Star Trek: Alien Spotlight, Volume 2

Written by Arne Schmidt and Andy Schmidt, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Scott Tipton and David Tipton, Ian Edginton, Stuart Moore

Art by Agustin Padilla, J. K. Woodward, Elena Casagrande, Wagner Reis, Mike Hawthorne
Color by James Brown, J. K. Woodward, Ilaria Traversi, Priscilla Ribeiro, Mike Hawthorne

Letters by Robbie Robbins, Neil Uyetake, Richard Starkings

The first Star Trek: Alien Spotlight collection was a decent set of comics, more notable for its enjoyable variety than the quality of its individual tales (except for John Byrne's excellent Romulan story). The second one is similar, but I'd say it has more hits. The best is clearly, and oddly, the Tribbles story by Stuart Moore and Mike Hawthorne: a Federation cargo ship is forced down on an alien planet by Klingons (the story takes place in the runup to "Errand of Mercy") and receives some unexpected assistance from the mysterious creatures that have displaced the planet's original inhabitants. It's cute and fun.

Tribbles are actually pretty insidious if you think about it.
from Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Tribbles (script by Stuart Moore, art by Mike Hawthorne)

Most of the other tales aren't really notable either way. One can't argue that Keith R.A. DeCandido doesn't get Klingons, for example, but I didn't find his and J. K. Woodward's tale of Kang recounting three different perspectives on his observation that "four thousand throats may be but in a single night by a running man" particularly impactful. The Q tale by the Tipton brothers and Elena Casagrande has an interesting premise, but (like most Tipton tales) is too slight: Q decides to live as Picard for a day to prove he can do better. I would love to have seen this on screen; one can imagine John De Lancie relishing the part of Picard, and Patrick Stewart as the disembodied voice heckling Q the whole time would be great. There are a number of good moments, but the Enterprise-E mission this all interrupts is simplistic at best, and there's not enough space to explore all the possibilities of this set-up. Ian Edginton and Wagner Reis's Romulan story is all right. Like John Byrne's tale from the previous volume, it's a prequel to "Balance of Terror"-- in fact, it's a prequel to Byrne's prequel! But Reis is no Byrne when it comes to art or character, and the politics are a little too simple. Okay, but it suffers by comparison.

Disembodied advice head Picard is the snarkiest.
from Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Q (script by Scott Tipton & David Tipton, art by Elena Casagrande)

The only outright bad story is the Cardassian one, by the Schmidt brothers and Agustin Padilla. Padilla is not very good at drawing Cardassians that look differently from one another, even though one of them is half-Bajoran, and one of them is Garak! This makes the story basically impossible to follow, but I suspect there's not much to it, anyway, and it seems odd to make a part-Bajoran Cardassian-hater the central character of your story that's ostensibly about Cardassians.

Thank God someone said Garak's name, because there's no way I ever would have guessed that was meant to be Andy Robinson.
from Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Cardassians (script by Arne Schmidt & Andy Schmidt, art by Agustin Padilla)

Review: Star Trek: Captain's Log by J. K. Woodward et al.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2011 (contents: 2010)
Acquired May 2012
Read May 2015

Star Trek: Captain's Log

Written by Stuart Moore, Scott and David Tipton, Marc Guggenheim, Keith R.A. DeCandido
Art by J. K. Woodward, Federica Manfredi, Andrew Currie
Colors by J. K. Woodward, Andrea Priorini, Moose Bauman

Color Assists by Chiara Cinabro

Lettering by Robbie Robbins, Neil Uyetake, Chris Mowry

This collection consist of four tales of Starfleet captains from the edges of the Star Trek universe: Christopher Pike of the original Enterprise from "The Cage" and "The Menagerie," Hikaru Sulu of the Excelsior from The Undiscovered Country, John Harriman of the Enterprise-B from Generations, and Edward Jellico of the Cairo from "Chain of Command." It's an okay set of okay stories, on the whole-- nothing great, nothing terrible, all pretty disposable.

The stories vary in quality and interest. The Pike tale, by Stuart Moore and J. K. Woodward, could be decent, but feels compelled to show up Pike's last mission on board that training vessel for the umpteenth time, and in a way that doesn't even really seem consistent with what "The Menagerie" establishes about it. Because it crams both that and an unseen "Cage"-era mission into 20 pages, there's not really time to do much of interest, though I appreciated seeing Yeoman Colt, long a favorite of mine from "The Cage" itself and the old Early Voyages comics. But thinking of Early Voyages just makes me regret that they didn't get Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton to do this one!

The Sulu story by the Tipton brothers and Federica Manfredi is decent, a showdown with the Tholians that lets old Hikaru show some backbone and gumption. Decent stuff, let down by Manfredi's inability to use the right starships in the artwork; the other Federation starship is Oberth class but suddenly becomes a Constitution in one panel, and one panel of the Excelsior streaking into warp is blatantly the original Enterprise, lifted from The Motion Picture.

The Harriman tale by Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Currie could be good, but it's let down by too much focus on a visiting Doctor McCoy and rehashing of old events, especially The Search for Spock and Generations. There are a lot of Harriman tales where he "proves" himself by overcoming someone's expectations; I'd rather Harriman tales just get on with him being awesome, as any captain of the Enterprise must be.

Finally, there's Keith R.A. DeCandido and J. K. Woodward's take on Jellico. Jellico defenders like to point out that he's just following protocol... while that might be true, good leaders don't act like assholes to their subordinates in the pursuit of protocol, either. I'm not convinced this is the redemptive take on Jellico it wants to be.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation² by Scott & David Tipton, J. K. Woodward, et al.

Comic hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2013 (contents: 2012)
Acquired January 2014
Read October 2014

Star Trek: The Next Generation / Doctor Who: Assimilation²

Written by Scott & David Tipton with Tony Lee

Art by J. K. Woodward
Additional Art by Gordon Purcell and The Sharp Bros.
Letters by Shawn Lee, Robbie Robbins, and Tom B. Long

This should be great. This is not great. This is eight issues of people talking about things, thinking about things. Imagine all of the awesome things that could happen in a crossover between Doctor Who and Star Trek. Well, none of them happen here. The variant covers are way more interesting than any of the actions in this weirdly aimless, meandering, suspence-less comics. Some plot threads are just abandoned, while others are tied up in the most trite and obvious ways possible. Characters' facial expression vary from inappropriate to nonexistent. I bought the deluxe hardcover of this book, anticipating it despite the negative reviews. I should have listened, and I should not have wasted my money.

In Two Weeks: The Doctor, Amy, and Rory begin a new era when they visit the Crystal Palace in The Hypothetical Gentleman!