An ongoing discussion of how the comics provide prequels, sequels, and tie-ins to the Star Trek episodes and films, soon to be a book from BearManor Media.
43: DC Comics, 1995–1996
With Marvel Comics soon to regain the Star Trek license, DC Comics started wrapping up its Trek run in the mid-1990s. The Next Generation‘s finale, “All Good Things…” aired in May 1994, followed by the theatrical release of Star Trek: Generations that November. The following year, DC’s monthly Next Generation title began incorporating the developments of both the finale and the film into its continuity, by having Jean-Luc Picard’s crew consider the ramifications of the possible future Q had revealed, while setting the stage for the changes the characters would undergo on the big screen.
Issues #71–75 presented “War and Madness,” the first DC tale set in the period after The Next Generation‘s seventh season but before Generations. Written by Michael Jan Friedman, the multi-parter was illustrated by Gordon Purcell and Terry Pallot, with covers by Pallot, Purcell, and Sonia Hillios. In addition to “All Good Things…” and Generations, it heavily mined The Original Series‘ “The Tholian Web,” as well as The Next Generation‘s “The Icarus Factor,” “I, Borg,” and “Descent,” by bringing together the Tholian Assembly, Hugh’s former Borg drones (dubbed “Ex-Bs” on Star Trek: Picard), and Will Riker’s once-estranged father Kyle.
Picard’s officers ponder whether their lives will play out as they did in the future revealed by Q, and it seems doubtful the potential timeline will come to pass—which is fortuitous in hindsight, as Star Trek: Nemesis and Star Trek: Picard have since negated several aspects of that timeline. Beverly Crusher, for instance, creates a holodeck program to explore her romantic feelings for Picard, based on the revelation that the two would wed, but she ends the program after holo-Jean-Luc proposes, knowing it’s not real. As season three of Picard has shown, the Beverly-Jean-Luc romance would follow a very different path from that predicted in “All Good Things…”
Geordi La Forge tries to imagine becoming a famous writer, finds it difficult, and decides to remain an engineer. There’s a witty reference to The Original Series‘ “A Private Little War,” as La Forge tries his hand at creative writing but realizes his description of a captain pacing “like a caged mugato” makes no sense at all. Mugatos, it would seem, do not pace, especially in cages. Who knew? (Geordi did. That’s who.) In fact, Data wonders whether any of Q’s revelations will still occur, particularly Deanna Troi’s death driving a wedge between Will Riker and Worf. However, Deanna’s appearance in Star Trek: Picard‘s “Nepenthe,” alive and married to Will, overwrites that possibility.
Meanwhile, the android’s double demise in Nemesis and Picard‘s “Et in Arcadia Ego” would seem to rule out his holding the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, or living in the former home of Sir Isaac Newton… unless Daystrom Android M-5-10, the Data/Lore/B-4/Lal hybrid from Picard‘s “The Bounty,” chooses that career path. Picard still ends up with Irumodic Syndrome, according to Picard‘s “Maps and Legends,” so not everything from that potential future will turn out differently—except even that isn’t true, since the episode “Vox” shows he never had the disease to begin with.
Picard records a letter for his brother Robert (“Family”), saying recent events have made him value family more than ever, and that he hopes to reunite soon. In a poignant moment, Jean-Luc predicts a successful Starfleet future for his nephew Rene, unaware that Robert’s family, as noted in the film, will tragically die in a fire not long after this story. When an emergency calls him away, Picard saves the letter so he can “complete it some other time“—a callback to Tolian Soran’s film dialogue that “time is the fire in which we burn.”
The main focus of “War and Madness” is on an enraged Tholian captain who, convinced that the Federation has attacked his people, slaughters several colonies and destroys the USS Stockholm. His more level-headed first officer, Nethrax, wonders if such actions are justified, and so he helps Picard and Riker avert a galactic war. To deal with the situation, the Enterprise brings aboard noted Tholian expert Kyle Riker—who, to his son Will’s surprise, arrives with a heretofore unmentioned fiancée, Brenda Sorenson.
