He doesn't look much like Data to me. Maybe around the eyes and nose somewhat, but the shape of the head is chubbier, plus there's the spiky hair, the pink complexion, and the worried expression. (You can see a bigger, clearer version here. Oh, and he apparently gets killed in the next panel.)
I haven't seen Data since he died in Nemesis. For all I know, he put his emotion chip back in and decided to rebel by spiking his hair...or something.
Probably the same reason we don't have DS9 or VGR or ENT comics -- they wouldn't sell well enough to be profitable. Only TOS and TNG seem to have large enough comics-reading audiences these days to be worth the investment. After all, comics have gotten more expensive these days, so it's not as easy to attract casual readers.
The more basic reason we don't have DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise comics is that IDW hasn't licensed those series. (They did have a DS9 license, but it has reportedly lapsed without renewal.) I suspect it's the lack of the Voyager license that's a barrier to Titan comics. There's a difference between "Can we use this character we don't have the license for as a cameo in this one-off story" and "Can we use this character we don't have the license for as a regular character in an ongoing series?" But Star Trek comics haven't, not in the time that IDW has held the license. They launched The Space Between five years ago at $3.99, and Hive #3 this week was also $3.99. Compared to what Star Trek comics sold for ten or fifteen years ago they're more expensive, true, but that's true of Pocket's output as well. Today's Star Trek comics (and novels, too) are priced in line with the rest of the market. (Ironically, it's not true that five years ago Star Trek comics were priced in line with the rest of the market. $3.99 was a high price for comics in 2007. Over five years, price creep from the Big Two has moved the average closer to where IDW prices their output. Today, $3.99 is a normal price when it wasn't then.) That said, I agree with your final point, that four dollars an issue makes consumers choosier when it comes to their four-color reading material. Price is why I don't read as many Marvel titles as I should; Superior Spider-Man will be on a shorter leash for me at $3.99 an issue than it would be at $2.99 an issue.
But aren't those just different ways of saying the same thing? Presumably IDW would have licensed those series if they believed it would be profitable to publish comics based on them -- and would've kept the DS9 license if the one DS9 comic they did had sold better. But Star Trek comics haven't, not in the time that IDW has held the license.[/quote] I meant in comparison to a decade or two ago, like when DC, Malibu, and Marvel had licenses and we got DS9 and VGR comics.
LOL, what the hell happened to Data? That guy on the right looks like a fat version of Brent Spiner with a goatee.
Pretty cool. Not quite what I imagined for vale. In my mind she was a bit more... Ezri-ish. Weird question, that ultimately doesn't matter, but I'm curious nonetheless: Is there any wibbley-wobbly, timey-wimey way to rationalize Hive in a Pre- or Post-Destiny setting? (Heck, maybe even Peri-?) or is it so off the line that I can't be reconciled? I'm just curious if I should slot in the Hive TPB to my Post-Nemesis reading list or just give it a whirl when it arrives regardless of where I'm at.
^Most IDW comics have been incompatible with the novel continuity, and I don't see why Hive should be any different. Heck, there isn't even a single IDW continuity; mostly the things they do are standalones, aside from the interconnected John Byrne stuff and the Abramsverse stuff.
Although I did make sure that the crew with Kang in the first framing sequence of Alien Spotlight: Klingons matched the ones we saw in the "Day of the Dove" issue of Blood Will Tell. (And I used crew members from Blood Will Tell in "The Unhappy Ones" in Seven Deadly Sins.)
I recall Christopher suggesting that it might be one of the alternate timelines where the the events of Before Dishonor and Destiny never happened and so the Borg eventually took over the galaxy he mentioned in Watching the Clock (I think that would cover Alien Spotlight: Borg too), although IIRC that was before the first issue was even released so the differences may be such that only an out-of-universe alternate continuity is the reasonable answer. And I have yet to read it, so...
Wait! Do IDWs new comics share the same continuity as the current novels? Edit: Never mind. I didn't see Christopher's reply up above.
wait, there's a fat guy with a goatee, in a scene with a load of regular characters... Wouldn't wanna be him.
The artwork is awful. If I didn't know that was supposed to be Troi, I would never have known. Riker's eyes and mouth just look wrong.