IDW Star Trek Ongoing...

[Ovation]

Read the final parts of the Legacy of Spock and Manifest Destiny. Really enjoyed them both although I agree as is often the case in the comics, the conclusions felt rushed and convenient.

I think they didn't do a good job of explaining how a single ship tipped the balance in the Spock story. The final scenes were an excellent homage though.

The principle issues I had with Manifest Destiny goes to the heart of the problem with trek in general. Building bigger, more powerful, and 'cooler' ships with more crew is pointless since you either have to ignore them or come up with excuses as to why those factors count for nothing. Less crew allows you to be focused, look for ways to overcome obvious limitations (as opposed to inventing contrived obstacles to overcome) and develop the characters you already have.

One other irritating thing was that McCoy was asked for tactical advice before the wounded sulu has to be brought to the bridge to help. While I agree that sulu was best qualified to advise on a Starship battle, what about asking the other two senior officers who were also on the bridge, both of whom are equal rank to sulu and one of whom is a security expert, whose training will no doubt include tactics. Instead the women's dialogue was relegated to caring about their friends, and providing care for the wounded. That's a tragic misstep in a story with a strong female guest character and it's a formula I sadly expect to be repeated in Beyond.

I don't think the Jaylah (sp?) character--who seems clearly female--will be "relegated" in that manner. Also seems I saw Uhura throwing some punches/blows, non? And the female admiral doesn't strike me as the June Cleaver type either.

 

[Pauln6]

I don't think the Jaylah (sp?) character--who seems clearly female--will be "relegated" in that manner. Also seems I saw Uhura throwing some punches/blows, non? And the female admiral doesn't strike me as the June Cleaver type either.

Jaylah is the high profile female guest so she should do well. I fully expect most of Uhura's character driven dialogue to revolve around Spock, although in a fish out of water storyline, this should give her a good opportunity to shine, so she might do well. I didn't know about a female admiral character but it gets a big thumbs up from me. That's still only 3 women in a movie that has 7 surviving recurring male protagonists though. The key is what's going on outside the female leads.

My issue with NuTrek tends to be its wider sexism. That, if you strip out male and female characters one for one, you very quickly (before you've even stripped out the seven surviving recurring male characters) hit female characters whose principal purpose in the story is as a wife, mother, or love interest, you usually hit women who have one line in one scene very quickly, and you will usually run out of women altogether before you've used up your principal male guest characters.

The acid tests for me will be:
- Are there only all-male security teams? (epic fail)
- Is there a single woman in a security team of four or more? Are the numbers of women bolstered by all those women in sick bay (fail)
- Are there an equal number of male and female security officers, engineers, scientists, command officers, and medics as background characters and do the men and women get roughly equal dialogue. (success!)
- Are there any all-female security teams? (epic success - but only due to re-balancing 50 years of predominantly all-male teams).

In its defence, the IDW comic has had its moments. In one issue, the security team consisted of Yeoman Rand and Lt Zahra but that has been a one-off. Having a recurring female security officer is a step in the right direction but it smacks of tokenism if every other officer you draw alongside her is a man.

 

[JD]

If by female admiral, you're referring to Shoreh Aghdashloo's character, she's the "High Command of the Federation", which sounds like she's the person in charge of all of Starfleet, so she's a little more than just an admire.

 

[Pauln6]

I love her in the Expanse! I've only just finished watching it and, apart from the odd moment in the first few episodes, where the miners seem to be predominantly male, and the final episode where the escapees divide so that only a single female remains, they've done a pretty decent job of putting female characters on par with the men.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I love her in the Expanse! I've only just finished watching it and, apart from the odd moment in the first few episodes, where the miners seem to be predominantly male, and the final episode where the escapees divide so that only a single female remains, they've done a pretty decent job of putting female characters on par with the men.

She's the best part of the show.

 

[Ovation]

If by female admiral, you're referring to Shoreh Aghdashloo's character, she's the "High Command of the Federation", which sounds like she's the person in charge of all of Starfleet, so she's a little more than just an admire.

Ah. Her position is not specified in the trailer and I assumed admiral as she sounds like she's speaking to Kirk from a position of authority above his.

 

[JD]

It wasn't mentioned in the trailer, but they did talk about her role when they added her character in the reshoots.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I thought Aghdashloo's character was the commander of the starbase the Enterprise will be at in the beginning of Beyond.

