DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 2: Star Trek Annuals 1-3 (1985-1988)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back with part two of my DC Comics's Star Trek overview series. Today I'm gonna be covering the three Annual issues that DC Comics published for Star Trek between 1985 and 1988 as well as some other Star Trek material that covers events in these Annuals. So let's get into it.

Star Trek Annual #1 was published in 1985, about a year after the main series got started. Unlike the main series, the Annuals took place before the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). This issue takes place as Kirk first takes command of the Enterprise following Captain Pike's promotion to Fleet Captain (most likely Commodore or Admiral in modern Star Trek's ranking system). It does have a wraparound story set during Kirk and Spock's command of the Excelsior and the Surak, which I mentioned in the previous part of this overview. They tell Saavik the story of their first mission together onboard the original Enterprise, and it also flashes back to Robert April's time as captain and, unless a novel mentions it before this, this issue is the first mention of Pike being April's first officer on the Enterprise, proving that the people writing Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds take elements from the older comics and retool them for the TV shows. Which is cool. I've only seen this issue through scans and a review or two on YouTube. Basically the crew deals with a hostile alien race that chose to capture Pike due to Pike's earlier encounter while April was in command of the ship. The wraparound is that the same alien race is returning to Federation space, twenty years later.

Annual #2 takes place at the end of Kirk's five year mission with the story ending with the Enterprise returning to spacedock and the crew departing with Kirk turning command over to Will Decker for the refit process. The story itself is the ship getting captured by Klingons at Talos IV, with the Talosians being used to torture the crew. Pretty dark for a Star Trek comic published by DC in 1985. What makes it weird is that Scotty grew his moustache and Decker is wearing the pajama looking uniform from The Motion Picture. This issue is collected in the The Best of Star Trek trade paperback that I mentioned last time, which I have in my collection.

The third Annual focuses on Scotty. It tells the story about his relationship with a woman he'd known since childhood as she passed away while Scotty was away on the Enterprise-A shortly after the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). This was the final Annual that DC published for the series before they retooled it to take place after Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and eliminated all of the original characters like Konom. It was also collected in The Best of Star Trek.

That's it for the three Annuals, but I wanted to discuss something else with this post. One of the problems that Star Trek novels and comics have that the Star Wars Expanded Universe, be it Legends or Canon, try hard not to do, is that both sides don't talk to each other so they end up telling the exact same story multiple times. For example there are three or four different versions of how the Enterprise returned from it's first five year mission with Kirk in command. Some of them have similarities, but they're all written by different people and are different enough that they can't line up with one another to tell one cohesive story. There's also at least two, if not more, versions of how Kirk took command of the Enterprise from Pike. So I just wanted to take a look at some of them while I'm here.

The first is the novel, Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda N. McIntyre. The book was published in 1986, a year after Star Trek Annual #1 was published. Like the Annual, the novel details the beginning of Kirk's five year mission onboard the Enterprise. Unlike the comic book version, this story begins with Kirk having been severely injured during the end of his last command, with Gary Mitchell, who was to be Kirk's first officer, in a coma. Otherwise it starts with everything else being the same, Kirk being a jerk, Scotty and Uhura being upset with him, Kirk not getting along with Spock as Spock was forced on him as his first officer, and Sulu not knowing why he was assigned to the Enterprise as helmsman in the first place. 

Next up we have The Lost Years by J.M. Dillard, which was published in 1989. This novel detailed the end of Kirk's five year mission and detailed where each crewmember went once the Enterprise returned to spacedock. Decker makes an appearance, but there's no mission on their way back to spacedock. This focuses more on what happened after Kirk gets promoted to Admiral and Spock and McCoy both resign from Starfleet. Though this is only the first book in a four novel subseries within the TOS novel series published by Pocket Books. The subseries bridged the gap between the end of Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974) and the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

In 1995 DC Comics published Star Trek #75. This issue was the third and final chapter in a story arc that detailed specific moments in the relationship of James T. Kirk and Carol Marcus, but it also gave a different account of the events that happened immediately after the Enterprise returned to spacedock after it's five year mission under Kirk. It covers a shorter span of time than the Lost Years novels, but it also focuses more on Kirk and Carol's relationship than anything else, aside from Kirk's promotion to Admiral.

In 2009 IDW Comics, who had gained the publishing license for Star Trek in 2007 following WildStorm Comics relinquishing the license in 2001, published a five issue limited series called Mission's End, which details the final mission of the Enterprise at the end of the five year mission, and it ends with Kirk and the crew going their separate ways after the ship has returned to spacedock.

Finally, from 2019 to 2021 IDW published a 25 issue series called Star Trek: Year Five. This series chronicles the final year of the five year mission, with issue #24 seeing the Enterprise returning to Earth after five years away. I've never read this series, but from what I've read about it on Memory Alpha, issue #25 is an epilogue which goes into what the crew did during the Enterprise's refit between the series and the movies.

That's all for today folks. I thought I'd discuss some of the other stories that chronicled the same period of events as the first two Annuals of this comic book series did just because I knew this post would be much shorter than the other sections of this overview otherwise. Next week I'll be diving into the comic book adaptations of the Star Trek movies that DC did from 1984 until 1994. So until then have a wonderful evening and I'll talk to you later. Take care. 

Zeroes #3: Nexus by Scott Westerfeld (2018) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was good. I finished the third/final book in the Zeroes Trilogy this morning so I'm here to do my review of the book. Like with my reviews of the last two books, there will be spoilers for this one, so just be aware of that if you're planning on reading these books. Let's get into it.

Nexus is the weakest book in the entire trilogy. Mainly because it did nothing to resolve any of the plot threads introduced in the first two books, such as Nate's reason for gathering the five kids in the first place. It was mentioned in the first book that he had some ultimate goal for the group but it was never revealed what that was. Other things, like Thibault and Riley's relationship, were put to the side, while others were brought back even though they'd been resolved in the second book or were just completely unnecessary to tackle in the first place.

The villain plot feels like it could be lifted from a '90s X-Men comic or from a season 2 episode of Gargoyles because it's your generic "I'm a super-powered being who hates humans so I'm gonna eradicate them with this machine, even though it'll also kill my fellow super-powered beings as well!" scenario. Swarm in the second book was just evil, wanting to kill everybody, but Piper is much more dangerous because she only wants to eradicate the portion of the human race who aren't super-powered like the Zeroes are. 