Kyle’s Tholian expertise was established in “The Icarus Factor,” and the character briefly appeared in DC’s issue #21, when Will had been presumed dead. “War and Madness,” though, was the first time in the comics that father and son had reunited. This leads to several emotional moments, for while the two have repaired their fractured relationship, Will resents not having been told about another woman taking his mother’s place, and he reacts rather childishly to the news, rebuffing her initial attempts to get to know her new stepson. The two finally bond after Brenda breaks off the engagement with Kyle, when Will sets aside his resentment and convinces her not to throw away a solid marriage.
Throughout the story, Riker and Kyle clash over methodologies and strategies, partly due to Will’s discomfort over his father remarrying and partly because the two disagree about how to save the Enterprise from a Tholian energy web. La Forge identifies a blind spot, enabling the starship to break free, after which a Klingon squadron comes to Picard’s aid, forcing a Tholian retreat. But to make matters worse, Chancellor Gowron accuses Starfleet of destroying Klingon outposts to start a war.
With Nethrax’s insight, Picard and Gowron realize the Federation, Klingons, and Tholians have been manipulated by an unknown party into fighting each other, and the trail leads to the planet where Hugh (“I, Borg”) and his fellow Ex-Bs (“Descent”) had settled to build a life free of the Borg. It turns out that not all of Hugh’s followers have been content with freedom; several long to return to the Collective, but since doing so would infect other Borg like Hugh did to them, they’ve grown angry and disenfranchised.
Thus, when a Klingon ship had crashed on their colony, an Ex-B called Enab led a breakaway faction of discontented former drones. Enab and his comrades stole the Klingon vessel so they could torture and experiment on Tholians in order to adapt the species’ hive-mind for their own purposes—an effort doomed to failure since the Tholians have not communicated collectively for centuries. Amusingly, Enab is drawn to resemble Bane, a massively muscled Batman villain, and “Enab” is “Bane” spelled backwards. This thematically fits, as Enab becomes the bane of the three governments’ existence.
Hugh’s return on Star Trek: Picard negated his involvement in DC’s tale, for according to “The Impossible Box,” he and Jean-Luc hadn’t seen each other since “Descent.” What’s more, the Tholians are drawn differently here than how they would appear on Enterprise‘s “In a Mirror, Darkly.” In “The Tholian Web,” Loskene was only shown from the neck up, but here their entire form is depicted—and it doesn’t quite match.
Friedman, Purcell, and Pallot are not to blame for any of these discrepancies, of course, as DC’s tales were produced before either Enterprise or Picard had debuted. Since the artists had nothing on which to base their illustrations, they depicted the Tholians as massive and bipedal, unlike their squat, spider-like physique later shown onscreen. In any case, it doesn’t detract from readers’ ability to enjoy this well-crafted tale.
The next several columns will conclude our examination of DC’s Star Trek lore, as well as Malibu’s concurrent Deep Space Nine tale. The end of a bold era of Star Trek looms, but a Marvel-ous new one is on the horizon.
Looking for more information about Star Trek comics? Check out these resources:
- My ongoing column for Titan Books’ Star Trek Explorer magazine
- The Complete Star Trek Comics Index, curated by yours truly
- The Star Trek Comics Checklist, by Mark Martinez
- The Wixiban Star Trek Collectables Portal, by Colin Merry
- New Life and New Civilizations: Exploring Star Trek Comics, by Joseph F. Berenato (Sequart, 2014)
- Star Trek: A Comics History, by Alan J. Porter (Hermes Press, 2009)
- The Star Trek Comics Weekly page on Facebook
Rich Handley has written, co-written, co-edited, or contributed to dozens of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about Planet of the Apes, Watchmen, Back to the Future, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Stargate, Dark Shadows, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Red Dwarf, Blade Runner, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman, the Joker, classic monsters, and more. He has also been a magazine writer and editor for nearly three decades. Rich edited Eaglemoss’s Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection, and he currently writes articles for Titan’s Star Trek Explorer magazine, as well as books for an as-yet-unannounced role-playing game. Learn more about Rich and his work at richhandley.com.
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