Review: Weight by Jeanette Winterson

Originally published: 2005
Read: November 2020

Weight by Jeanette Winterson

This is a retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles (a myth I remembered nothing about, even if I remembered the two characters individually) in Winterson's characterstically cheeky, humorous, poetic, and self-referential style. It feels a bit thin for something by her (I feel like surely it's a novella, not a novel), but I laughed at the jokes and found some keen insights into human nature. The ending is weird, but I think it worked. Sometimes it really is that simple! Not as good as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (obviously) or even The Gap of Time, but still highly enjoyable.

Review: Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1 by Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Al Gordon, et al.

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1989-93
Acquired: September 2020
Read: February 2021

Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1

Plot/Pencils/Layouts: Keith Giffen

Story/Dialogue: Tom & Mary Bierbaum
Inker/Writer: Al Gordon
Pencils: Chris Sprouse, Paris Cullins, Craig Brasfield, Dougie Braithwaite, Brandon Peterson, Dan Jurgens, Jason Pearson, Dusty Abell, Rob Haynes, Ian Montgomery, Joe Phillips, Colleen Doran, Curt Swan, David A. Williams, June Brigman, Stuart Immonen

Inks: Bob Lewis, Doug Hazelwood, Larry Mahlstedt, Carlos Garzon, Brett Breeding, Michael Christian, Brad Vancata, Scott Hanna, Tony Harris, Karl Story, John Dell, Karl Kesel, Bob Smith, Steve Leialoha

Story/Story Assists: Dan Jurgens, Tom McCraw, Jason Pearson

Colors: Tom McCraw, Glenn Whitmore

Letters: Todd Klein, John Workman, Albert De Guzman, Janice Chiang, Coffin N. Coro, Bob Pinaha

I'm always ping-ponging around the Legion timeline, based on what DC has deigned to collect and what I can get hold of. This volume collects the first thirty-nine issues of the so-called "Five Year Later" era (plus assorted annuals and other tie-ins). In terms of publication, it began three months after the previous issue, Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 3 #63, but in terms of story, there was a five-year gap during which the Legion of Super-Heroes had disbanded, Earth had withdrawn from the United Planets and become a Dominator puppet state, and many of the Legionnaires had suffered various dark fates. The series was the brainchild of Keith Giffen, who pencilled and plotted the majority of the early issues-- previously a collaborator of Paul Levitz for much of his run, but now the series's lead creative force. New-to-comics writers but longtime Legion fans Tom & Mary Bierbaum dialogued his issues, and wrote many of their own; most issues were inked by Al Gordon, who also contributed to the plotting and wrote several issues as well.

You could write a book on this book (it is over 1,300 pages), but I will try to limit myself by sticking to one paragraph for each of the major storylines. The first, covering issues #1-12, is simply dubbed Five Years Later, and slowly reveals the situation of this new world. On the one hand, it's very confusing: partially this is because a lot has happened in those five years, and partially this is because the latest-published issue of the Legion I've read is from 1984 (in The Curse), so this is ten story years after what I was familiar with, and partially this is because Giffen's layouts are dense and packed and confusing. He uses the nine-panel grid here, with lots of quick cuts and little exposition, leaving the reader to piece togther events themselves. On the other hand, though, it's incredible: more happens in a single issue of this comic than in entire sixty-issue runs of contemporary comics. Giffen has always been an artistic master, but I feel like this is him at his peak: a very distinctive style and a command of characterization mostly unmatched. I didn't entirely understand everything that happened here... but I wanted to, and this is a story that will richly reward rereading, I suspect. There's lot of great character stuff here: for the first time, I care about Cosmic Boy, the rock upon which the Legion stands even when "powerless"; Cham is put into a new role of authority; new character Kono is an utter delight, a "female chauvinist"; Laurel Gand quickly establishes herself as the kind of strong woman who I love. There are time travel shenanigans and attempted genocides... but best of all is Matter-Eater Lad! Oh my god, I don't think I've laughed so much at a comic book in a long time as I did at #11, where he defends Polar Boy in court. In the midst of all this darkness, we have humor: Giffen and the Bierbaums get it. The one thing I didn't like about this storyline is that it almost seemed too easy to actually reunite the Legion: if so many of them were up for it, why did it take so long since the dissolution for this to happen?

The second is even more simply dubbed The Legion of Super-Heroes, and spans #12-25. It covers a couple different crises the Legion handles: Matter-Eater Lad battling Evillo, a Khund invasion, a Dark Circle infiltration, the Moon exploding, and the return of Darkseid. I found these hit or miss. The Matter-Eater Lad issue was great, of course. The Khund story didn't have the weight it should have; the whole thing seemed to happen so suddenly. The aftermath of the Moon exploding was interesting, but the actual way it happened didn't work for me, a crossover with Superman where Superman and the Legion reminisce about the "pocket universe Superboy," a character earlier issues went through some pain to establish had been removed from history! The Quiet Darkness, the Darkseid story, saw inker Al Gordon take over writing duties, and I found it a strong thriller with a neat take on Darkseid.

The third is Terra Mosaic, #26-36, which focuses on Earth finally rebelling against the Dominators, as well as the emergence of "Batch SW6," clones of the Legion from their young, idealistic days. Giffen switches from pencilling to doing layouts, and it's to the book's detriment. It's just not as dense anymore, it's more straightforward comics. Though some good stories are told about the Batch SW6 Legionnaires (I have mixed thoughts about the trans representation in #31, but it's an emotional triumph), they are a huge number of extra characters in a book already straining to use its cast, and most of the "adult" Legion sits around doing nothing for most of this crisis. The at first straightforward retcons start to get more complicated, too, with the introduction of Kid Quantum. But the Sun Boy story is terrific, the fight between Laurel Gand and B.I.O.N. is one of the best fights in comics, and the climax comes together extraordinarily well.

The last doesn't have an overaching title (but you could probably call it The End), and is just #37-39. #37 is a cute side story about Star Boy being a baseball manager, but then in #38 the Earth is destroyed! I'm not sure what I think about this; it feels gratuitous. It's an ambitious issue, covering lots of ground... but that means you feel rather distanced from its momentous events. #39 reads more like the start of something new; I suspect it's here because Giffen pencils some of it and DC wanted to get all of his "Five Years Later" work in this volume, but it reads more like the beginning of the next storyline.