Riley and Thibault have the most struggles in this book. Thibault struggles to stay out of the Nothing, an...I don't want to say an alternate dimension because that's not quite how it's described in the book, but that's essentially what it is. Riley has to deal with her sister, Lily, betraying her and her friends and then dealing with holding the Zeroes together even after they'd broken Nate out of a supermax prison. 

Speaking of Nate, aside from what I mentioned before of his ultimate goal not being addressed, he doesn't have a whole lot to do in this book as he's either in prison, Riley is in charge of the group, or he's been bamboozled by Piper, the other "Bellwether" in the story. So there's not much going on with him here as there was in the previous two books.

Chizara and Kelsie basically revert to how they were in the first two books respectively with Kelsie afraid she's going to give in and become Swarm, even though she'd already resolved to not do that at the end of the previous book, and Chizara is back to being afraid that she's dangerous because of her ability to crash just about everything, including a person's heart, even though she'd gotten over that in the first book when she realized she could also use her power to fix things, not just destroy them. In book 2 when they had these fears, it was mainly when Glitch used her powers against the Zeroes, but Glitch is barely in this book, except for a few scenes where she's working for Piper. 

As for Ethan, most of his storyline this book revolves around his crush on Sonia Sonic, the journalist/Weird Hunter he met in the bank at the beginning of the first book, and the girl who's been a pain in the Zeroes's butts the rest of the trilogy. As I mentioned in a previous review, she's a combination of Chloe Sullivan from season 1 of Smallville and Chloe from seasons 4 through 10 of said show. Anyways, even though he's not super involved with the goings on concerning Piper, Ethan is probably my favourite character in this book and is the most relatable for me. Maybe it's because in this book The Voice is more under control and less of a detriment to Ethan than it has been in the previous two books, but I found myself sympathizing with him more than with the other characters in the book. Which is interesting because he was my least favourite character in the first two books. I still love Riley, but she's my second favourite next to Ethan in this book. 

Even though this book wasn't as strong as the previous two in the trilogy, I still really enjoyed it. It's a fun superhero trilogy with a beginning, middle, and a sort of an ending, even though that ending is very open ended as if Westerfeld, Lanagan and Biancotti intended to continue with the story, but at the last minute changed their minds and wrote a hasty ending. Especially because it's such a abrupt ending. It's still a really good book though and I really enjoyed it.

 Overall the Zeroes Trilogy was a fantastic reading experience. I love superheroes, even though I feel like they're a little overdone in movies and on TV at the moment, and this was a great superhero trilogy. The box set says Trilogy, but I could easily see the authors coming back to these characters someday. Even if it's just a novel about Ethan and Sonia since they kind of left Ethan on a cliffhanger with him having lost both his actual voice and The Voice after Piper's machine went off at the end of Nexus because I would love to know what he and Sonia end up doing together in the future. I definitely recommend this trilogy to you if you like superheroes or are a fan of the X-Men movies, because there are some similarities between the Zeroes and the X-Men.

That's it for me for today folks. I'll be back at some point, but I'm not quite sure when yet. Probably not until Wednesday when I do the next part of my DC Comics's Star Trek comic book retrospective series. And then who knows after that because aside from She-Hulk I'm not really watching anything else at the moment in terms of TV shows. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Disney Sing-Along Songs Overview Part 3: A Sing-Along Songs Side Quest (1994-1995)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. Happy Friday! Today, I'm continuing with my overview of the Disney Sing-Along Songs home video series. However, I'm taking a bit of a side quest to talk about a trilogy of VHS tapes that are related to the Disney Sing-Along Songs, known as Mickey's Fun Songs. So let's get into it.

While the Mickey's Fun Songs tapes are similar to the Disney Sing-Along Songs series, they're different in that all three tapes are fully live-action similar to the twelfth volume of Disney Sing-Along Songs, The Twelve Days of Christmas. They're also different in that the majority of songs AREN'T ones from Disney movies, TV shows, or theme parks. Instead they're mostly songs that basically every kid was singing in preschool and early elementary school, though a few Disney songs are sprinkled into all three tapes. Let's take a look at each one shall we?

Released on February 2nd, 1994, Campout at Walt Disney World is the first tape in the Mickey's Fun Songs series. Mickey and his friends go camping with a group of kids at Fort Willderness Resort and Campground at Walt Disney World. A few of the kids who appear in this tape appear in the other two as well. They spend the entire day singing classic camping songs. I don't remember ever knowing about this tape (or the other two) growing up. I probably saw them in one of the Walt Disney Home Video pamphlet catalogues that were always included in a new Walt Disney Home Video release, but I don't actually remember seeing it. I did do a full review of all three Mickey's Fun Songs tapes over on The Review Basement blog back in early 2021 so if you wanna check those out feel free to do so.

The songs on this tape are: "Let's Go (Mickey's Fun Songs Theme), "Comin' Round the Mountain", "The Bare Necessities" (The Jungle Book), "The Caissons Go Rolling Along", "The Happy Wanderer", "Oh, Susanna!", "Camptown Races", "By the Beautiful Sea", "Don't Fence Me In", "Turkey in the Straw" (originally played by Mickey in Steamboat Willie), "Talent Round-Up", "Jeepers Creepers", "Mountain Greenery", "Country Roads", "If You're Happy and You Know It", and "Goodnight Campers".

Released on April 22nd, 1994, Let's Go to the Circus! is the second tape in the series. This time Mickey and the gang take the kids to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I don't have much else to say about this release since I didn't own it when I was a kid, and actually only watched it for the first time last year when I did my individual reviews on it. It was my least favourite tape in the series as I've never been to the circus and was never a big fan of the circus to begin with.

The songs on this tape are: "Let's Go (Mickey's Fun Songs Theme)", "Rainbow World", "The Circus on Parade", "Upside Down", "Aba Daba Honeymoon", "I Wan'na Be Like You" (The Jungle Book), "The Man on the Flying Trapeze", "Over and Over Again", "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines", "Make 'em Laugh", "The Bells", "Animal Calypso", "Jump Rope", "Be a Clown", and "Join the Circus".

