It’s crap like this that will keep me off of Star Trek Comics.
This collection of, say, five or six comics (with three or so as one Q story arc) is an abomination, an embarrassment to Star Trek fans.
Written in the early 90s, not during the mists of time that the Gold Key comics were born from, these tales of post-Encounter at Farpoint/pre-Lt. Yar gets killed by the mudman are supposed to show the TNG crew getting to know one another. But the writer never bothered to know the crew! The voices are all wrong! Worf is a wishy-washy squirt, Data burst with emotion and Riker says British things like “I know what you’re on about.” This is garbage and makes me wonder if I should ever read another Trek TPB again. Yeah….I know I will…..
Trek goes to Ferenginar! Not since the first time we went to Qu’Onos has visiting an homeworld been this entertaining. 7 strips of latinum just to ride the elevator. Hilarious.
Well, it turns out that Quark and Rom’s mother (Andrea Martin! Of course!) has dared to a) wear clothes and b) make profit. Quark is summoned by the Ferengi Commerce Authority to straighten her our. Hilarity and understanding ensue.
Turns out Neelix has a backstory after all. His family was wiped out in a Hiroshima-like blast and there he is, meeting Robert Oppenheimer.
There are some reversals, revelations, moments of interest but the main thing is this: are scientists to blame for what politicians and Generals do? Probably, yeah, maybe a little. This is the first time I liked Neelix.
After the heavy action of The Die is Cast DS9 needs a breather. This little tip of the hat to the Kon Tiki> allows everyone to chill and talk. Dr. Bashir & Chief O’Brien drink and sing “Jerusalem,” Sisko & son get all Steampunk in thier Solar Sailer.
Those creepy organ hunters the Vidiians are back. By now everyone should know: stay out of caves! Anyway, B’elanna Torres is split in two. Much like Kirk got beamed back half good/half bad, Torres is somehow gene spliced into half-Klingon half-Puerto Rican. Philosophical questions about consciousness, self and identity aside, the two must work together is part ass-kicker, part computer-tapper to escape. But not before Chakotay shows up dressed as Leatherface.
The Doctor is somehow able to get the DNA from dead all-Klingon Torres into living no-Klingon Torres. He does this with only about 30 seconds left in the episode, so we have to trust that it worked out okay.
So the Obsidian Order, after clearing house, has joined up with the Tal Shiar and are planning a first strike against the Dominion. Wipe out the Founders and the Jem’Hadar will come crawling for help. A “splinter” of the Obsidian Order, we should say, despite Central Command’s wait and see policy. The Federation isn’t doing much either, but Sisko and the gang get on the aptly named Defiant and head over to the Gamma Quadrant to see if they can’t rescue Odo and, probably, Garak. Odo is being held by Garak and Tain because he knows something, something about the Founders – he must!
Here we see, finally, the dark side of Garak. Cardassian society is tough. I know. I’ve read a lot about it. The love of the Empire and the need to follow orders is bred right into them. And when Garak is once again commanded to torture Odo, it isn’t a question of if he wants to or not. It HAS to be done.
Of course, there’s a reversal – one of the Tal Shiar leader is a Founder in disguise, and once the Jem’Hadar blow the Cardassians and Romulans to bits (shades of Wolf 359 says the Federation Admiral to Sisko) Odo and Garak escape by the skin of their teeth. But why trust Garak? And how much longer can we trust Odo?
A non-corporeal alien is aboard and temporarily inhabiting the crew to make them do dangerous shit. This I can buy. In order to protect the ship, Janeway puts the Holographic Doctor in possession of the all important access codes. This I can kinda buy. But Chakotay, who has been “assaulted” by the alien’s power and is in a coma, can ALSO float his consciousness around and make people do shit…to save them. He can do this, I guess, because he’s Native American. Sigh.
I do like the interplay of Tuvok and Janeway when Tuvok confronts himself for being possessed. It’s good to have a Vulcan back on board.
According to Wikipedia:
Controversies
Helms was particularly vitriolic when speaking of blacks, gays and lesbians, blaming them for “the proliferation of AIDS,” and stating that he disliked using the word “gay” to refer to them since, “…there’s nothing gay about them.”
Helms opposed the Martin Luther King Day bill in 1983 on grounds that King had two associates with communist ties, Stanley Levison and Jack O’Dell; as well, he voiced disapproval of King’s alleged philandering.
Of civil rights protests Helms stated in 1963 that “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights.”[6] (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, “Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced.” (New York Times, 2/8/81)
Helms’ referred to the University of North Carolina (UNC) as the “University of Negroes and Communists.” (Charleston Gazette, 9/15/95)[7]
Helms once deeply offended a black colleague, Democratic Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, by singing part of “Dixie” on a Capitol elevator.
Soon after the Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia, Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) ran into Mosely-Braun in a Capitol elevator. Helms turned to his friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), and said, “Watch me make her cry. I’m going to make her cry. I’m going to sing ‘Dixie’ until she cries.” He then proceeded to sing the song about “the good life” during slavery to Mosely-Braun (Gannett News Service, 9/2/93; Time, 8/16/93).[7]
While working on the 1950 campaign of Republican Willis Smith against Democrat Frank Porter Graham, Helms helped create an ad that read “White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races.” Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham’s wife had danced with a black man. (FAIR 9/1/01, The News and Observer 8/26/01)
Helms was an ardent supporter of the late Chile dictator Augusto Pinochet.[8]
When Roberta Achtenberg was appointed Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, Helms attempted to block her confirmation, stating that he refused to vote for her “because she’s a damn lesbian.”
After a protest during his 1986 visit to Mexico, Helms opined: “All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction.” [1]
In 1994 Helms spoke out against metal industrial singer Marilyn Manson. Manson responded by painting an anti-gay slur on his chest during a show in Winston-Salem, in a sarcastic and critical display against Helms’s social viewpoints.
Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker noted in his memoirs that Helms had “the ‘humorous habit’” of calling all black people “Fred”.
Helms used race issues in many elections; for instance, in 1990, he ran the famous “Hands” television ad in a tough re-election race. The ad has become legendary in Southern political circles as the most direct appeal to white backlash in modern American politics. The ad played upon white voters’ ideas that affirmative action might lead to a job going to a less-qualified candidate (”Gantt supports Ted Kennedy’s racial quota law, that makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications.”) (watch the ad).
Helms opposed an amendment offering war reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned during World War II; he proposed an amendment stipulating that no reparations would be made unless the Japanese government compensated the families of Americans killed at Pearl Harbor.
In 1994, Helms created a sensation when, on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he told broadcasters Rowland Evans, Jr., and Robert Novak that Clinton was “not up” to the tasks of being commander-in-chief and suggested that Clinton had “better not show up around here [Fort Bragg] without a bodyguard.”[9]
Helms was a strong supporter of drug prohibition, and opposed former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld’s nomination as Ambassador to Mexico because Weld supported medical marijuana.[2] Helms proposed several bills as part of the war on drugs.[10]
Helms once claimed that “The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.”[11]