There's also three annuals included. #1 is great, pulling together a history for Ultra Boy and deploying some clever retcons. Weaving Glorith into the events of the two Superboy and the Legion volumes almost makes what Brainiac did there palatable. I never cared much for Ultra Boy before, but this story made me appreciate him a whole lot. #2 does a lot to clarify Valor's history, though it's one of those stories that sounds better in summary than in actuality; I found its events too compressed to have much impact. #3 is half set-up for the Timber Wolf miniseries, but half a "story" where the Legion just chills out. I really enjoyed it: great character writing, lots of good moments. Plus some great Kono jokes!

And then there's Al Gordon's Timber Wolf miniseries. I appreciate that it is here, but it is quite frankly not very good. Timber Wolf is sent to the 1990s, and it's the most mediocre and generic 1990s superhero comic you've ever read. Full of bland, awful characters doing who knows what, and I didn't think it really felt much like Timber Wolf.

Lastly, the volume collects a sequence of Who's Who entries published during its run. These were helpful in orienting me, though it was hard to know when to read them: some contain spoilers for later issues, so beware! I eventually decided I'd just risk it, and usually I alternated between issues and Who's Who issue (so I wouldn't read them all in one go). There's even a series of postcards Giffen illustrated!

Given how much is in here, it feels churlish to complain about what's not, but by a total coincidence, I read Secret Origins #42 right around the same time I started this volume, and it really should have been included: it's by the Bierbaums, giving an origin for Phantom Girl that introduces some threads picked up on in Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1. When reading that story, I found myself glad I had read the Secret Origins issue. I see from Wikipedia that issues #46, 47, and 49 also featured Legion-related tales, but as I haven't read those, I don't know if they would have made good inclusions here. (Only one is by the Bierbaums.)

This volume cuts off at a pretty logical point, when Keith Giffen left the book, and when the Earth was destroyed. Another big omnibus could collect Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 4 #40-61, the two remaining annuals, the eighteen issues of spin-off Legionnaires, and its one annual, enclosing the entire "Five Years Later" era in two large volumes. DC often starts Legion collections and cuts them off before getting anywhere, but I really really hope they can follow through on this book's "volume 1" and tie up this unique, worthwhile era of comics. I think I only scratched the surface in my reading, and I barely even did that in my write-up. I look forward to revisiting this someday and doing it justice.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: Legion: Secret Origin

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice

Published: 2013
Acquired: October 2020
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice

by James Swallow

20 September–12 October 2385
The Fall is back in thriller mode for The Poisoned Chalice-- a mode I knew James Swallow was pretty successful at from his earlier Cast No Shadow. I complained that I found David Mack's attempt at a thriller in A Ceremony of Losses weak; reading The Poisoned Chalice left me better able to understand why. I don't read a lot of governmental thrillers, but I do like those stories where someone has to turn against their own government because it's corrupt. A good thriller is disconcerting, and I think I respond well to that, arguably for the same reason that I like science fiction, and cosmic horror, and mystery stories, and Victorian novels: a good thriller is a story of epistemological crisis. The world does not work the way you thought it did. In A Ceremony of Losses, it was all too clear how the world worked: Bashir was good and Ishan was evil. The Poisoned Chalice is more complicated. Our protagonists-- Riker, Vale, and Tuvok most prominent among them-- don't just not know who to trust, they don't really even know what they should be trying to do because they don't have enough context.

Will Riker is promoted to admiral here. I have a feeling that this is going to mean the Titan series once again is dragged away from its original remit of exploration, but I also have a feeling that a good writer can do something with this, and Swallow does here, as Riker tries to figure out what kind of actions he can take on Fleet Admiral Akaar's behalf to save the heart of Starfleet. It's engaging stuff, though how much Akaar kept Riker in the dark ultimately turned out to be kind of contrived, as once Riker tracks Akaar down, Akaar just tells him what's going on and doesn't really have a clear reason to not have told him earlier. This leaves the disconcerting nature of the earlier parts ringing a little hollow, even as they were engaging as I read them. I did like the subplot about Troi and the Andorians; the Titan series made Deanna chief diplomatic officer, and The Poisoned Chalice shows her putting her empathy (like, normal empathy, not space-talent empathy) to good diplomatic use.

I think the Tuvok plot also suffers a little in retrospect even if it's engaging while you read it. Tuvok, Nog, and Tom Riker are among those assigned to a secret unit of both Starfleet and non-Starfleet personnel trying to track down the killers of President Bacco. This is more action-y than the Riker subplot, and Nog especially gets to show off a bit (which is good, given how David George's Deep Space Nine novels have sidelined him), and I always like a bit of Tuvok. Swallow does a good job with Tom Riker, too, balancing the line of making you believe this is someone Will Riker could have been-- or rather that he is Will Riker, just one who lived a different life. But what doesn't quite work for me is the end of the story reveals why Tuvok and Nog were chosen for this mission: the assembler of the group thought they were both the kind of people who might put ends about means and be willing to countenance extreme measures in bringing down Bacco's assassins. This actually makes sense; the novel highlights Tuvok's time as a spy in the Maquis (where I feel certain he must have done some morally dubious things), but I kept thinking of "Prime Factors," where Tuvok is the one who breaks Janeway's orders in an effort to bring Voyager home. Nog has a pragmatic edge thanks to his Ferengi upbringing (seen in, for example, "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River"). But there's never a point where you think Tuvok or Nog might actually do something ethically dubious, and I wish there had been; I think it would sell the themes of both the book and the whole series better.

Vale's subplot-- she's made brevet captain of a medical transport as an excuse to get her near the prison where Bashir is being held-- is the least complicated of these, but it works well enough. Like Tuvok and Nog, the book mentions the idea that she's actually sympathetic to the Ishan/Velk political axis. There's a lot of characters in this book who are, and unlike in A Ceremony of Losses, they're not all obviously evil. Much moreso than in the last book, I understood how Ishan could have had some actual political success... though I do think The Fall would have benefited if previous books had laid this groundwork more.

My favorite part of the book, though, is really nothing to do with the thriller elements. There's a bit where the Titan crew discover a piece of sensitive information has been transmitted as an encoded holo-matrix. If you know the right code, it will tell you want you need to know; give the wrong one, or try to de-compile it, and it will delete itself. (Shar actually used a similar method of contacting Bashir in Ceremony.) The Titan crew has the most delightfully Star Trekkian solution to this dilemma: if they uplift the program to sentience, they can reason it into giving them the information they need! It's so out there I love it.