The final tape in the series, Beach Party at Walt Disney World, wasn't released until June 30th, 1995, a little over 14 months since Let's Go to the Circus! had been released. I love this tape. I didn't have it when I was a kid but I have both the 1996 Disney Sing-Along Songs VHS re-release and the 2005 DVD release, both of which I'll be discussing in future parts of this overview, in my collection now. It's fantastic. 

The songs on this tape are: "Let's Go (Mickey's Fun Songs Theme)", "Celebration", "Set Your Name Free", "Surfin' Safari", "Three Little Fishies", "A Pirate's Life", "Part of Your World" (The Little Mermaid), "Hot, Hot, Hot", "The Hukilau Song", "Pearly Shells", "Limbo Rock", and "Slicin' Sand".

That my friends is it for Mickey's Fun Songs. Next time I'll be going through the third wave of Disney Sing-Along Songs releases that came out from 1994 until 1999, including the re-releases of the first twelve volumes of the series. It's going to be the longest post in this series as there are alot of releases to cover in it. But that'll be next time. I might be back sometime this weekend to review the final book in the Zeroes trilogy but I'm not quite sure which day I'll be doing that on. So until then have a wonderful rest of your day and a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

DC Comics's Star Trek Overview: Part 1: Star Trek (1984-1988)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back for part 2 in my multi-part overview of DC Comics's Star Trek series from 1984 until 1996. Today I'm going to be discussing the first series that ran from 1984 until 1988. I'm just focusing on the main series for this part, and will be discussing the Annuals next time. So let's get into it.

In the wake of the financial and critical success of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982, the comic book license shifted from Marvel Comics to DC Comics. Though despite it's success, The Wrath of Khan wouldn't get a comic book adaptation until 2009, making it the only Star Trek TOS movie to not get a comic book adaptation during DC's time with the comic book license. Despite that though, Paramount Pictures commissioned DC Comics to publish a monthly comic book series set after The Wrath of Khan but before the next movie, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock which was due to come out in June of 1984. The first issue of the series was published in February of that year, only four months before the movie came out.

The first issue sees Admiral Kirk being given command of the Enterprise in the wake of Captain Spock's death at the end of Star Trek II. The rest of the crew, including Lieutenant Saavik, who everyone seems to have forgotten was actually still a cadet at Starfleet Academy, stay onboard, despite the fact that Sulu was about to take command of the Excelsior, according to the novelizations of Star Trek II and Star Trek III, and Chekov wasn't actually assigned to the Enterprise anymore even though the ship he WAS assigned to, the USS Reliant, having been destroyed in the movie. I have this issue in my collection and it's quite good. 

The series also introduced some new characters in Ensign Bearclaw, Ensign Bryce, Ensign Sherwood, and Lieutenant Konom, a Klingon who joined Starfleet, who was created only three years before Lieutenant Worf would be created for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994). The artwork for this series is a bit wonky in that the starship bridges look much larger than they usually do and most of the time resemble generic spaceship command centers, rather than the starship bridges of Star Trek.

The first issue I ever got from this series was issue #4, which is the final issue in the first story arc, which has the Excalbians, from the TOS season 3 episode, "The Savage Curtain", manipulating both the Federation and the Klingon Empire to start a war with each other in order to entertain the Excalbians for their research. Kirk, along with Captain Koloth and Lieutenant Konom, defeats them yet again.

The series only lasted eight issues before it ran into The Search for Spock where Saavik is no longer on the Enterprise, the ship still isn't fully repaired following the events of Star Trek II, most of the ship's crew, who were all trainees from Starfleet Academy, having been reassigned, and Kirk still being an admiral. DC Comics did a comic book adaptation of Star Trek III, which I'll be covering in another part, and starting with issue #9, the ongoing monthly series became set after the events of that movie. Also beginning with issue #9, the series began a new story arc, called "New Frontiers", not to be confused with the Pocket Books novel series, Star Trek: New Frontier that began publication in the late '90s. This arc took Kirk and the crew from Vulcan, where a resurrected Spock was recovering after the events of the movie, into the Mirror Universe, after first hijacking the ISS Enterprise from their Mirror Universe counterparts, and then hijacking the Excelsior from them. At the end of the arc, Kirk is given command of the Excelsior, though he retains the rank of admiral, and Spock is given command of the USS Surak, a science vessel.

Starting with issue #17, the series focuses on Kirk and his crew's adventures on the Excelsior. These stories are told in issue #17 to issue #33. However, the series ran into a problem, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was due to come out in late 1986 and it was set three months after Star Trek III, and despite the comics being out of continuity with the TV show and movies, they weren't allowed to contradict any events shown in the TV show and movies. Luckily series writer, Len Wein, had a plan.

Issues #34 to #36 contain an arc that would restore the crew's status quo to where it would line up with where they are at the beginning of Star Trek IV. After an attack on the Surak leaves it's crew dead and Spock's mind in turmoil, and the crew of the Excelsior prevents a war with the Romulans, Kirk, Saavik, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, and Chekov take Spock back to Vulcan in the Klingon Bird-of-Prey they'd captured following the destruction of the Enterprise in Star Trek III, which they had conveniently stored in the shuttlebay of the Excelsior, leaving the ship for Captain Styles to reclaim and take back to Earth.

Issue #37 sees a newly demoted Captain Kirk assume command of the new USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A, with his crew back at their posts as if they'd never left it. After a religious zealot attempts to destroy the ship, the series just keeps going forward with new adventures. Some issues take place during the five year mission depicted in the original TV series, but for the most part the remainder of the comic book series takes place between Star Trek IV and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Though it still had some surprises in store for the readers.

From issue #48 to #55, the final story arc of the series was published. The arc was called "Who Killed Captain Kirk?" and it was written by Star Trek novelist and legendary comic book writer, Peter David. This arc has the crew investigating the attempted murder of Kirk and leads to Ensign Bearclaw being arrested. The artwork for this end of the series is much improved, particularly when it comes to the sets. The bridge, corridors, Sickbay, and Engineering all look more screen accurate than they did in the first several issues of the comic. 

