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Picard visits the planet Raimon, where the inhabitants have
an unusual attitude towards death, and he is plunged into
a murder mystery; a humble engineer must become a hero when
a strange, alien race tries to abduct Riker and his away team;
and an old flame of LaForge, who has been rescued from a dying
planet, conceals a terrible secret...
There I was, all set to discuss the relative merits of DC
Comics' original six-issue Star Trek: The Next Generation
mini-series, when the graphic novel that actually arrived
for review turned out to be a collection containing the first
six issues of DC's second series of TNG, which began
in 1989.
Not
that this is a bad thing. Michael Jan Friedman's writing flows
more smoothly than that of his predecessor, Mike Carlin. Unlike
Carlin (who, to be fair, was writing before the series had
even debuted on TV), Friedman has a good understanding of
the characters he is working with: there's no clairvoyant
Troi or emotional Data here. As though to set to record straight,
Troi points out to the reader, during the first issue, that
she detects no discernible emotions from the android. Friedman's
dialogue, particularly that of Picard and Riker, is sometimes
a bit stilted, but then that's how it was on the television
show at the time (the first four issues are set during the
early part of Season
2, while the fifth and sixth take place near
the beginning of Season
3).
Each
story lasts for two 24-page issues, a duration that makes
the stories feel very much like television episodes. My favourite
is the middle one, which is set aboard a mysterious, alien
derelict.
The
downside of this collection is that Pablo Marcos' art looks
rather untidy. His work was better during the initial mini-series,
during which time he was assisted by Carlos Garzon and Arne
Starr. Furthermore, he persists in drawing aliens that look
like Dr Seuss' Grinch: take a look at the Raimonians in the
first story.
In
terms of presentation, my only complaints are that a few characters
of text are missing from speech bubbles in issue 3 (not that
this affects the reader's understanding of the story) and,
though the covers from issues 1-5 are reprinted at the back
of the book, the cover of issue 6 is absent for some reason.
This volume also includes a couple of decade-old interviews,
with Patrick (Picard) Stewart and Brent (Data) Spiner respectively.
Though
not the greatest TNG comics tales ever told, this collection
should be sufficient to - as Picard would say - engage
most fans' interest.
Richard
McGinlay
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