Continuity Notes:

• Like in Cast No Shadow, Swallow references some very old-school continuity elements: the Triangle from FASA and the Mann class from the Spaceflight Chronology. Vale's first officer, Commander Atia, is from 892-IV of "Bread and Circuses" fame; The Poisoned Chalice draws on the 1980s Next Generation novel The Captains' Honor in its references, including calling the planet "Magna Roma."
• The book has to clarify that Tom Riker is not dead; I think Titan: Fallen Gods was the first book to indicate that he was. I skimmed back through Fallen Gods; it was done in a passing reference when the Titan's transporter officer is thinking about transporter duplicates (p. 321), so it's easily retconned by having Riker say everyone was just misinformed. The Poisoned Chalice also brings up the fact that Tom Riker had been having sex with Sela in Peter David's Triangle: Imzadi II, a thing I would have been happy to not recall.

Other Notes:

• "The Poisoned Chalice" is an expression from Macbeth. I guess technically Macbeth is a work of literature in the Star Trek universe, but this does rather break the pattern of the titles of the first couple The Fall installments for sure.
• Vale frets that she wants to be helping investigate Bacco's death, but "she knew that the best investigative minds in the UFP were already finding answers" (21). You're wrong, Vale; they assigned Jefferson Blackmer instead.
• The book uses the adjective "Magna Romanii" when referring to Atia. No, just... no. Latin might be a dead language, but Swallow murders it all over again ever time he uses that.
  
• There are currently 58 books in my Destiny-era reading list; The Poisoned Chalice is #29, meaning I am now exactly halfway! I read #1, The Original Series: From History's Shadow, in June 2017, meaning I might hope to read #58, The Next Generation: Collateral Damage in March 2024! (Though later in 2021, three more will come out, extending this journey even further.)
  

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms by Dayton Ward

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

Published: 2013
Acquired: October 2020
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses

by David Mack

31 August–19 September 2385
Clearly it works for other people, but I find David Mack as a writer least interesting in thriller mode. I will admit that I had a number of issues with the Cold Equations trilogy, but I did think that the "Noonien" section of book I, as well as book III, were trying to do something more interesting than his more thriller-y books, like Zero Sum Game and book II of Cold Equations and this one.

As I read, I struggled to isolate why this might be. If someone described A Ceremony of Losses to me, I think it would sound quite good. One of the things I like most about Bashir is that moral crusader spirit he has, where his ideals outrun his practical limits; "The Quickening" is one of my favorite Deep Space Nine episodes, and Warchild one of my favorite novels. This book, then, put that to the ultimate test: Bashir wants to cure the Andorian reproductive crisis, but in doing so must draw on classified information that puts his career and even life at risk. What will he do, especially when he has to go up against his friends and colleagues?

But in the execution it's just not that, well, thrilling, and I'm not sure why. I think partly because Bashir honestly doesn't come across as very tested or conflicted by it all; he sets out on his course of action, and that is that. I didn't feel like he was very often making difficult choices. When Bashir makes his big decision to initiate the whole thing, it's because of a weird vision he has of being judged by Anubis, which feels like a writing crutch, as opposed to his decision being motivated by his Bashir-ness.

In fact, something that bugged me is that it seems like Bashir makes very few choices on the whole. We have the promise of a genetically engineered genius really stretching his limits... but Sarina sets up most of his plan, and he just sits there; when events converge over Andor at the novel's climax, he doesn't do anything particularly smart or impressive. Captain Dax on the Aventine is tasked with hunting him down because she (paraphrasing) "knows how he thinks," but he scarcely does any thinking at all, he's just along for the ride. (And Dax's galaxy-brain move in catching Bashir is to realize the guy who works on Deep Space 9 is probably on a ship that came from Deep Space 9.) I wanted a thrilling book of Bashir pushing his abilities to the limits, but this is mostly limited to him being rude at colleagues.

I said in my review of Brinkmanship that in most novels, I struggle to see Ezri Dax in the character called Captain Ezri Dax, and that was true in this book, where Ezri is rulebound in a way that doesn't ring true. Where's the playful Dax who does what's right? In fact, it ends up being lampshaded when Ezri actually asks Bowers why is she so rulebound all of a sudden! Plus the Ezri/Julian thing is back to immature arguments... I would really be glad to never read about an Ezri/Julian argument in a Star Trek book ever again, thank you.

I think Mack's characters in general don't have strong voices. Lense is here, but she didn't remind me of the Lense I remembered from S.C.E. She's not not Lense, she's just kind of a person who's there. The same goes for Shar; I remember him being one of my favorite DS9 relaunch characters, but I don't see why that would be based on this. And Andor doesn't feel like a real place in the way it did in previous novels like Heather Jarman's Paradigm.

The other thing that bother me is that Mack's Star Trek universe doesn't really feel like the Star Trek universe I know from screen. Almost everyone is mean and selfish-- some people have ideals, but those who are opposed to Bashir are entirely venal and self-interested. Andorian politics are a total shitshow of self-interest; one would hope that the Andorian secessionists at least believed they were doing the right thing, but here they are deliberately encouraging self-extinction to hold onto political power. But this seems to be everywhere: this is our first real look at Ishan, the president pro tem of the Federation, and he's a nasty piece of work, willing to let the Andorians die to beef up his election chances. Really!? Even the characters call out that he's so nasty as to be unrealistic. How did this guy even get elected? As villains go, both he and the Andorian secessionists veer too much into the one note. I would say that they read as implausible, but 2016-20 gave me a real-life leader who is arguably worse... but reality doesn't have to be plausible, you know! Ishan doesn't seem like a very good politician-- he just antagonizes everyone even though he's in a very precarious position! It's been pointed out to me that so did President Trump, but unlike Trump, Ishan supposedly had a long and successful political career before ending up president. I am not sure you could become president pro tem with an attitude like his, and if you can cover it up enough to become president pro tem, surely you could cover it up for an extra sixty days to win an election!

I think in some ways this book and this series is meant to show how proto-fascism can take root even in the Federation, and that could make sense if you think about the extent of the crises the Federation has endured, between the Dominion War and Destiny, but the book itself doesn't really lay that groundwork. The other Starfleet captains are pretty rotten (one sits around thinking about how great it is that he doesn't have any friends). All of this reduces the ostensible dilemma of the novel: there's no meaningful counterargument put forth, no real sense that Bashir could ever be doing anything wrong. Seeing even just one principled character endorsing Ishan's way of doing things would make a big difference.