Issue #56 was the final issue and the story takes place during the time of the TV series. When the issue was published in November 1988, DC was retooling it's Star Trek line to include Star Trek: The Next Generation and to get rid of original characters like Konom, Bryce, Sherwood and Bearclaw, as well as Lieutenants Arex and M'Ress, characters from Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974) who appeared in the series starting with issue #37. 

In the late '80s and early '90s, DC Comics still weren't putting out collected editions for their books as often as they do now. Normally that was reserved for important storylines like Superman: The Man of Steel, and Batman: Year One, and series such as Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. But in 1991 they published The Best of Star Trek, which collected several issues from both of their series based on Star Trek. For this series the book collected issue #'s 5, 24, and 25, as well as Annual #'s 2 and 3. I bought this book for my collection when I found it at one of the monthly Ottawa Comic and Card Show events a few years ago.

In 1992 DC published Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga, which collected "New Frontiers" from issues #9-#16. I have this book in my collection and I got it in January 1993 as a gift from the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I visited the set. This book was my first exposure to the earlier DC Comics Star Trek comic book series.

Then in 1993 DC published Star Trek: Who Killed Captain Kirk?, which collected the "Who Killed Captain Kirk?" storyline from issues #48-#55. I've never found this volume but hope to at some point as I'm interested to read some of these later issues. 

Also by the time the series was canceled to be retooled, DC had already published a six issue mini-series based on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I'll be talking about that mini-series at another time.

This series was interesting in that it had so much more leeway in the creation of characters that never appeared on the TV show or in any of the movies. Particularly since they created the first Klingon to join Starfleet, only three years before Gene Roddenberry would do the same thing with Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Robert Justman was the one who proposed to Roddenberry the idea of a Klingon marine being a member of the Enterprise crew during development of TNG, but I don't know if he came up with the idea on his own or if he actually read the DC Comics Star Trek series, which Konom was still a pretty major presence in in early 1987 when TNG's cast of characters were being created.

That's it for this part folks. Next week I'll be talking about the three annuals that came out for this series, so that's going to be a much shorter post. In the meantime I have part three of my Disney Sing-Along Songs retrospective coming out tomorrow and then I'll be back next week with plenty more blog posts. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Alone Together (2018) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Wednesday. Today I'm going to be talking about a show that aired on Freeform for two seasons in 2018 called Alone Together. It's about two millennials, a guy and a girl, who are best friends, and their crazy antics in the real world. There aren't really any spoilers to give because the entire show is episodic, and there's no character progression or a real plot, so let's get into it.

Created by and starring Benji Aflalo and Esther Povitsky, Alone Together is a fictionalized version of themselves and their friendship. How much from the rest of their lives is in this show, isn't known, but their characters's friendship is exactly the same as theirs in real life. 

I came across this series by accident on Saturday on Disney+. I went on to see if the 1998 TV series, Felicity is on there (it is) and one of the recommendations at the bottom of the page for that show, was this one, so I looked at the description and before I knew it, I was watching the first episode. As I said, there's only two seasons and each season is only 10 episodes long, so I blew through the series in four days as a result. 

I really enjoyed the show. One of the things that drew me to the series is it's focus on a purely platonic friendship between a man and a woman and how society doesn't seem to understand how such things can exist. Especially on TV shows and in movies because of the friends to lovers trope that seems to be prevalent in media. As someone who has been friends with a girl, and people around us have asked us (repeatedly) why we're not dating or have thought we were secretly dating, or whatever the case was, it was nice to see it portrayed on TV for a change.

Another thing that I like about this show is that it's pure fun and entertainment. It's a comedy. No high stakes, no continuity to keep track of, no supervillains. Because each episode was 21 minutes long it's the kind of show that I was easily able to watch five episodes of before going to bed or to kill time in the afternoon when there was nothing else to do.

I love Esther as a character. She's so chaotic and oblivious it's great. I like Benji but it's harder for me to relate to him because he comes from a rich family whereas Esther is someone I can absolutely relate to the most. Like I said, she's chaotic, oblivious, and so much fun that I would definitely hang out with her in real life. Also, Benji and Esther's friendship reminds me so much of my friendship with my friend Kelly that it also kept me engaged with the series.

Overall I really enjoyed Alone Together. It's nothing spectacular, but it was a nice diversion these last couple of days and trust me I needed a diversion. It's not for everybody, but I would recommend giving it a watch. It's on Disney+ here in Canada and on Hulu in the United States. 

Alright, I think that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back tomorrow for the second part in my retrospective on DC Comics's Star Trek comic book series, where I'll be looking at the original 1984 series. So until then have a wonderful rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.  

Only Murders in the Building Season 2 Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about season 2 of Only Murders in the Building. I will be talking spoilers because it's kinda hard to talk about the season as a whole without them, so if you're watching the show and aren't caught up yet, or if you haven't watched the show and are interested in it, please catch up before reading this review. Let's get into it.

Season 2 of Only Murders in the Building is a bit lackluster. Even the show itself knows it's lackluster because they made fun of that fact in the show. It's not a bad season, but it's more unfocused than season 1 is. For a good chunk of the season the group had no suspects and no leads to go on for who killed Bunny and then framed them for it. And when they did have suspects they were immediately disproven or not even worth investigating. Then there were some episodes that just went off on wild tangents that had nothing to do with the mystery itself. 

We got a few things carried over from last season, such as Charles's step-daughter, Lucy, who appears in several episodes, and Jan returns, albeit in prison this time. Oh and the podcast fans return as well for a couple of episodes. 

Our main characters, Charles, Oliver, and Mabel go through some stuff, with Charles finding out more about his father, getting to know Lucy, returning as Brazzos for a TV revival of the original series, and dealing with the fact that Jan murdered Tim Kono, Oliver learning that he ISN'T William's father, and Mabel dealing with the fact that she found Bunny stabbed to death in her apartment. All three of them got through all of it, but that's a lot of stuff to throw onto a cast of characters. Especially when they're also being framed for the death of their building's president.

