DC Comics references in Trek Lit
- Thread starter EJA
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The Excelsior phase was between ST III & IV, not II & III. After all, the Enterprise wasn't destroyed until STIII. So one would have to accept that after Spock's katra was restored, the crew left Vulcan, saved the Federation from a Mirror Universe invasion (led by Mirror Kirk, contradicting The Sorrows of Empire), got pardoned, and got to fly around in the Excelsior for about a dozen missions while Spock commanded the science vessel Surak... and that Spock then contracted a disease that reverted him to his confused state post-ST III, and Kirk's crew violated the Romulan Neutral Zone to save him so that they got in trouble with Starfleet again, and they all abandoned ship and went back to Vulcan and then spent three months there prior to ST IV.
Oh, and you also have to accept that the Klingon bird of prey was in the Excelsior's shuttle bay that whole time even though it was far, far too large to fit in there (and was clearly depicted as such in the Mirror Universe issues).
Of course, the first 8 issues aboard the Enterprise do take place between TWOK and TSFS, and tell five distinct stories between them (although the first two stories are linked). So it is necessary to assume that a somewhat greater length of time elapses between those films than was implied. But on the other hand, the events of issue 8 could explain why the E had more battle damage at the start of TSFS than it had at the end of TWOK.
^I don't have a problem with any of that
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Excelsior holding the BoP in it's bay is a fudge, but similarly the USS Voyager fitted infinite shuttles into one small bay. You can rationalize the MU story by saying that it was a slightly different mirror universe, possibly branching from the events "Mirror, Mirror" (as was Duane's Dark Mirror) and as for the reset to the post-STIII setup, is it really much worse than the reset at the end of STIV?
(and yes, I meant between STIII and IV in my post, not II and III. Fixed!)
.Excelsior holding the BoP in it's bay is a fudge, but similarly the USS Voyager fitted infinite shuttles into one small bay. You can rationalize the MU story by saying that it was a slightly different mirror universe, possibly branching from the events "Mirror, Mirror" (as was Duane's Dark Mirror) and as for the reset to the post-STIII setup, is it really much worse than the reset at the end of STIV?
(and yes, I meant between STIII and IV in my post, not II and III. Fixed!)
No, it only had a few shuttles at any one time, assembling more as needed from replicated parts (as we saw when they built the Delta Flyer). And there were multiple references to a "Shuttle Bay 2," which I took to mean a storage bay located forward of the launching bay.
Although it's true that there were some scale problems with fitting the Flyer into the shuttle bay, and with the Flyer's aft compartment being too big to fit in the shuttle. Not to mention the lack of any clear connection between the interior set's exit and any sort of door on the exterior model.
Count me among those that loved issues #9-36. I thought DC comics took a very inventive course fitting a regular run between The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home.
Especially loved issue #29, "The Trouble with Bearclaw".
Oh, definitely, DC's first run is a classic, though its consistency took a hit after Mike Barr left. But I felt that Len Wein, who was the writer at the time of the transition to TVH, wasn't quite as satisfying a Trek writer as Mike, Diane Duane, or Tony Isabella (who did the Redjac sequel and "The Trouble With Bearclaw" and was going to take over as regular writer but got replaced by Wein at the last minute), and I found some of his decisions in "The Doomsday Bug" to be awkward, the size-changing BoP primary among them. (Although Wein was a darn sight better than Mike Carlin, who followed him. Luckily Carlin's tenure was brief and followed by the acclaimed Peter David run.)
^
Forget DC comics, where are all the Gold Key references?
What's Past: The Future Begins and A Choice of Catastrophes. (And maybe Shattered Light: The Tears of Eridanus; I forget if we took it out or not.)
When every phaser went "Beedeebeedeebeedeebee..."
Our club got many belly laughs when we routinely did "Selected readings from..." that run of comics while printing and collating our ST newsletters.
Yeah, that was when they subcontracted phaser manufacturing to the same firm that built Twiki...
Since TNG began, I have considered Konom's "Ensign" rank to be an "Acting Ensign" rank ala Wesley Crusher.
I agree.
Neither do I.^I don't have a problem with any of that
As far as the "contradictions" with canon in MU tale go, we've seen 80,000 variations of the "Primary" universe, so I figure that there have to be at least as many variations on the MU.