I don't think the Federation has to be a utopia, but I do think it ought to be aspirational. To be honest, Cardassia seemed like a more idealistic place in The Crimson Shadow than the Federation does here. At the end, Bashir is locked up without trial on a dark penal asteroid! Like, c'mon, I don't read Star Trek books to read about how nasty people can be. I guess I will see what we learn about him in the last two Fall books.

As I was wrapping up this review, I looked at some others. Over at Tor.com, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro says, "Its construction around a poignant ethical dilemma with far-reaching consequences—do you follow lawful orders, even when those orders will lead to the extinction of a recently allied sentient species that you could possibly save?—makes it quintessential Trek..." I mean, I agree that this should be interesting (though orders versus genocide isn't much of a dilemma, to be honest), but I struggle to recognize the novel Zinos-Amaro describes in the one I read.

Continuity Notes:

• Aha, this is the book where we finally find out what happened to those Andorian transporter duplicates... no? okay...

Other Notes:

• This book introduces zh'Tarash, who states her intention to run for Federation president once Andor is readmitted to the Federation. I know from the Prometheus audiobooks that she does indeed win, but this doesn't seem very plausible to me, and I'm not even sure why she wants to run. I guess I will see how this is handled in the next two Fall books.
• The first two Fall books were named after in-universe works of literature, a Bajoran religious text and a Cardassian speculative fiction story, respectively. This is not quite true for A Ceremony of Losses, where in-universe "a ceremony of losses" is a phrase from the Andorian religion: "Though she [zh'Tarash] was not a religious person, she found herself reflecting upon an oft-quoted line from The Liturgy of the Temple of Uzaveh: 'The Path of Light can be found only by those who brave the Road of Storms and weather its ceremony of losses'" (69). Out of universe, though, "a ceremony of losses" is a quotation from a 2012 essay about old age by U.S. poet laureate Donald Hall: "I feel the circles grow smaller, and old age is a ceremony of losses, which is on the whole preferable to dying at forty-seven or fifty-two" ("Out the Window"). I'm not sure I see the relevance.

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice by James Swallow

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow

Published: 2013
Acquired: September 2019
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow

by Una McCormack

24 August–4 September 2385
"Make Cardassia great again!"

If this sentence is ever actually uttered in The Crimson Shadow, I missed it; the back cover uses "restore Cardassia to its proper place and glory" which seem a bit unwieldy for a baseball cap. Despite being published in 2013, the book has clear echoes (pre-echoes?) of populist movements like Brexit and Trumpism: a yearning for a better past which was actually not better than the present. Institutions designed for democracy are being co-opted for undemocratic purposes. It would be depressing if it wasn't for the fact that Una McCormack is able to see a way out of it all, but more on that in a bit.

Just as Revelation and Dust was a Deep Space Nine novel de facto if not de jure, The Crimson Shadow has the Enterprise-E on the cover, and thus seems to be a Next Generation novel de facto. But like a lot of McCormack books, it actually feels like a novel, not a pale reflection of a tv episode. One of the things I really like about her approach is that she picks and chooses her viewpoint characters based on thematic relevance-- every character who we spend time with doesn't just advance the plot, but the ideas of the novel. This means several Enterprise characters don't really appear; the novel gives us the ones we need for the story being told: Picard, Šmrhová, and (in what turns out to be a great surprise, so don't read on if you mind spoilers) Glinn Dygan. On the other hand, we also get a significant storyline featuring Arati Mhevet, a senior investigator in the Cardassian constabulary. And, of course, Elim Garak. Together these characters create a tapestry of post-Dominion Cardassia, and a story about how to behave ethically in the face of institutional pressures to do otherwise.

I really liked Mhevet. She's a cop in the new postwar Cardassian constabulary, one that tries to be answerable to the people-- not to the interests of power like prewar Cardassian institutions. But though she does her best, her complacency and short-sightedness do her in at first before her investigations kick into gear. I really liked every scene featuring her as she tries to navigate what is the right thing to do in some tricky situations where she is the only person trying to do right at all. But even when it seems like it's just her against the planet, she sees things through.

There's a scene featuring her and Garak near the end that brings the whole novel into focus:

Folding his hands around hers, he [Garak] gave her a steady, sky-blue look. "But you understand, don't you, that the institutions don't matter? The Obsidian Order, Central Command, the True Way, Starfleet, empires, unions, federations-- these are names and names only. They are tools. They count for nothing if the purpose is flawed. That was mistake for a long time-- confusing the purpose with the instrument. It took me a long time to learn the truth."
     "What is the truth?"
     "The truth?" Garak laughed, softly, as if he had never imagined that he would be asked such a question. "The truth is that the institution flourishes only when the people who comprise it flourish. And if the people are sick, the institution will be sick." He squeezed her hand. "If there's anything I could teach you, I'd teach you that."
     "I think I knew that. But I became complacent, or frightened, or something.... Whatever it was, I held myself back from what was going on."
     "Yes," he said, nodding, "that was your mistake, Arati. But it doesn't stop, you understand? It doesn't ever stop. We can never hold ourselves back." (267)

Ostensibly this is about Mhevet, but it is also the idea underpinning the strands about Picard and Šmrhová. Cardassia is on the verge of seeing the Federation withdraw when President Bacco is assassinated over in Revelation and Dust, and the new interim Federation president is a Bajoran who is less kindly disposed toward Cardassia. He gives some orders that will cause harm to the planet and its standing: and Picard and Šmrhová both have to find ways to do good within an institution that inhibits their ability to do it. Šmrhová has been a regular character since Destiny, but like with Bowers in McCormack's Brinkmanship, this was the first time I felt she had a personality, as she takes the action she thinks is right-- violating a presidential order-- and in doing so saves the day. There's a great scene between her and Dygan at the end. Dygan is a serious young man, prone to overthinking everything. He has to participate in some awful stuff here, but he and Šmrhová find solace in each other: her being the Starfleet officer who doesn't think, and knows when to bend the rules, him being the career Cardassian officer who learned to know when his institutions were leading him astray.

This is Una McCormack, so on top of all this thematic richness, there's of course Garak and Cardassia. McCormack does a great job of threading the needle with both of those, making them recognizable yet evolved at the same time. I loved a scene where a bunch of Cardassians get discomfited by the idea of peacefully rally. A bunch of people freely stating their opinions in public!? This is a proud people but a stubborn people, too; they are weighed down by their past instead of empowered by it. I also thought McCormack did a good job with the politics of it all, especially in the way Castellan Garan gets pushed into an untenable position.