The biggest twist of the season was discovering who actually murdered Bunny. For the longest time I thought it was Detective Kreps, played by Michael Rapaport, just because he was so eager to put Charles, Oliver, and Mabel in jail. But everytime a new suspect came up, I didn't attach myself to any of them, because everytime they turned out to be deadend leads. So when it turned out to be Cinda Canning's assistant, Poppy, who is revealed to be a woman who disappeared in another state and was presumed to be dead, I felt it came out of nowhere given we've known Poppy since season 1.

Something I noticed this season is that the other residents of the Arconia don't appear quite as often as they did in the first season. Mostly because our leads were following suspects who didn't live in the building, unlike with Tim Kono in season 1. They were still enjoyable to see whenever they did show up though. Particularly since they helped catch Poppy in the season finale.

The only thing I didn't care for in this season was Amy Schumer. I don't like her as a performer in general and she was just really obnoxious even though it was meant to be the celebrity suspect like Sting was in the first season. Neither of them were funny plotlines, they were just distractions. 

Despite the meandering nature of this season, I still think that season 2 of Only Murders in the Building was pretty good. The mystery itself was kind of boring, but the characters's detective skills are much better this season than they were last season. And the three stars of the show, Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, and Martin Short have such great chemistry together, as we saw in season 1 that they're the reason I'm still watching this show.

And that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with my review of a show I've been watching on Disney+ called Alone Together, which aired on Freeform in 2018. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Zeroes #2: Swarm by Scott Westerfeld (2016) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Today I'm here to talk about the second book in the Zeroes Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti. Finally, after six years, I finally got the chance to read the second book in the series. Like with the last book, there will be spoilers in this review because I can't talk about it without them, so if you're interested in reading this trilogy, then please do so before reading my review unless you don't care about spoilers. Let's get into it.

Swarm took the concept of Zeroes and turned it into a full on superhero story on the level of an X-Men or Teen Titans comic. Right down to the villain being someone else with powers, only he doesn't care about collateral damage the way Nate and the other Zeroes do. 

I'm going to start with the villain, Swarm, because that's basically my one really big problem with the book. Swarm is not a unique villain. He's been done in comics, novels, movies, and TV shows since teen superheroes became a thing. He's the Evil Green Ranger, the rogue Mutant, the freak of the week from Smallville, and Sylar from Heroes. The person who uses their powers for personal gain, because they're brain-washed, or for revenge on the people who wronged them. Like Magneto and Mystique for example. And the Zeroes can't reason with him. What does set him apart from any other superpowered villain in the history of superhero fiction is that he also messes up the powers of the other Zeroes, inverting them so that they turn in on the user. For example, Thibault's powers make him forget himself and everyone around him.

One of the things that I like about this book, which carries over from the previous one, is the characters. Nate and the rest of our main cast of Zeroes, since that's the overall term for the people who were born in the year 2000 and have powers, not just Nate's small group, all begin to realize they can turn their powers inside out, like Chizara realized in the first book when she started fixing things instead of just crashing them. 

My favourite part of this book is all the characters celebrating Christmas with their families before everything goes horribly wrong for them. And they're in pairs, with Kelsie and Chizara having a thing for each other, and of course Thibault and Riley having started dating at the end of the first book. Nate and Ethan are the only ones who simply spend Christmas with their own families instead of the family of their significant others. Because they're both single, though Ethan might have a chance with the girl he saved at the bank in the first book, though she's now investigating the weird, similar to Chloe in the early seasons of Smallville. Which makes her a pain in the butt for Nate and his crew, because she's focusing her investigation solely on them, due to her quick association with Ethan. But that just makes her more like Vicki Vale, Lois Lane, Susan Williams (Arrow), and Cassidy Cornell (Power Rangers Dino Thunder).

Also, this time around, Kelsie struggled with the possibility of her being like Swarm, because their powers are basically the same. On top of still trying to deal with her father's death in the previous book. Nate also deals with this in a way because he got bested by people whose powers work against his. Which isn't something he's all that used to. Riley, well, Riley has to deal with teenager stuff, as she and Thibault continue to work out the bugs in their relationship caused by his powers.

The cliffhanger ending for this book was insane. Thibault killed Swarm, Nate took the fall for it, because Thibault vanished, and the rest of the Zeroes are now on the run due to Nate being connected to the nightclub they set up as a place for them to train with their powers, and also served as Kelsie and Thibault's home, since Kelsie's dad died in the previous book, her mom's not around, and Thibault's powers makes his family forget he even exists.

This book was amazing. I am very glad that I bought the trilogy boxset because, like the original Star Wars Trilogy, the Zeroes Trilogy starts off as something very different with Zeroes, but then with Swarm it morphed into it's final form, similar to how The Empire Strikes Back (1980) changed the entire trajectory of the Star Wars Trilogy. If you haven't read this series, I definitely recommend picking it up and giving it a try, because it's pretty good. 

Alright my friends, that is going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of season 2 of Only Murders in the Building as the season finale drops tomorrow morning. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you later. Take care.   

Disney Sing-Along Songs Overview Part 2: Six More Tapes are Released (1990-1993)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well. I'm back to continue our journey through the Disney Sing-Along Songs series of VHS and DVDs. In this part we're going to be covering the re-release of the first six tapes, and the addition of six more tapes that cover Series 2. So let's get right into it.

As we talked about last time, six tapes were released between 1986 and 1989. All of the tapes focused on Disney movies that were either going through anniversaries or would not be released to home video until the '90s. Now that the '80s were over though, Disney began releasing Sing-Along Songs tapes that related to their most recent movies in addition to celebrating Disneyland's 35th Anniversary. They would also re-release the first six tapes in the series with changes in packaging to match the new releases coming out, starting in 1990.

One of the changes made to the packaging is that a volume number is added. The numbering of the first six tapes was also changed. for example, since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was Disney's first full length animated feature film, Disney Sing-Along Songs: Heigh-Ho was renumbered as Volume 1 of the series, despite the fact that the tape came out a year after the first release, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah was released. Aside from that and the new cover art, the tape itself is basically the same, though it would change come it's second re-release in 1994, but we'll discuss that next time.

Speaking of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, it was re-released as the second volume in the series. There aren't any release dates attached to these tapes, just that they were re-released in 1990.

Even though it was released fourth, You Can Fly! became Volume 3 in the series. The openings of these re-releases, including the title card for the series remain the same.

