NEW ONGOING STAR TREK SERIES FROM IDW!!!

[Fer]

Spoiler blocks please, people!! Some of us haven't gotten the issue yet.

Speaking of which, my comic shop has it on their "shipping next week" list. Don't know why some shops seem to be getting it a week late... allocations, maybe?

[Admiral James Kirk]

Oh shit, I'm sorry!

[All-You-Can-Eat]

indianatrekker26 wrote:

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Looks like issue 8 was delayed again. It wasn't out at my LCS, nor is it listed on mycomicshop.com. I figured maybe my store ran out of copies, but they told me it wasn't released. And since mycomicshop doesn't have it either, i guess it got delayed another week.

#8 wasn't at my shop either. Then I found out that a Diamond Distributor truck was involved in a head-on collision, one dead and two injured. Tragic story. Shipments to that region are delayed for a week, not that it really matters in light of this news.

[Pauln6]

I'll try to avoid spoilers:

I like the way they are using and re-using the supporting cast from TOS and the story was nice, sowing seeds for the future. But I did feel that it failed to live up to the expectations of part one.

My biggest criticisms are that two issues are most definitely too brief. The story had no time to gain any traction before it was over. This might be one reason why the resolution was unsatisfying. Most super hero comics tell stories in 4 issues and the 2 issue format is becoming increasingly irrititating. 3 issues would be doable but 2 means there is almost no time for any character development and very little time for more than a couple of set pieces. Introducing a couple of named Romulan characters - the female Romulan captain from TOS for example, would have been a cool twist and someone equivalent to sit alongside Kor, Kang, and Koloth for future Romulan stories.

The rampant sexism is still another source of irritation. I don't have any major issues with the landing party since they used one male and one female supporting character plus the mains (more generally they need to feature no more than one spare male character and make all the rest female to redress the imbalance where possible - the versions of Where No Man has gone Before and Galileo 7 both had a dreadful imbalance). All the featured Vulcans and Romulans were male. In fact, I did a quick count of the background characters and counted 45 male Romulans and 5 females. WHY?

[Therin of Andor]

Pauln6 wrote:

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I did a quick count of the background characters and counted 45 male Romulans and 5 females. WHY?

Four more female Romulans than in all of TOS.

[Pauln6]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Four more female Romulans than in all of TOS.

Lol - yeah Star Trek is the worst at token female syndrome. But seriously, after 40 years you would think that a tiny seed of gender equality would have sunk into Trek's consciousness...

[Fer]

Pauln6 wrote:

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Lol - yeah Star Trek is the worst at token female syndrome. But seriously, after 40 years you would think that a tiny seed of gender equality would have sunk into Trek's consciousness...

ARCHIE COMICS ARE MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN STAR TREK COMICS!!!!

Shutting up now...

[Christopher]

Pauln6 wrote:

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My biggest criticisms are that two issues are most definitely too brief. The story had no time to gain any traction before it was over. This might be one reason why the resolution was unsatisfying. Most super hero comics tell stories in 4 issues and the 2 issue format is becoming increasingly irrititating. 3 issues would be doable but 2 means there is almost no time for any character development and very little time for more than a couple of set pieces.

That's just because comics have become so decompressed these days, with the panels getting bigger and the word count per page shrinking. It used to be that you could get a rich, dense, complete story in just 24 pages.

[indianatrekker26]

Christopher wrote:

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That's just because comics have become so decompressed these days, with the panels getting bigger and the word count per page shrinking. It used to be that you could get a rich, dense, complete story in just 24 pages.

Ya, i sure miss those days, Christopher. Back when you could get a complete engaging story in one issue. and not have it spread out over 5 or 6, so the company could see the all important trade. I also remember the days when a book would have the same writer and artist for more than 6 months, and would really build a longterm story up well, while at the same time, you could still read each issue independently from each other, and get a complete story in one issue.

[Therin of Andor]

indianatrekker26 wrote:

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while at the same time, you could still read each issue independently from each other, and get a complete story in one issue.

Sure, but the counter argument to that is that it's so easy to "jump ship". I made a promise to myself once, after originally buying a single issue of "Fantastic Four" (to create some costumes for a convention), and getting hooked on the ongoing arcs, that I'd drop "Fantastic Four" when the Thing finally resumed his place on the team and the She-Hulk left. But she never really had a farewell issue. Years later, I was still finding compelling reasons to keep buying every issue!