And yeah, Garak. His letters (picking up from A Stitch in Time) are a constant delight, as is his dialogue. McCormack nails his voice; the idea that he had a long-term friendship with Bacco is a great one, as is the way Garak expresses so much of himself through the discussion of literature. (Garak loving Austen isn't a thing I would have expected but it makes so much sense as soon as you are told it.) She even makes the idea of Garak becoming leader of Cardassia plausible! Well, kinda. I buy it from a character perspective; I don't quite buy that Cardassia would vote for a former Obsidian Order agent. But I think this will open up interesting avenues in the future, and I look forward to seeing its ramifications in future books.

Like I said, this is a book that anticipated Brexit and Trumpism. But it also anticipated a way out: Cardassia cannot be made "great again" through its institutions. But it can be made great if its people are great, as long as a rose grows in the ruins and someone is willing to speak truth to power. This book is a moving, meaningful celebration of the Cardassian (and human) ability to stop, to say what must be done, and in doing so change both one's self and the world.

Continuity Notes:

• It's not the fault of the book, but my memory of postwar Cardassian history was a bit fuzzy. Specifically, I hadn't realized that "The Calling" from Prophecy and Change had been pinned down chronologically (by The Never-Ending Sacrifice? or maybe A Singular Destiny, going by Memory Beta). That means Alon Ghemor is dead, succeeded by Raken Garan as castellan of the Cardassian Union. And I barely remember The Lotus Flower at all, which is referenced a few times. I did piece it all together eventually.
• If my sums are right, Garak was Cardassian ambassador to the Federation for more than seven years. It's weird to think he would have lived on Earth longer than he lived on Deep Space 9!* But in this case, I do believe it; Garak has been changed by his time on Earth in a way that was not true of O'Brien's time on Cardassia in Revelation and Dust.
  
• Damar and Dukat had no first names on screen; the fiction has dubbed them Corat Damar and Skrain Dukat, respectively. I get why prose needs to do this, but I always find it a bit jarring. (Plus I hate "Skrain.") What particularly jars here is that every time Damar is mentioned (and he's mentioned at a lot, having become a postwar hero for his resistance to the Dominioin), he's called "Corat Damar." Corat Damar this, Corat Damar that. We got through four years of him on tv without his first name being mentioned, but here we can't go four minutes!

Other Notes:

• There are just a lot of nice little touches in this book. The little kid informant with a voracious appetite that Mhevet rescues is one of them; I enjoyed how Šmrhová was punished by Picard with babysitting duty, and how the girl insists she needs to eat breakfast with "the nice old man." And a part where seeing this girl in mortal danger causes Picard to text Crusher to hug René for him was a nice touch, too.
• There is a great bit of comedy where Garak complains that unlike Picard, Sisko would have let him overthrow a democratically elected leader. I would have loved to have seen Patrick Stewart and Andrew Robinson play some of these scenes on screen.
• The thing about how coffee has become so popular on Cardassia is great, as is what its unavailability symbolizes.
• Picard gifts Garak a copy of The Master and Margarita, a book I own but have not yet got around to reading. I must do so!
  
• I didn't find a place to mention it in the main body of my review, but man can McCormack write. Above and beyond any other working Star Trek writer, her prose has a real sense of voice. I love those scenes where she does something like move outside of the generic third-person limited perspective that dominates Star Trek fiction, especially when she also plays with tense. The end of Part One, where we get a summation of where everyone is at the moment Picard finds out Nan Bacco is dead (pp. 118-21), for example, is powerful.

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: A Ceremony of Losses by David Mack

* Pedants take note that I said "Deep Space 9," not "Terok Nor and Deep Space 9."

Reading Roundup Wrapup: February 2021

Pick of the month: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1 by Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Al Gordon, et al. A slim month (kind of), but this was still an obvious standout, a collection of some of the best, most ambitious comics to be published under the Legion of Super-Heroes banner.

All books read:
1. Heads by Greg Bear
2. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four by Simon Furman, et al.
3. Doctor Who Magazine: Special Edition #54: The 2020 Yearbook edited by Marcus Hearn
4. Legion of Super-Heroes: Five Years Later Omnibus, Volume 1 by Keith Giffen, Tom & Mary Bierbaum, Al Gordon, et al.

Not my best month! I feel like I've been cheated, though; at 1,300 pages, Five Years Later could have been ten books with a different collecting strategy, and then I would have done quite well!

All books acquired:
1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Missing by Una McCormack
2. Star Trek: Prometheus: In the Heart of Chaos by Bernd Perplies and Christian Humberg
3. Legion of Super-Heroes: Before the Darkness, Volume One by Gerry Conway, Paul Kupperberg, E. Nelson Bridwell, J. M. DeMatteis, Jim Janes, Steve Ditko, Jim Sherman, Frank Chiaramonte, Dave Hunt, et al.
4. Capitol: The Worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card

All books on "To be read" list: 662 (up 1)

Star Trek: The Destiny Era: The Fall: Revelation and Dust

Published: 2013
Acquired: April 2019
Read: November 2020

Star Trek: The Fall: Revelation and Dust

by David R. George III

22 August–1 September 2385
As much as I have often been critical of Destiny-era fiction, I would say that it has all reached a basic level of competence: they are all stories about people trying to accomplish things against obstacles placed in their way. Now, this might seem like damning with faint praise... but it's praise one cannot bring to Revelation and Dust, a book where almost nothing happens for the first 250 pages.

No one is trying to accomplish anything and encountering obstacles; rather, we just get a series of dull scenes intended to establish what all the Deep Space Nine characters have been up to since they were last seen in Raise the Dawn. Sisko thinks a lot while Yates makes dinner in a replicator. Ro thinks a lot while looking at a park. Quark thinks a lot while looking at his bar. O'Brien thinks a lot while putting on his dress uniform. Nan Bacco has meetings that don't really go anywhere, but I assume are meant to set up things that will happen in later installments of The Fall. There seem to be an interminable number of scenes where people go to memorials or other ceremonies. But nothing actually happens.

A lot of the book seems to be there to set up the new Deep Space 9. There are paragraphs about things like turbolift design and the layout of Ops and what the new hospital is like and what the names of every counselor assigned to the station are. Quite frankly, I don't care what it all looks like if there's not a story it's all in support of. In any case, as long as the station gets rebuilt and replaced, there's no way destroying it could really change the fundamentals of DS9 storytelling in a meaningful way. It's like when a comic book crossover kills off a minor-but-beloved character to prove the situation is serious... it doesn't prove anything at all, because you know that the next time a writer wants to use, say, Firestorm, he'll be back, and he'll be fine. DS9 is back, and it doesn't matter if "Ops" is now called "the Hub," everything was fine.

