In a couple of threads some of the stranger aspects of earlier elements of the franchise have been discussed a bit, from early comics art with rockets flames coming out of the back of the Enterprise, to often times idiosyncratic ways earlier authors approach the series. This got me wondering, what would you guys say are the weirdest books and comics?
Dafydd ab Hugh had a reputation for having an offbeat sense of humor. "The Final Fury" had a running joke with Voyager's inertial dampeners being on the blink, making the ship feel like an ocean-going vessel in rough seas. When Neelix suggested they just cut the engines until it was fixed, he was told it would cause the ship to start spinning around like a top, and they were at the exact level of thrust to keep apparent motion to a minimum. None of that makes even the slightest bit of sense. Another odd bit from that novel that actually made a ton of sense is that Neelix hid a bunch of extra commbadges, phasers, and tricorders in his boots, on the grounds that the standard-issue Starfleet gadgets were so useful you'd want to keep spares in case they were lost, destroyed, or stolen. He was surprised the officers didn't do that as standard practice, and, frankly, so am I. Though it does have shades of Peter David establishing that Worf had a dozen-plus knives hidden on his person at any given time, as any good Klingon warrior would.
One of the first few TNG comics from DC had the Enterprise-D crew team up with a race of Dr Suess Grinches to solve a mystery involving the actual Santa Claus causing havoc on the ship. WORST trek story I've ever read.
Was that in the miniseries? I've read the first few issues of the regular series and I haven't come across that story. That actually is a pretty good idea.
Hard to beat a STAR TREK/HERE COMES THE BRIDES crossover . . . That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed ISHMAEL by Barbara Hambly.
Trek to Madworld and How Much For Just the Planet? probably take the biscuit for intentional weirdness. Anything by Marshak and Culbreath for their K/S vibes. Killing Time for out Marshak and Culbreathing Marshak and Culbreath. Comics-wise, the old TOS UK comics out Gold Key the weirdest of Gold Key. The first issues feature redshirt "Captain Kurt"!!
I just skimmed through that one on the Comics DVD, and all I can say is. I didn't realize you were being literal when you said they teamed up with a race of Grinches.
I assume the original TNG mini was written on such a time crunch that Mike Carlin literally just wrote whatever came into his mind and there was no time to edit it. It's not really the best work of anyone involved. Pablo Marcos did great stuff on Justice League Europe; less so here.
I never cared for Pablo Marcos's art style in any of the Trek comics (honestly, I didn't like any of DC-TNG's pencillers until Gordon Purcell took over late in the run), and Mike Carlin was the weakest of DC Trek's regular writers. I found their TNG miniseries to be fairly typical of the quality of their work overall. Although there was some fairly good dramatic stuff with Data and Q in issue 5, I think it was -- though it's from a time before Data was retconned as an emotionless being, so it seems stranger in retrospect than it did at the time.
Easily the weirdest comics are the UK originals with Captain Kurt shouting stuff like "Bursting novas!" and "Sufferin' starships!"
Never could get into How Much For Just The Planet, had 3 or 4 goes at it but couldn't get into it, it was just too different for me. The first third of The Final Reflection was very different as well I thought but i enjoyed the rest of the novel. On a TNG front the X-Men cross over threw me for a loop as it referenced the comics which I have not read. I'm not a big fan of series crossovers. All in all not too much over the top weirdness in the novels, I imagine the comics have weirder plots but i don't read them so cant comment on them. Some of the covers I have seen make me think that the stories in comics push the boundaries more than the novels.
I tried this but didn't get very far, mostly as I felt the X-Men connection wasnt suited to the format of a novel, but wouldn't mind giving the comic a go if I ever find a copy.
A recent issue of IDW's "Waypoint" anthology comic features a "Voyager" story as if drawn and illustrated by Naomi Wildman.
Was it Windows on a Lost World that had Kirk and the landing party's consciousness' transferred into crab-like creatures for awhile?
Well, it was their own bodies being transformed into crablike aliens rather than their consciousnesses being transferred, but otherwise, yeah.
Do you sometimes see other people as crablike aliens? That would explain a lot about why you feel the need to explain everything under the sun to us. I would type "give us the benefit of the doubt once in a while", but it's hard to do it with these pincer claws. TC