As a kid, I read random, hand-me-down issues of "Superman", "Batman", etc and - particularly with "Fantastic Four" and "Teen Titans" - had absolutely no idea that there was also often several serialized arcs going on in the background of supposedly one-shot issues. I don't even remember "To be continued...", although some of those issues do end abruptly. I just read everything I was handed, then passed them on to another family.

Having seen all the troubles played out in the various "Star Trek" comic series over the decades, I think that IDW have ended up with a fairly good modern compromise: an ongoing series of two-parters, the promise that some factoids are, in fact, easter eggs for the next movie, some cover variants, writing team stability, and reprint collections and crossover events every so often. It's not the old market out there, so a yearning for the ways of the past won't stand up in the counting of the beans.

[Christopher]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Sure, but the counter argument to that is that it's so easy to "jump ship". I made a promise to myself once, after originally buying a single issue of "Fantastic Four" (to create some costumes for a convention), and getting hooked on the ongoing arcs, that I'd drop "Fantastic Four" when the Thing finally resumed his place on the team and the She-Hulk left. But she never really had a farewell issue. Years later, I was still finding compelling reasons to keep buying every issue!

And that's just it -- classic Marvel comics struck a balance. On the one hand, each story told a complete adventure with a beginning and ending; while on the other hand, the characters' lives kept evolving and there were ongoing personal arcs that continued from issue to issue. So even though you got a satisfactory answer to, say, how Spider-Man defeated Doc Ock's latest scheme, you were still motivated to come back next issue and see whether Gwen would forgive him for missing their big date, or whatever. Too many people today think that serialization requires one big extended plot, but a lot of series in comics and TV have done quite well by combining episodic one-and-done plots that make each installment satisfying with ongoing, evolving character threads that make you want to come back for more.

[Pauln6]

Christopher wrote:

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Too many people today think that serialization requires one big extended plot, but a lot of series in comics and TV have done quite well by combining episodic one-and-done plots that make each installment satisfying with ongoing, evolving character threads that make you want to come back for more.

This 100%. Buffy was an example of a show that did this to perfection. Joss Whedon went for an over-arching plot for each season, individual stories that were resolved in each episode, and over-arching character development that was ongoing. Other shows like Flash Forward cane the over-arching plot too much so that it becomes too hard for casual viewers to follow. I think this comic needs to tell its stories over a longer period to build some impetus and leave room for character development instead of the supporting cast delivering a couple of, 'Aye captains' like the supporting cast of Enterprise.

[Therin of Andor]

Pauln6 wrote:

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I think this comic needs to tell its stories over a longer period to build some impetus and leave room for character development instead of the supporting cast delivering a couple of, 'Aye captains' like the supporting cast of Enterprise.

But... they are mostly retelling old episodes, so to pad them out to three issues per adventure would probably bring just as much criticism from other fans saying that duologies would be sufficient to tell those stories. In fact. I'm sure that would happen. "Filler!" they would scream.

In any case, many of the episodes of TOS do have the supporting cast saying little more that "Aye captain".

Three issues might have helped with the recent original tale, "Vulcan's Vengeance", but then that would wreck the pattern for the next omnibus reprint.

[Pauln6]

Yeah I agree there is a balancing issue here and they wanted to see how popular the comic was going to be so the 2 issue re-tellings were probably a good idea for the first year. The new stories and ongoing character development will suffer if they stick to that going forward though. I agree that many of the supporting cast were given limited input in many TOS stories but that wasn't always true and it isn't really viewed as one of the show's strengths. The little scene with Sulu and Scotty was nice in this issue but too many scenes like that and you end up with very little actual plot in a 2 issue story. I think that issue 1 of the story was very strong but the resolution in issue 2 was over-simplified and unsatisfying. Two more issues giving us more details of the Vulcans and Romulans personalities, goals, and politics plus a lengthier escape plan to foil a more complex terrorist plot would have been awesome.

[Christopher]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Three issues might have helped with the recent original tale, "Vulcan's Vengeance", but then that would wreck the pattern for the next omnibus reprint.

They could've done it as four issues; or they could've done three followed by a small, one-issue standalone tale.