The one exception to this is the Kira subplot. Kira was on a runabout that exploded in the wormhole in Raise the Dawn (I guess? I actually totally forgot about this), and we find out what happened to her here. First she spends her time observing a, I shit you not, 25-page line-by-line recap of every single wormhole scene from "Emissary." It is so boring. I have seen "Emissary," and whatever new spin one might gain on it is quickly drained away by the fact that Kira is way behind the reader in terms of what is happening. I have no idea what this was supposed to be in aid of.

I should have counted my blessings, because soon Kira is in the ancient past of Bajor, inhabiting the existence of someone named "Keev," and it is 100% people you don't care about with space names interacting with other people you don't care about with space names. The novel never gives you a reason to want Keev to succeed, and I quickly turned to skimming these chapters when they appeared. This is actually the third time in the DS9 relaunch there's been an extended sequence of Kira in Bajor's past (it also happened in "Horn and Ivory" and Warpath), so this is a well that's been gone to a bit too much at this point. As my friend Brendan pointed out, "all they ever feel like is a thematic crutch. Why not have Kira evolve and learn lessons based on events in her actual life?"

SPOILERS: Two thirds of the way into this book, Federation president Nan Bacco is assassinated. You might thing this would kick the book into high gear, but instead, people sit around and think about how sad they are. The investigation has little sense of urgency, and not all the actions Ro and Blackmer take make a lot of sense. (Ro announces Bacco is dead, and it doesn't occur to her that all the other heads of state might have security concerns until they contact her.)

The lack of urgency is exacerbated by the fact that at this point the Keev chapters increase in frequency, now alternating with present-day events, so every time something does happen, you're promptly jerked to something you don't care about.

I like David R. George III as a writer-- Twilight and Serpents among the Ruins rank among my favorite Star Trek books-- but his Destiny-era stuff started out feeling misguided, and seems to keep getting worse.

Continuity Notes:

• The O'Brien family moved to Cardassia in 2376, if I recall correctly; O'Brien was then assigned to build the new Deep Space 9 in 2383. That means he lived on Cardassia for seven years... as long as he lived on the original Deep Space 9! To be honest, I just don't feel it, and I don't know if I ever will.
• Also, why has Nog essentially been demoted in responsibility? Before his assignment to the Challenger in Indistinguishable from Magic he was chief engineer of Deep Space 9; now that he's returned, he's assistant chief engineer! And he's assistant to a guy he considerably outranks.
  

Other Notes:

• Copy editing is a bit poor. On p. 45, for example, we're told Kira "didn't care much for the sport [of baseball]-- or really even understand it," and then two paragraphs later that Kira "[a]lthough she had eventually learned the rules of the sport, she had never really understood it." Yes, I got it the first time!
• There's also some very clunky dialogue, such as a sequence where O'Brien, Nog, Bashir, and Sarina discuss how many heads of state are on the station: "'I'm not talking about worlds,' O'Brien said, 'I'm talking about empires and unions and hegemonies.' 'Don't forget alliances,' Nog said, doubtless speaking about his Ferengi origins" (p. 239).
  
• To be honest, I feel like it's hard to justify Ro and Blackmer keeping their jobs. They had one station sabotaged out from under them, and then on the day the next one opened, the president of the Federation was killed! What kind of operation are they running?

I read Destiny-era Star Trek books in batches of five every few months. Next up in sequence: The Fall: The Crimson Shadow by Una McCormack

Doctor Who at Christmas: Twelve Angels Weeping

Originally published: 2018
Acquired: December 2020
Read: January 2021

Doctor Who: Twelve Angels Weeping
by Dave Rudden

 

This is a collection of twelve stories set in the Doctor Who universe, most having some kind of Christmas connection (however slight), most featuring the Doctor, most featuring a monster of some sort. I started reading the book on Christmas Day 2020, and read one story per day, which turned out to be a really fun project.

 

Rudden had never written any Doctor Who book before this, but alone he has more variety and invention than some Doctor Who anthologies written by twenty-five different authors. Highlights for me included a noir story about a private detective on Gallifrey hired to track down the TARDIS the Doctor stole (containing a surprising but subtle tie-in to Prisoners of Fate, a Big Finish audio dram), a story told from the point-of-view of a Cyberman, a really neat story of the Paternoster Gang, an adventure for Rory and the eleventh Doctor investigating a regicide, and a story of the Master trying to be the Doctor. There was only one I didn't really like, an overly long story of a heist that I didn't really get the point of.

The best story was "The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street," about an Irish girl from 1960s Dublin, chafing in Catholic school, who discovers that a Judoon has moved in next door. Really well told and heartwarming.

 

All of the stories have a strong sense of voice and tone, short Doctor Who fiction at its very best. This is the twelfth Doctor Who Christmas book I've read, and it's the one I've enjoyed the most except for Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury.

I read a Doctor Who Christmas book every year. Next up in sequence: The Wintertime Paradox

The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 3)

Collection published: 2011
Contents originally published: 1985-86
Acquired: November 2020
Read: December 2020

The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One

editorial notes and assistance by James Roberts

Written by Steve Parkhouse, Simon Furman, James Hill, and Mike Collins
Art by John Ridgway, Mike Collins, Jeff Anderson, John Stokes, Barry Kitson, Mark Farmer, William Simpson, and Geoff Senior
Colors by Gina Hart, Josie Fermin, Steve Whitaker, Scott Whittaker, John Burns, and Stuart Place
Letters by Richard Starkings, John Aldrich, Annie Halfacree, and Mike Scott

In the 1980s, Marvel UK wasn't just the publisher of the Doctor Who magazine, it also published its own, original Transformers strip, which wove in and out of the events of the US Transformers comic. Doctor Who and Transformers didn't cross over per se, but there were some elements that crossed from the one to the other, so I decided-- because there's no marathon I can't make more complicated-- to alternate collections of the Doctor Who strip with collections of the Transformers one up until I reach the point where they interact. IDW has collected the first few years of the UK strip in a series of volumes with commentary and interviews by More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light scribe James Roberts. They are out of print and horrendously expensive, but you can get them off comiXology for pretty reasonable prices. This volume collects issues #9-21, 29-32, and 41-44 of the UK comic (the other issues were reprints of US material), along with the 1985 Annual; the stories take place in between the US stories collected in vol. 1 of IDW's The Transformers Classics. Someday I'd like to read the US and UK stories in an integrated order,* but for now, I'm just depending on my memories of the US comic, plus Roberts's helpful editorial commentary.

