Have IDW mentioned any possibility of new DS9 and TNG comics?
IDW DS9 and TNG?
- Thread starter toughlittleship
- Start date
The DS9 series, Fool's Gold, was pretty much a sales disaster for IDW, so I wouldn't expect to see another DS9 comic.
The TNG comics have sold decently for them in the past, and I don't think there are sales reasons not to do them.
Based on the sales for Infestation and Star Trek/Legion, the clear way forward for IDW is more crossovers.
The TNG comics have sold decently for them in the past, and I don't think there are sales reasons not to do them.
Based on the sales for Infestation and Star Trek/Legion, the clear way forward for IDW is more crossovers.
I thought it might have helped Fool's Gold to have a few TNG characters to encourage interest, à la "Emissary" and Avatar.
I think IDW released a statement to the effect of "we're only doing TOS and nuTrek now because they're the only ones that make us any money."
Which is odd, since the TNG-heavy Countdown was not only successful, but it left a ton of questions unanswered.
Which is odd, since the TNG-heavy Countdown was not only successful, but it left a ton of questions unanswered.
But who bought it: diehard TNG fans awaiting their next TNG fix from IDW, or lots of curious TOS fans and members of the general public curious about the set-up for a big new movie?
Most of IDW's TNG mini-series had lacklustre reviews and falling sales.
I was definitely in the latter camp. I read Countdown for the passing-of-the-torch story from the 24th-century back to the 23rd. I didn't really read it for my "TNG fix," and as a grand finale for TNG, Countdown was something of a failure.
And that's probably why IDW wasn't interested in Andy Mangels' Titan pitch -- if TNG underperformed, a TNG spin-off would also be likely to underperform.
Yeah, the last tNG series, Ghosts, was one of IDW's weakest-selling titles, almost as bad as DS9: Fool's Gold.
Good point.
But, a post-Countdown/Hobus aftermath series would have had a broader audience than just TNG fans, simply by continuing directly on from the Primeline events of the movie and by featuring/continuing the characters (re-)introduced in Countdown. It may not have reached the sales heights of Countdown itself, but I'd have given it a much higher chance of success than Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor.
The only other book based comic series (new frontier - Turnaround) is one of the highest selling IDW Trek series. It surprises me that IDW did not follow it up with a Titan series
I think the main reason IDW can't do a Titan comic is that they can't use Tuvok (since they don't have a license for the Voyager characters, see Phlox's zero-dialogue cameo in Blood Will Tell for how IDW's lack of an Enterprise license affected that), and I can't imagine Tim Russ being part of a Titan project where his own character would be either dialogue-muted, only show up in one panel per issue, or not at all.
That's definitely not the case, since Tuvok and the EMH Mark I both briefly appear with dialogue in IDW's The Last Generation, and a recurring guest character from Voyager plays a major role in the story (I don't want to spoil it). So they are able to use characters from Voyager even without having a license to adapt the series itself.
Hmm. More than willing to bow to your wisdom on that, I'd just heard (from the ubiquitous "somewhere") that IDW's lack of an Enterprise license was why they had to nerf Phlox's appearance in Blood Will Tell and presumed the same was going on here.
That said, I'd definitely love to see a Titan comic given the crew diversity and the opportunities for both the writer and the artist (and anything further I can say on the subject of doing one I'll save for the fanfic board), but, as others have said before, IDW's only apparently seeing a decent return on their TOS and AbramsTrek product, so, while I'd love to see more 24th century Trek comics come out of IDW, I'll leave my desire for more of them under the heading of "wishful thinking."
It's possible that IDW could use Tuvok in a limited basis because of the one DS9 episode he was in, the EMH because of his cameo in First Contact. I recall that Andrew Steven Harris said that he was able to use Janeway in the Borg Spotlight because she had appeared in Nemesis. That wouldn't explain the other Voyager elements of Last Generation, though, which are not at all insignificant.
Hmm, a puzzling question.
One other piece of evidence for consideration: If you look at the title page of a Titan novel, it says "Based upon STAR TREK (R) and STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (R) created by Gene Roddenberry," and doesn't mention Voyager, even though Tuvok plays a major role in most TTN novels.
As for Phlox's appearance in Blood Will Tell, I don't think it's valid to take that as evidence that they were unable to make greater use of him, since the story was set in the 2290s! It's not like there could've been a place for him in the main story. Phlox appeared in a flashback panel illustrating a character's expository dialogue about the origins of the smooth-headed Klingons. They could've provided that exposition without showing an image of Phlox at all, but they slipped him in there anyway as a bonus.
One other piece of evidence for consideration: If you look at the title page of a Titan novel, it says "Based upon STAR TREK (R) and STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (R) created by Gene Roddenberry," and doesn't mention Voyager, even though Tuvok plays a major role in most TTN novels.
As for Phlox's appearance in Blood Will Tell, I don't think it's valid to take that as evidence that they were unable to make greater use of him, since the story was set in the 2290s! It's not like there could've been a place for him in the main story. Phlox appeared in a flashback panel illustrating a character's expository dialogue about the origins of the smooth-headed Klingons. They could've provided that exposition without showing an image of Phlox at all, but they slipped him in there anyway as a bonus.
I've often found the license structure for Star Trek comics a bit puzzling (having to license each show separately). I still remember back in the day when DC was doing TOS and TNG comics, but Malibu snapped up the DS9 and Voyager licenses. The one time there was any kind of crossover between TNG and DS9, it was a co-publication between DC and Malibu.
^I don't recall Malibu getting the VGR license. They never published anything but a DS9 comic, although they did include nods to some VGR elements in one or two of them. (Their miniseries The Maquis: Soldier of Peace involved Bashir and a Maquis cell investigating a rumor that Voyager and Chakotay's crew were in a Cardassian prison camp. And they did a 2-part backup story with the Mirror Tuvok, though as mentioned before, he could be considered a DS9 character.)
And then Malibu didn't do anything with Voyager. They solicited an adaptation of "Caretaker" (and it was going to be numbered "Issue A" and "Issue B," as I recall), but it never appeared. Tuvok appeared in two issues of the DS9 comic in a Mirror Universe storyline (after he'd appeared in an episode), and Mark Altman's Maquis mini-series, which dealt with the Alpha Quadrant aftermath of "Caretaker," did so in a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" sort of way, as I recall.
Malibu did some weird stuff that I'm not sure how they got away with with their license. The "Lightstorm" special was a prequel to Star Trek: Generations; the Klingon sisters I can understand (they'd both appeared in the series), but trilithium was new (and I recall an interview with Mark Altman where he said that that made Paramount Licensing nervous). And I'm not sure how their DS9 license let them use Sulu in the "Ultimate Annual."
I loved how Ro only appeared in the DC issues.
It was nice that we had a full-scale crossover like that. I didn't like the "anything you can do, I can do better" relationship that Picard and Sisko had; I don't see either man as that petty.
As Allyn just mentioned, they got the license, but never actually published a Voyager comic. I remember seeing the solicitation in the Diamond distributor catalog for their pilot episode adaptation (the only Voyager comic they ever solicited), but it never saw the light of day.
I'm reminded of how Marvel's 1980 ST comic skirted the limits of their license. They were supposedly restricted to stuff from TMP, but they slipped in a lot of TOS and TAS references anyway, which I listed in this post:
Although most of that was probably stuff they slipped past the licensing department's notice.
Similar threads