The Bare Necessities is now Volume 4. The only real difference between the original release and this re-release in terms of the tape itself, is that the original Jiminy Cricket series promo at the end of the tape has been replaced by Ludwig Von Drake's version from the 1989 release of Fun with Music, updated to include the new releases up to that point. 

Fun with Music is now Volume 5 in the series. This is actually the only time this tape was ever re-released. For whatever reason it wasn't re-released during Series 3 even though Oliver & Company was released on home video for the first time as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection in 1996. Though it's still included in the 1994 version of the Disney Sing-Along Songs series promo at the end of the 1994 releases. 

Volume 6 is a brand new tape, Under the Sea, released to coincide with the home video release of Disney's latest animated feature film, The Little Mermaid. My parents rented this tape for me when I was a kid. It's the first tape, aside from Very Merry Christmas Songs, to include non-Disney songs with different Disney cartoons and movies. It was hosted by Ludwig Von Drake. It was released on May 18th, 1990.

The songs on this tape are: "Disney Sing Along Songs Theme Song", "Under the Sea" (The Little Mermaid), "By the Beautiful Sea" (Non-Disney Song), "Never Smile at a Crocodile" (Peter Pan), "That's What Makes the World Go Round" (The Sword in the Stone), "Kiss the Girl" (The Little Mermaid), "At the Codfish Ball" (Non-Disney Song), "Sailing, Sailing"/"Sailor Hornpipe" (medley of Non-Disney Songs), "A Whale of a Tale" (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), "Someone's Waiting for You" (The Rescuers), and "Under the Sea (Reprise)".

Next came Volume 7, Disneyland Fun. This was the first of several live-action Sing-Along Songs tapes that took place at one of the Disney Parks. While Professor Owl introduces the video, there's no host for the tape as it all takes place at Disneyland sometime in 1989. I had the 1994 re-release of this video when I was a kid, and I also have the 1994 re-release and the 2005 DVD release currently in my collection as well. I'll be talking about those releases at another time.

The songs on this tape are: "Disney Sing Along Songs Theme Song", "Whistle While You Work", "Step in Time", "I'm Walkin' Right Down the Middle of Main Street U.S.A.", "Follow the Leader", "The Great Outdoors", "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah (1990 Rap Version)", "Rumbly in My Tumbly", "It's A Small World", "Making Memories", "Grim Grinning Ghosts", "The Character Parade", and "When You Wish Upon a Star".

Volume 8 is the re-release of the fifth release in the series, Very Merry Christmas Songs. There's no difference between the two releases.

Volume 9, I Love to Laugh! was another tape in the series that my parents rented for me when I was a kid. It was hosted by Ludwig Von Drake. It was the first Sing-Along Songs tape to not have a reprise of an earlier song at the end of the video. It was also the final tape to be released in 1990, as it was released on December 28th, 1990.

The songs on this tape are: "Disney Sing Along Songs Theme Song", "I Love to Laugh" (Mary Poppins), "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place" (Song of the South), "Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum" (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" (Mary Poppins), "Quack, Quack, Quack, Donald Duck" (A Day in the Life of Donald Duck), "Oo-De-Lally" (Robin Hood), "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" (The Three Little Pigs), "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers" (Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too), "Pink Elephants on Parade" (Dumbo), and "Jolly Holiday" (Mary Poppins).

Next we skip ahead to 1992, as no Disney Sing-Along Songs volumes were released in 1991. We also only got one in 1992, Volume 10, Be Our Guest, hosted by Jiminy Cricket. I didn't own it when I was a kid, but we rented it and I saw it at the hospital once. It was released on June 19th, 1992, a few months before the initial home video release of Beauty and the Beast.

The songs on this tape are: "Disney Sing Along Songs Theme Song", "Be Our Guest" (Beauty and the Beast), "A Spoonful of Sugar" (Mary Poppins), "Little Wooden Head" (Pinocchio), "Bella Notte" (Lady and the Tramp), "Heffalumps and Woozles" (Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day), "Beauty and the Beast" (Beauty and the Beast), "The World's Greatest Criminal Mind" (The Great Mouse Detective), "Chim Chim Cher-ee" (Mary Poppins), "Once Upon a Dream" (Sleeping Beauty), and "Be Our Guest (Reprise)".

The eleventh volume in the series is Friend Like Me. This tape was another rental for my family. It was released on April 30th 1993, a few months before the initial home video release of Aladdin. The video is hosted by Jiminy Cricket and Professor Owl doesn't appear outside of the opening theme song for the first time ever. 

The songs on this tape are: "Disney Sing Along Songs Theme Song", "Friend Like Me" (Aladdin), "Best of Friends" (The Fox and the Hound), "Something There" (Beauty and the Beast), "How Do You Do?" (Song of the South), "Friendship" (Mickey, Donald, and Goofy), "In Harmony" (The Little Mermaid: The Animated Series), "Let's Get Together" (The Parent Trap (1961)), "That's What Friends are For" (The Jungle Book), "A Whole New World" (Aladdin), and "Friend Like Me (Reprise)".

The final tape to be released in Series 2 was Volume 12, The Twelve Days of Christmas. It was the second live action Sing-Along Songs video to be released in the series. There's no host and no Professor Owl. I first saw it on YouTube last year when I did my reviews of the live action Sing-Along Songs videos over on The Review Basement. It was released on December 24th 1993.

The songs on the tape are: "Very Merry Christmas", "Deck the Halls", "Dear Santa", "Jingle Bells", "Snow Ho-Ho", "Hip Hop Noel", "He Delivers", "The Twelve Days of Christmas", "I'd Like to Have an Elephant for Christmas", "Here Comes Santa", and "O Christmas Tree/We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

And that my friends is it for the second series of Disney Sing-Along Songs releases. This series is the one where I've seen the most tapes from since they were what was coming out when I was a kid and what was available at the video store as well. We're going to be taking a short detour next time to talk about a trilogy of Disney Sing-Along Songs-like tapes known as Mickey's Fun Songs as they were originally released in 1994 and 1995 and then re-packaged as Disney Sing-Along Songs volumes in 1996, during Series 3. So we'll be doing that next time. Until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Zeroes By Scott Westerfeld (2015) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'll be doing the second part in my Disney Sing-Along Songs retrospective/overview series later today, but this morning I finished the book I was reading so I decided to do the book review I mentioned at the end of my She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 1 review. So today we are going to be talking about Zeroes, which is the first book in a trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti and was published in 2015. There will be spoilers for this book so if you're interested in reading it please do so before reading this review. Let's get into it.