As a result, it's something of an odd read-- no cohesive story, and because the stories are the work of four different writers, no cohesive vision, either, though near the end of the collected stories, one begins to emerge. First, Steve Parkhouse (writer of the Doctor Who strip during the fourth, fifth, and sixth Doctor eras) gives us "Man of Iron," a grim and serious tale of the Transformers coming to an English village; I've previously reviewed it as part of The Transformers Classics, Vol. 3 (the US comic reprinted it as a flashback story).

You don't talk to strangers, and you don't get in strangers' cars... but should you talk to car strangers?
from The Transformers #10 (script by Steve Parkhouse, art by John Ridgway)

"Man of Iron" sets a very distinct tone for a Transformers story, with the Transformers themselves often silent and mysterious, the way robots in disguise might seem to human beings. None of the other UK stories do that, being more in tune with the US style, but there is a more character focus than I remember from Bob Budiansky's US tales. This makes sense: the big events of the ongoing narrative being driven by what was happening in the US issues, the area the UK comic could really work was in expanding character moments. So we get stories that focus on Brawn, Starscream, Ravage, Grimlock and the Dinobots, Ratchet, Bumblebee, Circuit Breaker, and even Optimus Prime himself.

I always like a bit of Ratchet.
from The Transformers #31 (script by Simon Furman, art by Barry Kitson)

 
They're all pretty solid (with the exception of "Decepticon Dam-Busters!" and the two by James Hill), but the standout character for me here was Ravage, someone I hadn't really given much thought to before (though I think he did get a nice issue somewhere in James Barber's Transformers run). In some continuities (including, I think, Marvel US), Ravage is silent, but that's not true here, where he pursues his own agenda-- one of utterly ruthless loyalty to Megatron. I liked the straightforwardness of his duplicity: he will do anything except betray his leader.

Ravage might be awesome, but Windcharger is pretty meh.
from The Transformers #20 (script by Simon Furman, art by Mike Collins & Jeff Anderson)

Plus there's a great bit where Grimlock tests a replacement hand by punching out Ratchet.

The art is interesting-- based more often on the actual toys or their package art than the character models used by the US comic. In the case of some characters, this means they have the spindly look of cheap toys; supposedly strong Brawn looks like you could break him in half. But I did like the comic's weird, unique look for Optimus. And Circuit Breaker looks a lot more curvaceous than I remember! There's real talent here, of course: John Ridgway, Mike Collins (of Darkstars fame), Mark Farmer (who later worked on Alan Davis's Killraven). I hadn't even known that Barry Kitson (whose work on L.E.G.I.O.N. and Legion was excellent) was British, much less that he'd started out here! I don't think anyone would call this his best work, but still.

I liked Warparth (the tank guy) and was a bit bummed to learn this is considered out of continuity because of him (he didn't actually debut until after this supposedly takes place).
from Transformers Annual 1985 (script by Simon Furman, art by Mike Collins & Jeff Anderson)

There are also some nice pieces of backstory, like "And There Shall Come... a Leader!", which delves into Optimus's life on Cybertron. In these days, "Prime" isn't a title, but just part of his name. I also really enjoyed "Plague of the Insecticons!", where the Autobots attempt to reach out to President Reagan, but things go terribly wrong.

Like, why is his face all blue?
from Transformers Annual 1985 (script by Simon Furman, art by Mike Collins & Jeff Anderson)

 
On its own, this is a weird set of stories, maybe, but I can see how it will be the foundation for the UK's own distinct take on the Transformers mythos, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

* For the stories contained in this volume, I suggest the following: US #1-3, UK #9-21, US #4-8, UK #29-32, US #9-12, UK #41-44. (The annual stories are outside of continuity by and large.)

This post is the third in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Tides of Time. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw
   

Dragon's Claw (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 2)

Collection published: 2004
Contents originally published: 1980-82
Acquired: December 2013
Read: November 2020

Dragon's Claw: Collected Comic Strips from the Pages of Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly
by Dave Gibbons, Steve Parkhouse, Steve Moore, et al.

This volume transitions us out Mills & Wagner era into that of first Steve Moore and then Steven Parkhouse; at the same time, the Doctor Who magazine goes from a weekly to a monthly, and the stories decrease in length. I'm guessing this is because it's one thing to serialize a story in eight parts when that means it takes eight weeks, and another when when that means it takes eight months! Later the mag would reverse this decision-- which I think was the right call, based on this volume.

Dragon's Claw, from Doctor Who Weekly #39-43 / Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #44-45 (July-Oct. 1980)
written by Steve Moore, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

This is the last of the big fourth Doctor comic stories; in a way, it feels like Steve Moore's attempt to do a Mills & Wagner, so to speak. Interesting setting, big enemy, long-form storytelling... yet this never clicked for me. I'm not sure I could say why. (Dave Gibbons actually says something similar in the intro to Iron Legion.) Maybe it's because the Doctor and Sharon and K-9 spend most of the story sitting around? For a story about ninja warrior monks (there's your RTD connection again!) and Sontarans, it's surprisingly light on action; compare this to The Iron Legion or The Dogs of Doom, which are constantly moving moving moving. The stakes feel very abstract too. I guess the emperor is threatened, but so what? Anyway it seems to me that this story marks the beginning of a slump for the strip. The Time Witch was a wobble, but could have been an aberration; this story confirms it.

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #46

The Collector, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #46 (Nov. 1980)
written by Steve Moore, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

This one starts out pretty good: the Doctor and Sharon land in Blackcastle, but get sucked to an asteroid by a guy who's been kidnapping humans and putting them on display for centuries. Trying to get him free from a deranged computer, the Doctor accidentally gets him and K-9 killed... so he just goes back in time and undoes it, the end. Sure, there's some bafflegab to justify why he can't always do this, but it's a big cheat regardless. Plus he never actually sets the victims of the Collector free! (The bit of bafflegab is lettered in a slightly different hand, which makes me think it was added at the last minute when someone objected that the Doctor would do this all the time if it were possible.) I think it debuts a formula we'll see through the rest of Steve Moore's time on the strip: more on that later.