 

[Christopher]

I thought Aghdashloo's character was the commander of the starbase the Enterprise will be at in the beginning of Beyond.

She's at the starbase, but we don't know that she's its commander. I mean, if she's the head of all Starfleet, then she would be technically in charge of the starbase, right?

 

[TalonCard]

I'm catching up with this series thanks to the recent Humble Bundle, and I'm a little confused about the immediate pre-Into Darkness events. I also decided to check out the cutscenes for the 2013 Star Trek video game, as I'd heard that the storyline is in the comics and that it features the actors from the movies. But as far as I can tell:

Star Trek (video game): Ends with Pike ordering the Enterprise to Nibiru immediately following the events of the game.
Countdown to Darkness (comic book): Ends with Pike ordering the Enterprise to Nibiru immediately following the events of the comic.
Star Trek #31-32: I, Enterprise (comic book flashback): Is set shortly before Into Darkness, is an origin story for a character appearing in Into Darkness, mentions the events of Countdown to Darkness, and has Carol Marcus appears in the briefing room at one point. (?)

I guess the easiest explanation is that the Enterprise took an extended detour before finally arriving at Nibiru? That still leaves Carol Marcus, though. Or is there something I'm missing?

(And yes, if you feel the burning need to point out that this may just be an inconsistency in a comic series that has no relevance to its source material which is itself also only fiction with a long list of inconsistencies, etc, etc, you make take this as an invitation to do so if it makes you feel better. )

TC

 

[Avro Arrow]

If by female admiral, you're referring to Shoreh Aghdashloo's character, she's the "High Command of the Federation", which sounds like she's the person in charge of all of Starfleet, so she's a little more than just an admire.

"High Command of the Federation" sounds like a really odd title to me. (Try "High Command of the United States", and what do you think?) It almost makes the Federation sound like a military dictatorship.

Oh, wait... the Federation is a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada. I guess it all kinda fits.

 

[Markonian]

"I, Enterprise" contains a frame/flashback. We can fudge Marcus's presence that way.

About Nibiru: Maybe one of the two missions was an emergency that was squeezed in, or Kirk took some liberties, adding to his demotion in STID.

 

[Christopher]

The explanation I've seen is that the game came first, the ship was ordered to Nibiru, then the Phaedus mission came up and the ship was diverted before it reached Nibiru, and then it resumed its original orders after Phaedus. So the order is game, Countdown, STID.

And I didn't get the impression that "I, Enterprise" was immediately before STID, just sometime not long before it.

 

[The Wormhole]

So, after just reading the Manifest Destiny TP, I don't get it. What is so special about this story that it had to be its own thing rather than just another story arc in the Ongoing series?

 

[David cgc]

And I didn't get the impression that "I, Enterprise" was immediately before STID, just sometime not long before it.

It pretty much has to be. There's a reference to "when April took over the computer" (complete with the little footnote-box reminding you that happened in "Countdown to Darkness).

 

[mattman8907]

Hard to believe next month is the final issue of this series and basically the end of the kelvin timeline

 

[Dales]

Hard yo believe next month is the final issue of this series and basically the end of the kelvin timeline

So what happens next? are they rebooting it? It feels like the power that be don't want to take the kevin timeline so seriously. they would not even give us the novels and now they are cancelling the monthly comics

 

[mattman8907]

So what happens next? are they rebooting it? It feels like the power that be don't want to take the kevin timeline so seriously. they would not even give us the novels and now they are cancelling the monthly comics

beats me. All I know is that in September IDW is coming out with a Bi-monthly limited comic series that is set in the TOS and TNG era.

 

[Christopher]

Hard to believe next month is the final issue of this series and basically the end of the kelvin timeline

In comics these days, it is commonplace to "cancel" a series only to relaunch it with a new #1 a short while later. This is a way of providing jumping-on points for new readers who might be scared off by high issue numbers. So there's no reason to assume IDW is abandoning Kelvin comics for good.

 

[mattman8907]

In comics these days, it is commonplace to "cancel" a series only to relaunch it with a new #1 a short while later. This is a way of providing jumping-on points for new readers who might be scared off by high issue numbers. So there's no reason to assume IDW is abandoning Kelvin comics for good.

well hopefully that will be the case.