Thanks for telling me.
DC Comics' Star Tek (1st Series)
- Thread starter Steve67
- Start date
Thanks for telling me.
Why won't they release that comics DVD in the UK?
:'-(
Someone tell Star Trek to get over its personal vendetta against me and release the damn DVD in England!
:'-(
Someone tell Star Trek to get over its personal vendetta against me and release the damn DVD in England!
It's about publication rights, I suppose. It must've been hard enough just to pull together the US publication rights from all those different publishers.
Technically, since it's all owned by Paramount, then yes, characters can be used. In this particular case, I asked Bob Greenberger if he had any objections if I used Nancy Bryce and Liz Sherwood for this story. As long as I didn't do anything to them that annoyed Peter David, he said, we'd be golden.
It had some other comic book characters, too, like Grand Admiral Steven Turner and Vice Admiral Rittenhouse. Lyndra Dean, the reporter from The Mirror Universe Saga plays a key role. And Kaaj, from the Star Trek: Early Voyages comic was one of the story's key characters.
I don't think it will ever see the light of day. It's so engrained in one particular moment of Star Trek history that it wouldn't work elsewhere, with other characters. And there's no market for it now. Its time has passed.
All I will say about it is that it made the engineering in Ring Around the Sky look small. We're talking starships on unpowered ballistic trajectories, suited engineers with magnaboots attached to hulls with jerry-rigged harpoon guns, and Starfleet's wildest towing job.
It's possible that the backstory I created for Liz Sherwood, to reconcile her FYM appearance in Gemini with her movie-era appearance in the comics, may turn up in something else that's not Star Trek-related, because it was a neat idea. Dark, but also neat.
This is bringing back memories. Wasn't Rittenhouse originally introduced in Dreadnought and Battlestations? Reading this thread has me very tempted to go back and read those stories again. Loved them.
Rittenhouse was in Dreadnought, yes, and he was referenced in Battlestations and The Lost Years (in which Nogura's reason for promoting Kirk to the admiralty was to improve Starfleet's press image after the Rittenhouse scandal). I don't recall him ever appearing or being mentioned in the comics, though, since the DC comics were set more than a decade after his downfall would've occurred.
I just realized I probably have his name wrong. I was thinking of the Admiral in the second DC series, the one who was actually a Klingon spy. For some reason, I was thinking his name was Rittenhouse.
^Ahh, yes, that guy. I just checked, and his name was Vice-Admiral Karl Tomlinson. Interesting choice of name. I wonder if PAD was planning to link him to Robert Tomlinson, who died under Kirk's command in "Balance of Terror."
I haven't checked my usual comics shop--probably since I assumed such an order would not be possible, in the same way Amazon is unwilling to ship it right to me. Admittedly, I also never order anything directly through them (nor do I know if they'd do that for a more occasional customer like myself), so the thought of attempting to do so makes me feel a little awkward.
Ouch...
To be honest, for that price, versus what Amazon is charging now, it would probably cost less at this point to find someone I know in the States who'll let me ship it their way. Even if I pay for them to ship it here afterwards, it should still come to less than that.
Edgar, do you have my e-mail address? If so, drop me a line...
Diamond's catalog specified it couldn't distribute outside the US, but my local comic shop uses a different source for tricky items sometimes.
You just have to be sneaky. I ended up with a copy from them, and a second, back-up copy came to me via my favourite US mail order action figures firm: I simply had Amazon ship it to his US address as a gift, and he then "re-gifted" it: by adding the package to my next toy order!
I've only read a handful of these issues but I loved them. They had a sense of fun and ambition. Felt like old Star Trek. My favorite was the Final Mission issues, which did a great job tying together elements of Trek like the Talosians, Klingons, and Will Decker. I enjoyed the recent "Star Trek Mission's End" but it's got nothing on the DC final mission. Liked the issue with Scotty's wife too.
Has anyone actually seen this yet? I want to know what's in it, and IDW never seems to think that's worth including in solicits.Interestingly enough, IDW Publishing (which now holds the rights to print Trek comics from Classic Trek and TNG) last Wednesday released an omnibus as "The Best of Captain Kirk." It was a series written by Peter David that included the trial of my favorite starship captain.
DC was also doing the comic book adaptations of TTFS and TVH as the films came out, so their writers had to construct their two-year storylines such that they could put everything back in place in time for the next official installment in the saga. Under those circumstances, they turned out some good stuff.
Ditto, although I was thrilled that Arex was in the IDW version. He and M'Ress shoulda been in the DC Comic' final mission, and it may have been readers' letters that helped see them return to the Enterprise-A after ST IV.
Yes, but if you're an omnibus completist, then you have it all from the DC and the Titan reprint omnibuses.
Contains Series II's #7-12, with the three-part Sweeney arc and the three-part Kirk's trial arc, at which point the first new batch of original characters (M'yra, Fouton, Li, Blaise) make their final departures.
It's interesting to note that they took two months between issues #7-8 (The origin of Saavik story) to work on their adaptation for TSFS. And #7 was a cliffhanger!
I also noticed in issue #7 (August cover date, which means an actual April or May release date) that Kirk and co. go to Vulcan to see sarek about Saavik's Pon Far, and Sarek says to Kirk, "I must discuss my son with you." Kirk says, "later ambassador!" and beams off to pursue Saavik! Sarek's wife Amanda is sick in bed and cries out about Spock's Katra. These events are quite close to TSFS and I'm surprised that DC was allowed to reveal such things so close to the film's release. Still, it was great to have the films referenced so much and upon seeing the movie, the clarity of the references revealing themselves. DC really straddled the line of continuity and their own adventures quite well, considering the obstacles involved.