I discovered this book because of Brad. He gave it to me because, while it wasn't quite his thing, he figured that I'd like it. Zeroes is about teenagers with superpowers. While it's labeled as a superhero book they aren't really superheroes in the sense that the characters in the book don't wear identity hiding costumes or masks. They do fight crime, kind of, but they don't wear the traditional superhero costumes and masks. 

The premise of the book is that a group of kids from Cambria, California, who were born in the year 2000, develop superpowers and come together as a group known as the Zeroes to train and help each other learn to control their powers because in each case each person's powers can be destructive. But when one of their own gets into trouble with the Russian mob, the Zeroes discover a new member, whose father is in deep. 

One of the things that drew me to this book is that it doesn't start at the beginning. It's not an origin story about how the group find each other and discover their powers. All of that happened many years before the opening chapter of the book. In fact the group has already split up due to one of them using their powers in a way that left all of them angry at him and splintered the group altogether. You don't usually get that with books like this. Normally when it's the first book in the series, it's the FIRST book in the series, with no story having come before it. But the way that Westerfeld, Lanagan, and Biancotti wrote it, the world presented in this story feels so much more fleshed out than if the backstory had simply been the Zeroes coming together for the first time or if the book had been about them coming together for the first time.

So you might be wondering who the Zeroes are right? Well there are six of them. Nataniel Saldana/Bellwether, Riley Phillips/Flicker, Chizara Okeke/Crash, Thibault Durant/Anonymous, Ethan Cooper/Scam, and the newest member of the team, Kelsie Laszlo/Mob. Nate has the power to bring people under his leadership with friendship, Riley is blind but can use other people's eyes to see the world around her, Chizara has the ability to crash any electronic system connected through the internet, Thibault has the ability to disappear and make people forget he exists, Ethan's powers are utilized with a second voice within him that automatically knows things about people, including their deepest and darkest secrets, and Kelsie has the ability to affect the emotions of a crowd of people either positively or negatively depending on the situation.

I think my favourite characters, at least so far, are Riley and Thibault because they're both different than the rest. Riley is blind and relies on others to get around, and people forget Thibault entirely. His parents even forgot that he was in the hospital and so they never visited him. As someone who spent alot of time in the hospital when I was a kid, I can sympathize with Thibault even though my parents never ever forgot me at the hospital. 

Nate kind of reminds me of Charles Xavier, minus the telepathy and the wheelchair/hoverchair. He formed the Zeroes with some Ultimate Goal that keeps getting mentioned throughout the book, but it's never revealed in the chapters that focus on him. And of course, he keeps it a secret from the rest of the team. It's probably not anything sinister, but you never know with these kinds of leader characters.

Chizara's storyline in this book is also interesting. She is a deeply moral person and refuses to use her powers in ways that could hurt people, but never refuses to help the others when they REALLY need her. Like when they went to the police station to try to rescue Ethan or when they try to rescue Ethan, Kelsie, and Kelsie's dad, Jerry, since the Russian mobsters put them in a building that's about to be demolished. Over the course of the book she learns how to fix the things she destroys. 

This book explores superpowers in a way that no comic book has ever done. In a way it reminds me of Animorphs a little bit because that series also attempted to explore superpowers and the morality of using them without harming innocent people through how the Animorphs used their morphing abilities. Though the Zeroes fight crime, not an alien invasion. 

I love this book. Though my biggest problem with it is that the chapters are pretty short, and there's alot of them. I think the book could've combined chapters that focus on the same character, because the total number of chapters in this book is 84, which makes this the longest book I have ever read in terms of the number of chapters it has.

That's all I have to say about Zeroes. I have the complete trilogy in a box set recently, so I'll be starting book 2 ASAP as I've never read it before and I'm excited to read the further adventures of the Zeroes. In the meantime I'll be back shortly with Part 2 of my Disney Sing-Along Songs overview series. So until then have a great rest of the day and I'll talk to you later. Take care.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022) Episode 1, "A Normal Amount of Smash" TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty good. The first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law dropped on Disney+ this morning so that's what I'm going to be talking about today. It's going to be hard to not include spoilers because not a whole lot happens in this first episode. So if you haven't watched it yet, please do so before reading this review. Let's get into it.

This episode was good. Having never read any comics that Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk is in, this is my first introduction to the character. Initially I was pretty neutral about this show, mainly because there really isn't anything for me to get overly excited for, since Mark Ruffalo has played Hulk for the last ten years, I'm not a big Daredevil fan (he's not in this episode), and, like I said, I've never read a She-Hulk comic before. It looked good, but nothing spectacular. And the first episode continues that feeling.

I liked this episode. It was pretty good. The humour didn't always land with me, but I'm autistic so it's a rare day when a show's humour DOES land with me. Every Marvel series up to this has had galactic, universal, or temporal consequences to them. This is just gonna be a nice little superhero courtroom drama/comedy and that is perfectly okay with me.

Tatiana Maslany is great as Jen. I've never watched Orphan Black (2013-2017) and haven't seen her in anything recently so this was basically my first time seeing her in anything. Apparently she did appear in a few episodes of a show that I used to watch on YTV called Incredible Story Studios (1997-2002), though I don't remember seeing the episodes she was in. Of course that was 20 years ago, but still. I liked the chemistry between Bruce and Jen though I don't think Bruce is gonna be in the rest of the series since all of his scenes that we saw in the teaser were in this episode, but it was still cool to see him in something after Avengers: Endgame (2019). 

I'm glad that we got the origin story out of the way in the first episode. Ms. Marvel was the entire backstory, and Moon Knight seemed that way too from what I saw in that show's teaser, so it was nice to have a nice, quick, origin for a change. Origin stories can be pretty tedious, especially for characters everyone knows whether they've read the comics or not. She-Hulk's is pretty straightforward though so it was nice to see it quickly.

The downside of getting the origin story out of the way is that we don't really spend any time with Jen before she and Bruce's car gets hit by an alien spaceship and she becomes She-Hulk. By the end of the first episode of Ms. Marvel I knew who Kamala was as a person before she got her powers. Here, I don't know much about Jennifer Walters, except that she's a lawyer, and wants to be an attorney. I don't think that that's going to be a problem going forward in terms of the story that Jessica Gao is wanting to tell in this show, but for me personally, I find it much easier to connect to a superhero/comic book character if I know what their life is like before they put on the costume or get their powers. But we'll see.

I think my favourite scene in this episode was the end in the courtroom where She-Hulk fights Titania (Jameela Jamil). Not the fight itself, but at the end after she takes out Titania and transforms back into her normal human form and then she tells the judge that she's ready to give her closing statements in the trial she's working on as if nothing happened. I laughed.

Something else I laughed at was Jen's obsession with whether Captain America died a virgin or not. I mean we all know that Cap didn't die at the end of Endgame, but the general population within the MCU don't know that, so I guess it makes sense that Jen would think about such a thing, but still, it's like watching that one nerd who asks the actors playing these characters those kinds of questions at conventions. It was funny.

That's pretty much all I have to say about this episode. Like I said, not alot happens in it so I don't have much to talk about. But, honestly, I think that that's a good thing because as much as I loved The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel, all three of those shows had so much happening in the first episode that it was a bit overwhelming. Especially in Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel because both shows were introducing alot of new characters AND trying to pack in as much story as possible since they were both only six episodes long. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is nine episodes, so hopefully that gives it room to breathe. 

Overall this was a good first episode and a good introduction to Jennifer Walters for those of us who aren't already familiar with her as a character. i.e. those of us who haven't read the comics before. If you're interested, I recommend this episode to you to see if you wanna keep going with the show.

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for today. I haven't decided if I'm going to do weekly reviews of She-Hulk or not yet, but I'm definitely thinking about it. In the meantime I will be back tomorrow with the second part in my Disney Sing-Along Songs series overview and I have a book review coming soon as well. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

DC Comics's Star Trek Overview: Introduction

 Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend. So I've been struggling to figure out what comic book or comic book series to tackle because I've been itching to go into the history of certain comics and I couldn't decide on which ones to tackle. So today I'm going to be starting an 11 part overview on the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics from 1984 until the license for Star Trek comics returned to Marvel in 1996. This introduction is going to serve as a history of Star Trek comics in general up to when DC Comics got the comic book license in 1984, as well as my own personal history with the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics. So let's get into it. 

Star Trek comics have been in constant publication since 1967. At this point TOS had only been around for one season and Western Publishing, who would publish the first original novel for the series, Mission to Horatius, in 1968, owned Gold Key Comics, who were famous for comics based on TV show and movie properties, such as Disney, the Looney Tunes and others, began publishing a comic based on Star Trek (1966-1969). This comic book series is bizarre and deserves it's own blog post, but it ran for a total of twelve years and 61 issues before Western, then known as Whitman Publishing, lost the license to the series.

In 1979, as Star Trek: The Motion Picture was about to be released into theatres, Marvel Comics gained the comic book license for the then upcoming movie, as well as the series as a whole, which was only Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), and The Motion Picture at that point. The first issue was published in 1980 and was the first part in a three part comic book adaptation of the movie. After issue #3, the series went in it's own direction, chronicling the adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew on the refitted U.S.S. Enterprise following the events of the movie. The series only ran for two years and 18 issues before Marvel's license ran out in 1982, around the time that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was coming out. I had three random issues of this series that my sister got for me as either a birthday present or a Christmas present sometime in the 2000s.

My history with Star Trek comics, and comic books in general, began in 1992 with Star Trek #31, and Star Trek: The Next Generation #31. Star Trek #31 was the second part in a four part storyline where Sulu and Uhura end up becoming witnesses for a criminal trial during the Enterprise-A's mission to Quatrin, whose inhabitants I mistakened as TOS Ferengis when I was a kid. TNG #31 is part two of a two part story which involves the return of Captain Thadiun Okona from the season 2 episode "The Outrageous Okona". Both of these issues not only began my lifelong love of comic books, which was sustained by my love of Batman, but it began a lifelong journey of finding single issues for all of DC's Star Trek publication run since very few of them ever got collected in trade paperback editions, even after IDW got the Star Trek license in the late 2000s, and the hardcovers from Eaglemoss are pretty expensive.

The last issues that my dad bought for me were Star Trek #75 and Star Trek: The Next Generation #74, both published in 1995. I would later gets TNG #'s 79 and 80, the final two issues of the series, but these two were the last that my dad bought for me regularly, after three years of getting them for me. Star Trek #75 was the third and final part in a three issue storyline that followed the relationship of James T. Kirk and Dr. Carol Marcus, as well as the advancements in Kirk's career, from his time as a Commander, to his promotion to Admiral following the return of the Enterprise from it's first five year mission under Kirk, between Star Trek and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. TNG #74 is part 4 of a 5 part series where the Enterprise-D has to face the Tholians (from the TOS episode, "The Tholian Web") after several Klingon and Federation outposts, Starbases and starships are attacked by them. There's also Borg involved, but since I've never read issue #75, I don't know how Hugh and his Borg group from the season 6 finale/season 7 premiere, "Descent", are involved. 

Of course I continued to get a few issues from this series here and there during the late 2000s and early 2010s, in order to get the issues that my dad ended up not being able to get for me during the three year period where he was buying them for me in the '90s because that's what most comic book stores have available in their back issue bins, and they're what most sellers at comic book conventions, and geek sales have available at their booths. But at some point I'm hoping to grab the full main runs of both books.

This post is probably going to be the shortest one in this series, since my history with DC's Star Trek comic book line is pretty straightforward. The rest of this series will be longer, since I'll be talking about storylines, other issues of the series that I had and things like that. 

That's gonna be it for me for today my friends. I will be back tomorrow for my review of the first episode, or first two episodes, of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which drops on Disney+ tomorrow morning. And then on Friday is part 2 on my overview/retrospective of the Disney Sing-Along Songs series. So until then have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.