Midnight Ramblings

Oh my.

This high speed Internet is quite the distraction.

I spent most of my day doing research on Star Trek comic books.

You've got to admit that Star Trek's expanded universe doesn't quite get the same respect as the Star Wars expanded universe. With Star Wars, every thing is done under the watchful gaze of Lucasfilm, so even though it's not canon, there does exist an air of "the genuine article" about it.

But with Star Trek, it was made quite clear very early on that it's not canon. There's no one from Paramount keeping a watchful gaze over all the novels, comics, and video games. It's Star Trek at it's most corrupt; just floundering about to make more money for the FatherCorp.

That's not to dismiss it entirely. Some good stuff comes out of the Star Trek expanded universe. The good thing about no one watching is you're free to do your own thing.

So yeah...Star Trek comics. They've been around from when the original series began to just a few years ago. The comic book license gets passed around from company to company. DC and Marvel both had a kick at the can...the most recent ones were done by WildStorm. The best run of the comics had to be DC's run, who had it from the early-80s to the mid-90s. They pumped out comics for the original series and TNG.

They did some crazy stuff in the DC comics. As you recall, Search for Spock ends with the destruction of the Enterprise. So, what they did in the comics was Capt. Kirk and most of the original crew was given command of the Excelsior. Spock, on the other hand, was given command of a scientific research vessel called the Surak. For the next two years, we alternated between Excelsior stories and Surak stories. When Star Trek IV came around, with the introduction of the Enterprise-A, they did some alternate reality bending to get things back in line with the canonical universe.

There were also some good moments with the Next Generation comics. There was one storyline where Q, in one of his little "tests," turned the entire crew of the Enterprise-D into Klingons. As the only one not transformed, it was up to Worf to get everyone to reign in their newly-discovered love for the battle and put things back to normal. They also did one where, while giving a crewman's eulogy, made a remark about being envious of Data's lack of emotion right now. So, Q responsded by turning everyone into androids. Again, as Data was the only one not transformed, it was up to him to set things right.

This was all in DC's run at Star Trek comics. A company called Titan Books has just signed a deal with DC, and Titan will be releasing ALL the DC Star Trek comics in trade paperback form. The first TP, entitled Star Trek: To Boldy Go... comes out this fall.