^
Forget DC comics, where are all the Gold Key references?
What's Past: The Future Begins and A Choice of Catastrophes. (And maybe Shattered Light: The Tears of Eridanus; I forget if we took it out or not.)
OMG, there are nods to Gold Key in TrekLit?!
^
Forget DC comics, where are all the Gold Key references?
What's Past: The Future Begins and A Choice of Catastrophes. (And maybe Shattered Light: The Tears of Eridanus; I forget if we took it out or not.)
Awesome!
Although, knowing me, I'll miss them...
Me, either, either. DC Trek was some of the best Trek, IMO.^I don't have a problem with any of that
I think it has been demonstrated frequently enough that there is more than one "Bird of Prey" model, and that they are on different scales, for it to be considered canon. Just to give two examples, Kruge's ship was obviously a small, scout (or more likely, based on the cargo hold, privateer/pirate) vessel that could be fully crewed by about a dozen people, whereas Lursa and B'Etor's ship in Generations was large and powerful enough for the sisters to feel comfortable with taking on a Galaxy-class starship. Even with the upper-hand of the shield modulation frequency, I doubt they'd have felt comfortable doing so in something that was essentially a beefy runabout with a fair sized cargo hold. The only reason Kruge was able to even take on the smaller Enterprise in III was that she was already battle-damaged, understaffed, and had had parts removed as part of the decommissioning process.
^First off, the BoP in the comic book was the exact same ship seen in TSFS and TVH; the story had to lead into TVH and thus it had to establish that the BoP was still in the possession of Kirk's crew. And that ship was clearly shown throughout both movies to be far larger than a shuttlecraft. Here, you can see that, allowing for perspective, the BoP's size is a substantial fraction of the Enterprise's size. Here, you can see that just the front module alone is substantially bigger than a shuttlecraft.
Second, earlier issues of the same comic book series clearly showed that the BoP was far too large to fit into the Excelsior's shuttlebay. In the Mirror Universe Saga, we were shown sequences of the Excelsior towing the BoP behind it, with the BoP's body nestled in the cutout beneath the Excelsior's fantail.
So you can't excuse it by saying it's a different-sized BoP, since it's explicitly intended to be the same one that's been shown elsewhere, both in canon and in the same comic, to be too large to fit in a shuttlebay.
Second, earlier issues of the same comic book series clearly showed that the BoP was far too large to fit into the Excelsior's shuttlebay. In the Mirror Universe Saga, we were shown sequences of the Excelsior towing the BoP behind it, with the BoP's body nestled in the cutout beneath the Excelsior's fantail.
So you can't excuse it by saying it's a different-sized BoP, since it's explicitly intended to be the same one that's been shown elsewhere, both in canon and in the same comic, to be too large to fit in a shuttlebay.
I, personally, excuse that because the storyline was drawn by a fill-in artist, Gray Morrow, and his take on things was... off. I mean, the Saratoga was drawn as an Excelsior-class vessel, after all.
Or, I use the time travel story in issue #33 to explain all differences, like how the Surak changes from an Oberth-class to a flying disc; the damage to time in issue #33 caused lots of ripples that not only changed the Surak but also caused the Excelsior's shuttlebay to be bigger than it was previously.
Or, I use the time travel story in issue #33 to explain all differences, like how the Surak changes from an Oberth-class to a flying disc; the damage to time in issue #33 caused lots of ripples that not only changed the Surak but also caused the Excelsior's shuttlebay to be bigger than it was previously.
This works for me...
Forced-perspective shots and badly drawn or proportioned comic artwork that don't necessarily reflect what the writers were going for - or my interepretation of events, which, to me, is even more important. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do. I'm incredible.
Actually those shots do accurately reflect the intended size of the BoP (before TNG reused stock footage thereof to represent a larger ship). And the TVH shot I linked to does clearly show that just the relatively small "head" portion of the BoP is substantially larger than a shuttlecraft, which gives a baseline for estimating the size of the whole thing. I've done the math on this before. Fitting a BoP in the Excelsior's shuttlebay is like fitting a Lear jet in a one-car garage. It's just not going to happen.
You just keep on and on with facts, like they're going to influence my delusions.
Hmmmm, that's.....awkward, to put it mildly.
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