Between TWOK and TSFS, yes. The only real glitch was the opening scene of TSFS, which made it fairly clear that the Enterprise was only just returning from the Genesis incident and that Spock's death was a recent event (particularly Phil Morris's line asking if there'd be some kind of ceremony when they got back).
But the "Doomsday Bug" storyline that reset the comics continuity for TVH was much more awkward, mainly because of the Bird of Prey issue. The Mirror Universe Saga issues had accurately depicted the BoP as a large ship that had to be towed behind Excelsior, but "The Doomsday Bug" revealed that it had somehow magically been stored in Excelsior's shuttlebay all this time.
Well, when the comics were originally released, the adaptation of ST III happened to come out between #7 and 8, but I certainly don't file them that way, since the end of #8 leads directly into ST III.
They were explaining why Amanda misses out on the Fal Tor Pan ceremony of ST III. The ST III and ST IV novelizations show Amanda missing the ceremony for other reasons.
Did you see the cover of "Starlog"'s official ST III movie mag? Spock, played by Nimoy, is in his white robes on the cover. And, of course, infamously the trailer showed "... the last voyage of the starship Enterprise", with the ship ablaze and falling towards Genesis.
I chalked that up to the change in artists at the time. Tom Sutton was off the book temporarily to draw the Star Trek IV adaptation, and Gray Morrow stepped in to draw "The Doomsday Bug." I loved Morrow's artwork, but I didn't accept anything that he drew at face value. (The Saratoga, for instance, is depicted as a sister ship to the Excelsior.)
^But it's not an art issue, it's a story point. Len Wein asked us to believe that the BoP had been inside the Excelsior's shuttle bay all this time. The story can't possibly work without that assumption. Morrow was just drawing what the script dictated.
I LOVED the first DC run. However, after a time, I did have problems with the art. The first few issues (particularly isue #1 and 7) were extremely good. But then, things started getting sloppy. The Trek III adaptation was pretty far afield, but I took that as a fast-approaching deadline issue (the chaning uniforms and the bridge looked so wrong). Yet, afterward, the illos became very sketchy. It impacted a lot for me. They also seemed unable to draw Kirk from TOS whenever they did a flashback or a story in that era. It was always old, curly haired Kirk. The issue with "Uhura's Story" was a legendary issue for art bloopers.
However, the stories were generally excellent and I too enjoyed the pre-TSFS issues, as few as they were. It was great having that glimpse of how the Trek universe might have played out had Spock remained dead.
Did you guys notice the change in Saavik between issues 7 & 8? In 7, she was clearly patterned after Kirstie Alley, but afterward, they worked in Robin Curtis's features to create a representation of the two.
Like some others, I found Diane Duane's issues to be too over the top and self referential. Actually, it would have been a great single issue story, but the second part with the kitty cat people was just...well...too Lost in Space.
Peter David is also a tad overrated to me. His overly humorous writing was a distraction, but still a perfect fit in post-TFF second run, since Trek went with the Kirk's Komedy Kapers (even TUC had a high silliness quotient). He was great with the characters (although Spock seemed to be nothing more than straight man), but again, Richard Arnold's wackadoo leanings made some of the better supporting characters vanish. I'm sure if PD had some warning, he would have written RJ Blaise out of the second run instead of just dropping the character after she rejoined the ship.
At least the art was better in the second run, with Jame W. Fry's unique style adding a nice touch. He was replaced fairly early on and Gordon Purcell's pencils were a bit stiff and he relied too often on reference photos (even in IDW's Year 4, he's breaking out the screengrabs). I didn't know how good I had it, when he left, the art suffered terribly. Finally, the pencils were so bad, I dropped the book. A shame. Since when Peter David finally left, the writing was picked up by Howard Weinstein, who was better suited, IMO, to writing straightforward Trek. He did a fine job.
After that, I was off comics for a while, but went back for the Marvel "Early Voyages" book, which was the best Trek comic since the early DC run. 17 issues...! Such a shame, it was really an outstandingly written and drawn comic (the last 2 issues had a new artist who was a little cartoony for me).
However, the stories were generally excellent and I too enjoyed the pre-TSFS issues, as few as they were. It was great having that glimpse of how the Trek universe might have played out had Spock remained dead.
Did you guys notice the change in Saavik between issues 7 & 8? In 7, she was clearly patterned after Kirstie Alley, but afterward, they worked in Robin Curtis's features to create a representation of the two.
Like some others, I found Diane Duane's issues to be too over the top and self referential. Actually, it would have been a great single issue story, but the second part with the kitty cat people was just...well...too Lost in Space.
Peter David is also a tad overrated to me. His overly humorous writing was a distraction, but still a perfect fit in post-TFF second run, since Trek went with the Kirk's Komedy Kapers (even TUC had a high silliness quotient). He was great with the characters (although Spock seemed to be nothing more than straight man), but again, Richard Arnold's wackadoo leanings made some of the better supporting characters vanish. I'm sure if PD had some warning, he would have written RJ Blaise out of the second run instead of just dropping the character after she rejoined the ship.
At least the art was better in the second run, with Jame W. Fry's unique style adding a nice touch. He was replaced fairly early on and Gordon Purcell's pencils were a bit stiff and he relied too often on reference photos (even in IDW's Year 4, he's breaking out the screengrabs). I didn't know how good I had it, when he left, the art suffered terribly. Finally, the pencils were so bad, I dropped the book. A shame. Since when Peter David finally left, the writing was picked up by Howard Weinstein, who was better suited, IMO, to writing straightforward Trek. He did a fine job.
After that, I was off comics for a while, but went back for the Marvel "Early Voyages" book, which was the best Trek comic since the early DC run. 17 issues...! Such a shame, it was really an outstandingly written and drawn comic (the last 2 issues had a new artist who was a little cartoony for me).
