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Countdown #4 preview (and review - SPOILERS!)

I just got and read through the TP today and really enjoyed it alot! I sort of wish that alot of this stuff was going to be on the bigscreen as there is alot of really cool stuff in it! It was good to see TNG crew one more time even if it was not on the big screen. Anyways I am really excited for the movie after reading it so it has done its job leading into the movie!
 
I just bought my copy today and am planning on reading it tonight since there is no new Smallville on tonight. Kind of surprised how thin the TPB is considering the actual issues were pretty thick, at least the covers were.
 
I have one question about worf that I will put in spoiler tags:



I still cant figure out why Nero let Worf live? Why did he even beam him back to the Enterprise when he could have just beamed him into deep space when the Enterprise lowered her shields or just not beamed him anywhere at all. Maybe it was to show he is not pure evil? But by that point he was going pretty crazy wanting to destroy Vulcan and all.
 
^
Maybe the writers wanted to use Worf again in another graphic novel and didn't want him to be killed off, even in the confines of non/semi-canon comic storylines? Besides, a lot of people might go ballistic if Worf were killed off in any format.
 
I just read the TPB earlier today. I really enjoyed the story, and I think it would have made an interesting (if super-fanwanky) movie itself.
does the comic deal with this in any way?
No, it doesn't. Unless the movie is resolving this issue, we'll never know if Romulus stays destroyed or if Nero and Spock change the timeline and Countdown never happened.
The way I figure it, there are now two separate timelines that continue along from their specific points of divergence. The original timeline continues on from 2387, while the new one continues from the 2230s (I'm assuming that's when it starts, anyway, since Kirk was born in that decade). If the Narada and Spock traveling back in time just erased what originally happened, there wouldn't have been an epilogue where Picard and Data discuss what happened to Spock. That timeline would have been completely eradicated.
 
What year do the events of "Countdown" take place in?
According to the stardate, Countdown is taking place seven years after Nemesis.
I just noticed that it's eight years after Nemesis, not seven years.
Yep. Eight years is what the stardates suggest (64xxx, after NEM's 56xxx), and (after much debate and speculation among fans), that's also what the comic's writers confirm in this interview.

Which creates an interesting situation. The novels are currently a year or two past NEM; and this story will presumably be seen as at least quasi-canonical, since it ties into filmed events. But the six years in-between there, that the novels have yet to fill? Anybody's guess. The getting-to-a-known-destination part may be a minor constraint, but not a huge one. In a way it adds a whole new level of interest.

(The ST Online game's web site has gradually been sketching out those in-between years, yes—basically starting from where the latest novels leave off, notwithstanding some readers' quibbles—but presumably the writers and editors at Pocket won't feel obliged to abide by all of those intermediate details. For one thing, it'd kill a helluva lot of suspense. For another, unless I've misunderstood something, those details are really only incidental backstory to a game set 20-some years later, and could be revised with negligible effect.)

Anyhoo, as to the comic itself as a story?... Well, I just hope the movie is better.

This was enjoyable in some ways, but the pseudoscience of the mcguffin "threat" on which the story hinged was frankly laughable, the portrayal of planetary politics (on both Romulus and Vulcan) wasn't much better, and I thought Nero's heel turn (while not unmotivated) was a little too quick, convenient, and complete.

Ah well. We'll all see next week...
 
This was enjoyable in some ways, but the pseudoscience of the mcguffin "threat" on which the story hinged was frankly laughable, the portrayal of planetary politics (on both Romulus and Vulcan) wasn't much better, and I thought Nero's heel turn (while not unmotivated) was a little too quick, convenient, and complete.

I pretty much agree, but it was a just a short little comic. The story presented could have actually been really good if it had been extended and fleshed out in a full-length novel.

As it was, it was just a fun little romp, and I'm okay with it.
 
I pretty much agree, but it was a just a short little comic. The story presented could have actually been really good if it had been extended and fleshed out in a full-length novel.

As it was, it was just a fun little romp, and I'm okay with it.
Fair point. The basic structure of the story really wasn't bad, and the major beats were exciting. Trek works surprisingly well in prose, IMHO, so as a novel, in the hands of the right writer(s) this could have been quite interesting.

That's not an excuse for some of the storytelling shortcuts (and frankly bad dialogue) in this comic, though. Comics aren't novels, but they can be used to tell some genuinely sophisticated stories in their own right. This wasn't one.
 
I just got my copy of the TPB today. I tried to avoid buying it, but I had to know the backstory if it's out there. I was pleasantly surprised, not at all as fanwank-y as I expected. And it gives a truly good motivation for what Nero is doing. Hopefully the movie itself will recapitulate at least a part of this so it makes sense even without the comic. But now that I read it, I would buy him doing anything.
 
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