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #48

Dreamers of Death, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #47-48 (Dec. 1980–Jan. 1981)
written by Steve Moore, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

The TARDIS lands on an Earth colony planet where the Doctor has some old friends; the use of alien creatures to create shared dream experiences has become all the rage since his last visit. Well, it turns out the alien creatures are evil. You probably could write an interesting story about this concept, but this isn't it; the dream stuff is abandoned in favor of the creatures merging into a giant devil-shaped gestalt creature and stomping through the city. The Doctor defeats it with a hose.

This is Sharon's last story; suddenly she's decided to start a new life with a guy she meets in the story, even more sudden than Leela falling in love with Andred, which is saying something. It's disappointing but not too disappointing because introductory story and maybe Dogs of Doom aside she's never really had much to do except stand there while the Doctor explains things. She feels a very RTD companion, like I've said, but without storytelling actually focused on her as a character, she quickly becomes generic. The idea that she could go straight from 14 to 18 raises more problems than it solves... and now she's settling down!? It's all a bit weird. (Sharon says there's nothing for her in Blackcastle now that she's grown up... yet in one of these stories, she mentioned having a father! I am pretty sure Big Finish made her into an orphan.)

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #52

The Life Bringer! / War of the Words / Spider-God, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #49-52 (Feb.-May 1981)
written by Steve Moore, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

Here we settle into the Steve Moore pattern (into which you could also insert The Collector and, to a lesser extent, Dreamers of Death): mediocre sci-fi adventures that feel like rejected Twilight Zone scripts with some kind of sting in the tail. In The Life Bringer!, the Doctor meets and liberates Prometheus. Is he the real god? At the end, Prometheus heads to Earth to make life. Is this the origin of humanity in the distant past, or its resurrection in the distant future? I feel like the end wants you to go "spooky..." but frankly I didn't care.

War of the Words is about aliens fighting over a library; it has a pretty dumb resolution. Spider-God is about a weird alien biology, where the whole story is built around a twist ending that feels like it comes from a mediocre American sf story of the 1930s. At least Dave Gibbons draws the hell out of everything!

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #55

The Deal / End of the Line, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #53-55 (June-Aug. 1981)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

Here is the debut of Steve Parkhouse as strip writer, who quickly makes his style known: bleak stories of an ineffective Doctor. In The Deal, the TARDIS and an alien soldier get stuck on a battlefield, and team up to get off, but the Doctor ditches the soldier and he dies when the Doctor realizes he's a monster. In End of the Line, the Doctor faces zombies in a ruined cityscape; he helps some survivors escape but the story ends with him realizing there's no place for them to escape to... and they all die en route anyway! Ouch, geeze, way to cheer me up, New Steve. The dark brooding cityscapes of End of the Line are pretty neat, though.

By this point, things that remind me of the RTD years have largely vanished from the strip... with the exception of the fact that End of the Line is about a bunch of people trapped in a dystopian urban center yearning to get out to an edenic countryside, but who need the Doctor to repair their transport system. So, yeah, "Gridlock" again!

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #56

The Free-Fall Warriors, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #56-57 (Sept.-Oct. 1981)
written by Steve Parkhouse, artwork & lettering by Dave Gibbons

This is like one of those episodes of a tv show where the main cast does little except meet some people who are clearly being set up for a spin-off. The Doctor's on vacation, where he meets a science fiction writer named Ivan Asimoff (!). The two of them then meet a group of stunt pilots called the Freefall Warriors (that's how it's always written in the story, though part one is called "the Free-Fall Warriors" and part two "the Free Fall Warriors"). One is a big tiger and is named "Big Cat"; another has a machine head and is called "Machine Head"; one is named "Bruce." You can tell Parkhouse put a lot of work into this. The Doctor and Asimoff mostly sit there while the Freefall Warriors thwart a raider attack in contrived circumstances. I barely get why the Doctor is in this story; the purpose of the Asimoff character is even less clear!

Like I said, it feels like the Freefall Warriors are being set up for bigger things, but if so, they didn't amount to much; Big Cat reappeared solo in the Doctor Who Summer Special for 1982, and there was a four-issue back-up strip in Captain Britain in 1985 showing how they all met. None of this material has been collected as far as I know.

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #58

Junk-Yard Demon, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #58-59 (Nov.-Dec. 1981)
written & lettered by Steve Parkhouse, pencils by Mike McMahon, inks by Adolfo Buylla

For the first time in my DWM journey, we have a strip not drawn by Dave Gibbons. (I know he didn't draw #17-18, but I haven't got there yet!) Mike McMahon and Adolfo Buylla have a drastically different style: lots of dark, distorted proportions, sparse backgrounds, detailed mechanics. I love their boggle-eyed Tom Baker. The story is fun, probably the best Parkhouse-written tale in this volume. Actually, the best-written tale in this volume full stop. The Doctor meets some scavengers who repurpose Cybermen as servants; one is accidentally reactivated and it steals the TARDIS, along with one of the scavengers. It's a neat, atmospheric story, slightly injured by some unclear storytelling from McMahon and Buylla; there are times I didn't follow the action right away.

The Neutron Knights, from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #60 (Jan. 1982)
written & lettered by Steve Parkhouse, artwork by Dave Gibbons

The fourth Doctor departs DWM at his most ineffectual in Steve Parkhouse's most depressing tale yet: the Doctor stands and watches as barbaric space knights invade a castle; everyone dies when Merlin overloads an atomic reactor! Wow, Steve Parkhouse really hates happy endings, huh? This one foreshadows The Tides of Time but I didn't think it really worked on its own. Which, to be fair, it's not meant to be read on its own. I might be pausing a bit before picking up my next volume, but back in the day, it was straight from this to part one of The Tides of Time in Feb. 1982!

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #60

Stray Observations:

• I am reliably informed that The Collector features the introduction of that old Doctor Who comics convention, the use of "VWORP! VWORP!" to represent the sound of the TARDIS materializing. This is a surprisingly hard thing to research on the Internet; I found one article on BuzzFeed that clarified it dates back years... all the way to the Matt Smith era! Wow.
  
• The Free-Fall Warriors features, I believe, the debut of the long-running DWM future space currency, the mazuma.
• Weirdly, The Neutron Knights's narration captions are in the past tense. I feel like this almost never happens in comic stories (unless there's some kind of retrospective frame). I found it jarring, but I think it's just a Steve Parkhouse thing, as I noticed he did this in some of his Transformers strips as well.

This post is the second in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion