DC's Star Trek Overview Part 6: Star Trek Annuals (1990-1995)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? Are you all having a good week so far? It's Wednesday yet again, which means it's time for another installment of my overview of the Star Trek comic book line published by DC Comics in the '80s and '90s. Today I'll be looking at the annuals for Star Trek (1989-1996) which came out between 1990 and 1995. Like with the annuals from the '80s I'll also be taking a look at the stories done in other comics, and in novels, that cover the same time periods that two of these annuals cover. So let's get into it.

Star Trek Annual #1 was published in 1990. However, I've never owned this issue and there's no synopsis for it on Memory Alpha, so I have no idea what it's actually about. All I can tell you is that George Takei, the first actor to play Sulu, cowrote it with Peter David and Gray Morrow and Tom McCraw are the artists on this issue.

A year later, in 1991, Star Trek Annual #2 was published. Unlike with the first annual, this issue's cover tells you exactly what the issue is about. Kirk's time as a cadet at Starfleet Academy. Like with the previous issue I talked about, I also have never owned this issue, so I don't know what the details of the story are, just that it's about Kirk's time at Starfleet Academy, which is something comics and novels love to cover. Peter David is the writer on this issue while James W. Fry and Curt Swan are the pencilers on it with Arne Starr on ink duty. Yes, it's that Curt Swan, the artist whose work on Superman and Action Comics in the '50s and '60s defined Superman for more than 20 years. 

Annual #3 came out in 1992 and this was the first annual for the TOS series I ever owned. It's your typical Star Trek story where the Enterprise-A transports Spock's father, Ambassador Sarek, to a planet that is in the process of joining the Federation. But, Sarek, McCoy and the planet's leader are kidnapped by a faction who wish to prevent the whole thing and take claim to the leadership of the planet. It's a weird one from what I remember as I don't own it anymore and haven't read it in about ten years. 

Star Trek Annual #4, which came out in 1993, is probably my favourite of all the ones I owned. In this issue Spock is a Lieutenant who has recently been assigned to the Enterprise, commanded by Captain Christopher Pike. The crew is exactly the same as in the original pilot episode "The Cage", though Scotty is also added as a junior engineer. Which is cool. The Enterprise receives a distress call from a nearby Federation mining colony. People are having the same nightmares and are acting strange, so Pike, Spock, and the rest of the senior staff, except for Number One and Scotty, beam down to investigate. Yeah, the version of Pike from "The Cage" wasn't exactly known for being smart when it came to taking the entire senior staff on away missions. Also, for whatever reason, Pike has a moustache, which he's never had on the show. Aside from Anson Mount's beard at the beginning of the series premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anyway. Michael Jan Friedman is the writer on this issue with Gordon Purcell as the penciller and Pablo Marcos as the inker. 

Star Trek Annual #5 came out in 1995 and it's another one I've never read, because I've never owned it. The one sentence description on Memory Alpha says that the crew of the Enterprise starts having daydreams of past missions. That's all I have to go on as there's no further description than that. I do remember seeing an ad for this issue in an issue of Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek, but I don't remember which since it's been many years since I read issues from around the time that this annual was published.

 The final annual issue was published in 1995 and was the first part in a two issue crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6 called "Convergence". Basically Gary Seven and his group are involved and other one off characters like Captain Harriman, the commanding officer of the Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations (1994), make an appearance as well. Other than that I couldn't tell you what it's about because I never owned it and haven't read it since it's not collected in any collected edition that I could afford. Now let's talk about a few other stories that cover the periods covered in Star Trek Annual #2 and Star Trek Annual #4. 

First up is Vulcan's Glory by Dorothy Fontana and published by Pocket Books in 1989. This novel covers Spock's first mission onboard the Enterprise, during Captain Pike's tenure as the ship's commanding officer. It's also the first time where Number One is called Una, the first name given to her in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Then there's Star Trek: Early Voyages, which was a comic book series published by Marvel Comics. It only ran for 17 issues from 1997 until 1998, but it was one of Marvel's more popular Star Trek comic book series in the '90s. It's also the series that has the most influence on the tone and style of Strange New Worlds as, while none of the show's producers have come out and said it, I'm pretty sure that they take inspiration for SNW from this comic book series. Mainly because it's the one piece of Star Trek material where we spend the most time with Pike and his crew prior to SNW being a thing. Plus there's elements from these comics that are included in the TV series. As for comics and novels that cover Kirk's time at Starfleet Academy, there are several to choose from.

First up is The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Ecklar, which was published by Pocket Books on December 1st, 1989, only three days before my third birthday. The whole novel doesn't take place during Kirk's time at the Academy, but a chunk of it takes on a version of Kirk's solution to the Kobayashi Maru scenario, which was originally hinted at in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). 

Next was Star Trek #73, published in 1995. The issue opens with another version of Kirk's final run through the Kobayashi Maru, this time with Gary Mitchell and Carol Marcus alongside him. The issue doesn't stay in this period, but it covers it nonetheless.

Next is the Star Trek: The Original Series: Starfleet Academy YA published by Minstrel Books in 1996. The first book focuses on Cadet Spock, the second focuses on Cadet McCoy, with Kirk being mentioned in it, and the third book is called Cadet Kirk as it focuses on Kirk, though Spock and McCoy do appear. Unlike the previous excursions into Kirk's Starfleet Academy career, this one doesn't touch upon the Kobayashi Maru simulation at all. I've never owned this series, but I did own the Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy series, which was the first series in this set of YA books.

Finally we have Star Trek: Academy: Collision Course by William Shatner and Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens and published by Pocket Books on October 16th 2007 in hardcover and on October 28th, 2008 in paperback. This novel took place in the Shatnerverse, which was a series that mainly takes place after Kirk's resurrection following his death in Star Trek Generations (1994), and serves as a prequel. This is the story of Kirk enrolling in Starfleet Academy and meeting Spock for the first time. According to Memory Alpha this novel was supposed to be the first in a new Shatnerverse series, but that never came to fruition. It's never been specified why, but this book came out in 2007, while Star Trek (2009) was in development and production, and because that movie covers the canon, alternate reality version of the events published in this book, I'd say Paramount simply nixed that idea since the second book most likely would've come out in late 2008 or early 2009, close to when the movie was due to come out. But that's just speculation on my part.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back on Sunday for my review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 2 (1994-1995) and then on Monday for my review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), and then on the next DC Comics's Star Trek Overview installment, I'll be talking about the Star Trek Specials which were giant-sized issues containing two or three stories per issue. So until then have a wonderful rest of your week and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Power Rangers Reviews: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 (1993-1994)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend. It's been a quiet one for me, which is nice. So today is the day. I'm finally getting to talk about season 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I've reviewed certain episodes on earlier incarnations of the blog and I touched on the first half of Power Rangers Beast Morphers, but I've never done full season reviews of any season of Power Rangers before, and I've been doing this for almost eight years now. So grab your Power Coins and let's get into it. It's Morphin Time!

Season 1 is a pretty basic season. It's biggest problem is that, aside from the few multi-part episodes that the season has across it's 60 episode run, it's all episodic with very little continuity compared to future seasons of the show, including seasons 2 and 3 of Mighty Morphin. Which in and of itself isn't a bad thing considering this was made and aired in the mid '90s, at a time where episodic television, particularly in children's programming, was still the dominant form of television with some exceptions like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) and Babylon 5 (1993-1998). For example in episode 7, "Big Sisters" Zordon mentions the Morphin Masters to the Rangers as the people who created the Power Eggs, eggs that had an undescribed power but were said to be powerful enough to make Rita unstoppable if she got her hands on them. But for all of that build up, the Power Eggs are lost at sea, and the Morphin Masters aren't mentioned again until the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Boom! Studios comic book series, and the most recent seasons of the TV show, Power Rangers Dino Fury. There could've been some interesting stuff to develop for the Morphin Masters, but because the show was episodic, the whole thing was forgotten by the next episode.

Season 1 is probably the season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that I watched the most of when I was a kid. Given that both Global and YTV aired the season right through the summer of 1994, we rented the "Green With Evil" VHS releases, AND I had six episodes on VHS thanks to the mom of a schoolmate who taped them for me off Global and YTV, it was pretty easy for me to watch it. Though I actually don't remember what time it was on on Global, since it was on five days a week and on Saturday mornings there. On YTV it was on at 5:30 after reruns of Batman (1966-1968) during The Zone, which I will talk about at another time. Sadly, this was the only season that was on on YTV as the channel removed it from the schedule just before season 2 started. Though Batman reruns remained on the channel until 1996. 

One thing I noticed during this rewatch is that we're given glimpses of the interpersonal relationships between the Rangers but we don't get more because of the constant need to fill the series with comedy courtesy of Bulk & Skull. Don't get me wrong, I love Bulk & Skull, they're some of my favourite non-Ranger characters in all of Power Rangers, but this season they fill up too much of the run time of an episode and it takes away from the more emotional moments that later seasons of the show do so well. For example in episode 35, "The Green Candle Part 2", the Rangers are getting Billy's molecular decoders set up so Jason can enter the Dark Dimension to try to get the Green Candle that's burning away Tommy's Green Ranger powers and then Bulk & Skull show up for absolutely no reason other than for a brief comedic moment.

But right from the first episode, "Day of the Dumpster" you can tell that the Rangers, Jason (played by Austin St. John), Zack (played by Walter Jones), Trini (played by the late Thuy Trang), Kimberly (played by Amy Jo Johnson), and Billy (played by David Yost), are best friends before they even get their Ranger powers. And, while later seasons will explore this a little bit further, we only get brief glimpses of it before the Putties attack or before Bulk & Skull show up to create chaos because they think they're so tough and smart, when they really aren't. They're actually more like the audience's stand-ins on the show, which they become more and more as the series goes on since they're on the show together until Power Rangers In Space (1998), with Bulk staying on the series until the next season, Power Rangers Lost Galaxy (1999) and returning for Power Rangers Samurai (2011) and Power Rangers Super Samurai (2012). So they have plenty of time to be fleshed out. I just wish that the writers would give that kind of attention to the Rangers themselves this season.

Speaking of the Rangers, even though I love the character, Tommy isn't my favourite Ranger. I've always considered Jason, the Red Ranger, to be my favourite. Though I liked Billy as well. However, I've found myself enjoying Kimberly and Trini alot more during this rewatch. I think it's because neither of them are helpless damsels in distress like you normally would see on shows like this in the '90s. Okay, sure, Kimberly needed help to get out of the Samurai Fan Man's jar in episode 31, "Calamity Kimberly", but against the Putties, in the Pterodactyl Dinozord fighting giant monsters, and even when dealing with Bulk & Skull, Kimberly can handle herself quite well, which is great. And I think that's why I don't like her as much in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995) as she spends half the movie screaming and asking Tommy for help. I'll talk about that more when I get to the movie in a couple of weeks. 

As for Tommy, he's probably the least developed Ranger in this season. At least in terms of his family life. He's adopted, but I don't think we actually find that out until Zeo. We also never see his adopted parents or anything like that, unlike the other five Rangers. But that's to be expected since Tommy isn't in as many episodes as the other Rangers are. Because his Sentai counterpart in Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (1992), Burai, doesn't have a whole lot of footage in his Ranger suit, the MMPR stories that Tommy was in were limited to using recycled footage, mostly from "Green With Evil", which had been taken from Burai's six episode introduction arc. Though other episodes would have the few shots of the DragonRanger, Burai's Ranger form, that they could use. But, because Toei made extra Zyuranger footage specifically for Power Rangers after the 50 episodes of Zyuranger had been used up in the initial 40 episode order the series had, known in the fandom as "Zyu2" the writers were able to incorporate Tommy back into the series to finish off the season, though with a severely depleted power supply due to Rita burning most of it away with the Green Candle, and then Jason using some in episodes 36 and 37. A fact that Zordon, or one of the other Rangers, mentions in every episode from episode 51 through to episode 60.

Rita and her henchmen are a weird assortment of villains. In many ways she's incompetent like Tweeg in The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, yet she can be as cruel and powerful as Queen Beryl in Sailor Moon. Her henchmen are so full of themselves. Especially Squatt and Baboo. Goldar is my favourite of all of Rita's henchmen. Finster is a close second, particularly in one episode where he suggests to Rita that he make a fire breathing Hedgehog monster for her. Rita would have none of that however, and he was forced to make another monster instead. But Goldar is great. Particularly in this season as he's extremely powerful and even Jason has difficulty with him in both morphed and unmorphed form. And even Tommy has problems fighting him, even when he has his full powers. But the fight between Jason and Goldar in the Dark Dimension in "Green With Evil Part 2" and "Green With Evil Part 3" is pretty cool. Also, it's weird that Scorpina just kind of vanishes after episode 41, "Rita's Seed of Evil". She'll be in stock footage from the 50 episodes of Zyuranger that the show keeps using even after "Doomsday Part 2", but she's not part of any of Rita's plots after that, nor is she in any of the Zyu2 footage. And there's no explanation as to where she went or anything like that. And until the 2016 comic book series from Boom! Studios she'll only appear two more times in the series, and both appearances are in season 2. 

I could make so many jokes about this season because there are alot of stupid things that happen. For example, in "Green With Evil Part 1" the Evil Green Ranger barges into the Megazord through the back door of the cockpit and punches all five Rangers out of the cockpit and then jumps out after them. And then there's the matter of Zordon and his habit of only telling the Rangers important information after something has happened. Like he never explained that Rita had somehow gained the sixth Power Coin and might use it to create her own, evil, Power Ranger at some point.

This season of Power Rangers is so iconic. Particularly for the people who were kids in the '90s. Like I said, I watched it on both YTV and Global, but I didn't start watching it until February when episode 46, "To Flea or Not to Flee" aired on Global. I only ever watched it on YTV when I was in the hospital or at my grandparents's place since we didn't have cable where we were living at the time. But, being 1994 I was in the hospital pretty often at that point. And from 3 pm until 6 pm I watched The Zone on YTV every single day. 

Of course, like Super Sentai and other shows and movies around this time, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers produced a toyline by Bandai of America, the North American arm of the company that produced the toylines for the Super Sentai series in Japan. The first wave, from the fall of 1993 consisted of the five main Rangers, Goldar, Squatt, Baboo, and King Sphinx, the Power Morpher with Blade Blaster, the Dragon Dagger, the Power Blaster (with all five Power Weapons included), the Battle Bikes, which were only shown in "Calamity Kimberly" but used all the time in Zyuranger, the Deluxe Megazord, which could be split up into the five Dinozords, a smaller Megazord where you could only remove the Saber-Toothed Tiger and Triceratops Dinozords, the Deluxe Dragonzord with the Green Ranger figure included, and Titanus the Carrierzord. The second wave expanded the line to include Finster, a Putty, Bones, a black and gold Special Edition version of the Deluxe Megazord, and a remote controlled Megazord.

When I was a kid I only had the Red Ranger, the Black Ranger, the Dragonzord/Green Ranger combo set, and the remote controlled Megazord though I got to play with the Power Morpher and Blade Blaster at school, and the Deluxe Megazord at the hospital. Since then I've managed to get the Pink Ranger, Yellow Ranger, Blue Ranger, Power Morpher, Goldar, and the Deluxe Megazord. Which is pretty cool.

 In addition to the toyline, the show had other merchandise. Including a series of novels that adapted certain episodes of the show. The one I had when I was a kid was Megazord to the Rescue! which was an adaptation of S01E37, "Clean-Up Club". There were others too including an adaptation of S01E01, "Day of the Dumpster". 

Of course there were coloring and activity books for the series as well. Pictured above is one of the ones I had when I was a kid. The designs of the characters, Dinozords, and locations were all taken from various promotional material, particularly magazines, comic books, and other illustrated works. Including t-shirts.

There were a few decks of playing cards, but the one pictured above is the one I had as a kid. The characters and Zord/Megazord designs on the cards are the same as the ones in the coloring and activity books. 

Of course there were video games. The version for the Sega Genesis was a fighting game, where you had to defeat Rita's monsters and henchmen, including the Evil Green Ranger, in various arenas before being able to form the Ultrazord (combination of the Megazord, Dragonzord, and Titanus) and attack Rita's palace on the moon. The Super Nintendo version is a platformer where you take out Putties and monsters in both human form and Ranger form as you go through Angel Grove. The Sega Game Gear version is a combination of the two, the Sega CD version is actual footage from the TV show where you can play through several episodes from the TV show including "Day of the Dumpster", all five parts of "Green With Evil", "The Green Candle", and "Doomsday Part 1" and "Doomsday Part 2". And the Nintendo Game Boy version is a platformer similar to the SNES version. I never played any of these games, though I've watched playthroughs on YouTube and seen screenshots of the games online as well.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Magazine began publication in the fall of 1994, prior to the debut of season 2. I had two issues when I was a kid. The Winter 1995 issue, which came out around the time that Tommy returned as the White Ranger in season 2 (it even has the White Ranger on the issue's cover), which I'll cover next time, and then I had the Summer 1995 issue, which was focused on the movie, which came out around that time. Again, I'll be covering that another time. I got rid of both years ago, but I managed to find another copy of the Winter 1995 issue a few years ago.

Which brings us to the most important part: The home video releases. Season 1 only had ten VHS releases, each tape containing one episode from the season. The initial five were "Day of the Dumpster", "High Five", "Food Fight", "Happy Birthday, Zack", and "No Clowning Around". The second five were the five parts of "Green With Evil".

Season 1 got a complete season DVD release in Germany in May of 2007, long before the season ever got released in North America. The cover has the movie version of the logo, with "Classixx" replacing "The Movie", with the cover art, being a slightly smaller version of what was on one of the 1995 movie posters and the DVD re-release of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. In this version the White Ranger's image is removed, leaving the five main Rangers. 

In 2012 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 1 was released on DVD for the first time in North America, with the season split up between two volumes, thirty episodes per volume.

The two volumes were included in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Complete Series DVD boxset that Shout! Factory put out in 2012 along with the individual volume sets. I'll talk more about this in my season 3 review, but this set includes season 1, season 2, season 3, and the ten episode mini-series, Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers. Though unlike the volume sets, where Alien Rangers has it's own separate DVD release, this set has the Alien Rangers disc included in the season 3 case. This release has been re-released several times, including a DVD steelbook set that includes Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on Blu-ray. Like I said, I'll probably do a separate DVD review of the 2012 edition, which I own, once I've finished the series.

As mentioned earlier, season 1 was adapted from Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (1992). Originally Haim Saban was going to adapt Choudenshi Bioman (1984), but by the time the Fox Kids Network bought the concept, Bioman was considered to be too out of date visually for it to work in a '90s kids show. Saban then chose to adapt Choujin Sentai Jetman (1991), but between the heavier violence and darker themes, he couldn't adapt it into a kids show as Fox wouldn't allow it. Luckily Zyuranger was nearing the end of it's run when Saban produced the original pilot version of "Day of the Dumpster", which I covered in my last review, and was all finished by the time Fox Kids had given the greenlight for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers as a series. Adapting it was difficult since they had to condense 50 episodes worth of material into 40 episodes, since Fox Kids had initially ordered only 40 episodes that they could air in the summer and early fall and that would be it. But the success of the series ensured it would not only get renewed for 20 more episodes in season 1, but it would be renewed for a second season too. As for Zyuranger, it got an official DVD release in North America from Shout! Factory in 2015, a full 23 years after the show's original run. 

And that my friends is it for this review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 1. Despite my problems with this season, I still love it after almost 30 years. As I said earlier, everything about it is iconic. The characters, the locations, including the Command Center, which I love, and the Zords, which are my favourite set of Zords as I have the original Deluxe toy versions as well as the 2010s Legacy Collection versions. Next time I'll be reviewing season 2. Can the Power Rangers overcome all of the challenges and changes season 2 will bring them? Or is this the end for our heroes? Find out next on The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! Yes, I've always wanted to say that. Take care my friends. 

DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 5: Star Trek (1989-1996)

 Hey everyone! How are you doing? Did you all have a good weekend? I did. I started watching season 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Sunday and I'm halfway through the season now, so that review will be up sooner than I thought it would be. As you know, I planned on reviewing three movies, to get them out of the way before I dove into Power Rangers, but I felt like watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Sunday morning, just before lunchtime, and that was that. I've been binging a disc a day, which for the season 1 DVDs, is ten episodes per disc, so now I'm halfway through. Today though I'm back for my next DC Comics's Star Trek Overview part where we'll dive into the original TV series comics that ran from 1989 until DC's license for Star Trek comics ran out in 1996. I got a bunch to cover so let's get right into it.

As mentioned in previous installments of this overview, DC decided to cancel it's first run of Star Trek comics, which was based on the post-Wrath of Khan movie era, in 1988 in order to restructure the series to streamline it. That meant removing characters that were created specifically for the comics, such as Konom, the first Klingon to join Starfleet, only a few years before Worf was created for Star Trek: The Next Generation. DC relaunched both the TOS comic book series, and the TNG series, which I'll be covering in part 8 of this overview, with a brand new issue #1 in 1989. By this point Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) had just come out, and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) had just started it's third season under it's new showrunner, Michael Piller, who replaced Matt Wagner, who had briefly taken over at the beginning of the third season after Maurice Hurley abandoned ship at the end of the second season. This made TNG season 3 a major turning point for not only TNG, but for Star Trek as a franchise. I'll cover that more when I review TNG at some point. 

This first issue picked up where Star Trek V: The Final Frontier left off, with the Klingons angry with Kirk for killing the Klingon crew of the Bird of Prey he and the crew of the Enterprise had commandeered following the Enterprise's destruction at the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). Disturbed by this, Kirk and McCoy head up to the Enterprise-A, which was in spacedock following the events of Star Trek V. I missed this issue when I was a kid, since it came out in 1989 and I only began reading comic books in 1992, and it was never in the back issue bins either. I got a copy at a convention a few years ago. It's a pretty good start to the series.

Issue #5, which introduced us to the character of RJ Blaise, who is an antagonist/love interest for Kirk in this early run of the series, is an issue I got as a teenager from my sister, who bought it for me for my birthday, along with a few issues of the 1980 Marvel Comics series, and an issue of the 1984 DC series. Of course I knew who RJ was because she appeared in the first story of Star Trek Special #1 (1994), which I'll be discussing in part 7 of this overview.

Issue #10 kicked off a three issue story arc called "The Trial of James T. Kirk" where Kirk is finally put on trial by the Federation Council, the Klingon Empire, and a race known as the Nasgul, who never show up again after issue #24. I really like this three-parter as it brought back characters that were one offs from TOS, such as Leonard James Akaar, the Capellan leader from the season 2 episode, "Friday's Child", who was, well, a child in that episode, and Bela Okmyx, one of the Bosses of Sigma Iotia II from the season 2 episode, "A Piece of the Action". It was also the first story arc of the series, except that it actually wasn't.

While the first TOS series that DC had story arcs throughout it's run, the second series actually did something a little bit different. The first 24 issues of the series was actually one long story arc, with sub-arcs like "The Trial of James T. Kirk" placing Kirk and the crew on various missions with the underlining story of the Klingons and the Nasgul wanting Kirk dead and Admiral Tomlinson's crusade to make sure they get what they want, because...I won't spoil it for you, but there's something not quite right about Tomlinson and I'll leave it at that.

There have been a few creative teams on this book over it's 80 issue run. Peter David wrote the first twelve issues and then co-wrote issues 13-15 with Bill Mumy, who played Will Robinson on Lost in Space (1965-1968), which was the other big Sci-Fi series on network television in the '60s alongside Star Trek (1966-1969), and he also played Lennier on Babylon 5 (1993-1998) starting in season 2 in 1994, and then wrote one more issue with #19. After that the creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS for short), wrote an issue. The writer with the most credits on this Star Trek comic book series was Howard Weinstein, who wrote the book fairly consistently from issue #17 until #75, with guest writers coming on to write an issue here and there, with then editor of the Star Trek Pocket Books novel line, Kevin J. Ryan, writing the final five issues of the series.

While many artists worked on the book, the team of Rod Whigham and Arne Starr, as well as Gordon Purcell, worked on the vast majority of the series as penciler and inker, with guest artists coming in to work on the issues where they weren't available.

As I mentioned in the intro to this overview, I started reading this series with issue #31, which was part two of a four part arc called "Veritas", which had Sulu and Uhura as the focus of the arc. Around this time Batman Returns (1992) was about to come out and it was heavily being advertised everywhere. Including on the back covers of many comic books being published in 1992. Particularly those published by DC Comics. 

With a single standalone issue between the end of "Veritas" and issue #35, this series did a five part story arc called "The Tabukan Syndrome". This arc is one of my favourites because it features Sulu in a pretty significant role. The story opens where "Veritas" ended, with Sulu taking command of the USS Excelsior NCC-2000, now complete with a standard warp drive system, rather than the experimental Transwarp Drive system that Scotty sabotaged in Star Trek III. With Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) having come out the year before, DC decided to tell the story of how Sulu got command of the ship since there was about six years's difference between Star Trek V and Star Trek VI. Plus, this is probably the biggest story arc that this series did. Unlike the TNG series, which was being published at the same time as this series, the TOS series seemed to play it a bit safe with it's storylines. Sure they brought back Harry Mudd from "Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd", Trelane from "The Squire of Gothos", Gary Seven from "Assignment: Earth", and Captain Klaa and Vixis from Star Trek V, but they didn't do anything too big with this series, at least, not in comparison to the stuff the TNG series was doing at the time. Though issue #35 did bring back Saavik to replace Sulu as the helmsman of the Enterprise-A, which is cool, since Saavik disappeared from the movies after Star Trek IV and had been a main character in DC's first series for most of it.

The next, and last, major story arc was a five issue one called "Time Crime" where renegade Klingons and some Romulans go back in time to prevent the Klingon Empire from coming to fruition, being replaced by the Klingon Confederation, with the Klingons being a much more peaceful race, and the Romulan Star Empire was wiped out in the Earth-Romulan Wars. In the timeline that results, Sulu never took command of the Excelsior, the Enterprise was never destroyed at the Genesis Planet because there were no Klingons attempting to take it for the information on the Genesis Device, which means the Enterprise-A was never commissioned, Spock took a year to work at Starfleet Command, the Klingons never murdered David Marcus, and a young Klingon by the name of Worf is the science officer on the Enterprise. Not the Lieutenant Worf from TNG, but his great grandfather, Colonel Worf, who represented Kirk and McCoy at their trial for the murder of Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI. In this timeline he's a Lieutenant, the same rank as Worf in TNG. They fix the problem by going back into Klingon history, but that's all I'll say about it here.

The next arc that I want to talk about is a loose one. It's a three part arc chronicling Kirk's relationship with Carol Marcus years before they reunite in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Issue #73 shows the beginning of their relationship while Kirk is the first officer of the USS Eagle, a Constitution class starship, like the Enterprise, under the command of Captain Botwin. Carol decides to leave Starfleet when she discovers she's pregnant with Kirk's son. I used to own this issue but I don't anymore.

Issue #74 takes place a few years later when Kirk is recalled to Earth by Starfleet Command. While he waits to find out why Starfleet recalled him, Kirk reunites with Carol and finds out about David. After a visit at home with his mom, brother, and nephews, Kirk gets a promotion to Captain and takes command of the light cruiser, USS Oxford. These first two parts of the story feature Gary Mitchell before he got turned into a god and then killed by Kirk in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". 

The final issue of the arc, issue #75, is also the final new issue of this series I ever got. By this point comic books were getting more expensive, particularly since my dad was buying two issues for me a month, in addition to the occasional issue of The Batman Adventures and Batman & Robin Adventures that my mom was buying me at the CHEO gift shop. The issue takes place at the end of Kirk's five year mission as Captain of the Enterprise, where Kirk reunites with Carol once again, deciding to take the promotion to Admiral so he can stay on Earth and finally be with Carol, though that doesn't work out for them in the end. I have this issue in my collection again thanks to a comic book sale that Brad and I went to a few years ago. From what I gathered from the end of the issue, this is the last time that Kirk and Carol see each other until The Wrath of Khan.

The remaining five issues all take place during the time of TOS, during the five year mission. I don't know if that's because Paramount had closed the books on the TOS movie era with Star Trek Generations in 1994 or what the thought process was. As I stated above, I've never owned any of the TOS comics beyond #75. So I missed the remaining issues of the series. And I'm perfectly fine with that since I wasn't as big of a fan of the TOS comics as I was the TNG ones. This series is nostalgic for me now, but at the time I preferred TNG. Especially because I didn't watch the TOS movies as much since we didn't own them on home video until 1993 or 1994 when my dad got the six movie VHS boxset, with the exception of Star Trek VI as a nurse recorded it off the TV for me at some point. 

If I'm being perfectly honest, I've never been a huge TOS fan. I watched it in reruns when I was a kid, and I can appreciate the fact that it not only started the Star Trek franchise, but it did alot for people of colour on TV at a time when they weren't represented very well thanks to Nichelle Nichols as Uhura and George Takei as Sulu. But later series did the same things that TOS did, but better, even if it was only by a little. Don't get me wrong, I like TOS, it's just not a show that I like as much as later Star Trek shows. Which is why it surprised me so much when I fell in love with Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022-) as hard as I did.

 TOS Volume 2 had a few trade paperback collections. The first was The Best of Star Trek, which I talked about in my volume 1 segment. This volume collects the three part "The Trial of James T. Kirk" storyline and that's it.

The first trade paperback collection for TOS Volume 2 was Star Trek: Tests of Courage that was published in 1994. It collects " The Tabukan Syndrome" from issues 35-40. I remember seeing this trade advertised in Star Trek: The Next Generation #63 but I've never owned it since I had, and still have, all the issues in single form. 

The second trade, published in 1995, collected the Harry Mudd arc from Star Trek #'s 22, 23, and 24, and the Gary Seven arc from Star Trek #'s 49 and 50. I had both Gary Seven issues when I was a kid, but I only had #24 from the Harry Mudd arc, where we discover something very interesting about Admiral Tomlinson. And no, I still won't reveal what that something is, if you've read the series, you know, and if you're interested in it, well, I hope you find either this trade, or the issues yourself.

Then finally in 2006, for the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek, Titan Books, a British publishing company, published a trade paperback collection of "The Trial of James T. Kirk", collecting Star Trek #'s 7-12, which is the last several issues of Peter David's solo run on the series before he was joined by Bill Mumy for issues 13-15. I don't know if this trade ever got published in North America, I doubt it because I actually never saw it on shelves and online shopping was just starting to become a thing at that point, but then again, it just might not have made it here to Ottawa. 

And that my friends is it for this part of my DC Comics's Star Trek Overview. Next week I'll be covering the annuals that DC published for this series from 1990-1996 and there were six of them so I'll have quite a bit to cover. So join me in a week's time for the next part of this overview.

In the meantime, I'm halfway through season 1 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, though I'm taking a break from it tonight, so look for my review of it to come out on Sunday. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Ready Player One (2018) Movie Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm here for a simple movie review. As you know, I reviewed the 2011 novel, Ready Player One yesterday and decided that today I'd review the 2018 movie adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg. I spent most of the day watching it on DVD, and the nearly two hour long Making Of documentary on the bonus disc. Which is kind of surprising for a DVD that was released in 2018. There will be spoilers for the movie, so if by some chance you haven't seen the movie yet, and are interested in seeing it, please do so before you read this review. Let's get into it.

I actually got to see Ready Player One in theatres back in 2018. Brad and I went, and if I remember correctly, we saw it on opening night because we could do that back then. I enjoyed it, but I haven't watched it since then. I own it digitally on iTunes and I own the DVD, but I didn't buy either copy right away. I actually sat on it for a couple of years. But the DVD is a pretty great release even though it doesn't have an audio commentary or deleted scenes. That's okay though because there was a huge wealth of information in the nearly two hour documentary on the making of the film. But, I digress.

One thing that I like about the movie is that it addresses basically all of the problems that I have with the book, as I mentioned in my review yesterday. The biggest being how Cline handled characters like Art3mis, Aech, Sho (Shoto in the book), and Daito. Not to mention Sorrento has more of a storyline in the movie than he did in the book. Which is something I completely forgot about since I hadn't seen the movie in four and a half years. So I guess I'll start there.

In the book, Sorrento is just the typical corporate stooge who wants to conquer the world, but doesn't have the guts to do it on his own. In the movie he was an intern at Gregarious Games who worked for James Halliday and only got hired by IOI due to his supposed Halliday knowledge, which, of course, was extremely minimal as the Curator at the Halliday Journals, which is a combination of a museum and a library, focusing on James Halliday's life, similar to Wade's grail book in the novel, told Parzival and Art3mis. Which, in a way, makes him the way that i-R0k was in the book. Pretending to be a know it all, but actually knowing nothing. 

Speaking of i-R0k, he has a much bigger role in the movie than he does in the book. In the book, he's only in one scene, near the beginning, is mentioned one other time, and then he disappears, never to be mentioned again. Here, he's basically Sorrento's right hand man in the OASIS. He does recon on Parzival and Art3mis, gets weapons and items for Sorrento and the Sixers, and even provides the magical shield the Sixers use to keep the Gunters out of Castle Anorak, Halliday's stronghold, where the final gate is located, for the final act. 

The cast of this movie is fantastic. You have Tye Sheridan as Wade/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha/Art3mis, Lena Waithe as Helen/Aech, Philip Zhao as Zhou/Sho, Win Morisaki as Toshiro/Daito, Ben Mendelsohn as Sorrento, Mark Rylance as Halliday and Simon Pegg as Ogden Morrow. I've seen Tye Sheridan in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), but that's the only movie I've seen him in, this is the first movie I've seen Olivia Cooke, Mark Rylance, Lena Waithe, Philip Zhao, and Win Morisaki in but they're all awesome in their roles, I've seen Ben Mendelsohn in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), this movie, Captain Marvel (2019), and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and of course, I've seen Simon Pegg as Scotty in the three most recent Star Trek movies: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Star Trek Beyond (2016).

I think I like Art3mis alot more in the movie than I do in the book. In the book, Cline wrote her as purely altruistic with her reasons for winning the contest, but there was no personal connection to that altruism, and it came off as her not really caring about IOI and the Sixers. But here though, she's trying to protect the OASIS from IOI because her dad was killed in indenturement to the company, in addition to helping the homeless and the hungry, which are all noble causes, but in a book, movie, TV show, or comic book it doesn't help the reader or viewer connect to the character if that's all there is to them. So for Art3mis to have a more personal reason for wanting to win Halliday's contest, it makes her more relatable and more like a person.

If I'm being honest, as much as I like the book, I think Cline should've made it into a movie from the very beginning. The story works so much better as a movie in my opinion. It's tighter, less focused on Wade, and all the characters get more to do. For example, Aech has a thing about horror movies, which is why they (Aech is a guy in the OASIS and a woman in the real world, so I guess they is appropriate?) had never seen The Shining (1980). I can completely relate to that because I'm not a fan of horror movies myself, which is why I've never seen The Shining. 

Overall I really enjoy this movie. It was fun getting to watch it again after four and a half years and I will definitely watch it again in the near future. It's funny, fun, and, in my opinion, a feel good movie. Even beyond the '80s nostalgia, which actually shows more in the movie's soundtrack than it does in the movie itself, simply because there are references to more modern stuff in the movie too, particularly in the final OASIS battle at the end of the movie. 

Alright my friends, that's gonna be it for me for now, but I will be back soon with another movie review. I've got two more that I wanna do before I dive into Power Rangers. So until then have a wonderful night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Ready Player One (2011) Book Review

 Hey everyone! I'm back for my review of the 2011 novel, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. There will be spoilers for the book in this review, so if you haven't read it yet and are interested in reading it, please do so before you read my review. Let's get into it.

Ready Player One is a unique book. It was Ernest Cline's first novel and it was published in 2011, a year before The Avengers (2012) and Arrow (2012-2020) came out, spawning genre movies and TV shows and propelling geek culture into popularity. Cline is a screenwriter who wrote the story for Fanboys (2009) and then co-wrote the script with Adam F. Goldberg, creator of The Goldbergs (2013-Present) and it's spin-off, Schooled (2019-2020), and a full-time geek (his biography blurb on the back of this book's paperback calls him that). Having been born in 1972, Cline has seen geekdom evolve over the years.

The book is definitely a first novel. I mean Cline doesn't develop his supporting cast very well, and they're actually off-screen for a good chunk of the book, which is frustrating because Wade Owen Watts, a.k.a. Parzival, is not that interesting of a character. And while it predicts the direction our world is going in, as all good Science Fiction tends to do, it doesn't develop the world of 2044/2045/2046 all that well, beyond that virtual reality was more prominent by then and a game developer died, after setting up a hunt where the winner takes ownership of the OASIS, which is the virtual world of the internet in this book. And everything revolves around the hunt, and gaming, and online life. And I realize that's funny for me to say, given we've been mostly limited to online communications for most of the last two and a half years because of the pandemic, but it doesn't make for a very compelling book.

What does make it a compelling book is this tale of friendship that Cline created in the background between Wade/Parzival, Helen/Aech, Toshiro/Daito, Akihide/Shoto, and Samantha/Art3mis. Why is this important? Well, back in 2011 people weren't as used to interacting with other people and developing friendships and romantic relationships online, like we do today. Well, the general public weren't. We geeks have been doing it via message boards, chat rooms, e-mail, and MSN Messenger, and then later YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, since the internet became more prominent in the '90s. So this book shows that whether you meet friends or a romantic partner online or in person doesn't matter, what matters is how you feel about one another. Even when you're in competition with one another in a game.

I honestly like Aech alot more than I like Wade. Mainly because she's someone I would absolutely get along with if I met someone like her in real life. Art3mis is fine, but, because the focus character is Parzival, we don't get much with her until almost the end of the book. Because Cline wasn't great at writing characters for a novel. I get putting the story in first person limited, but that just REALLY limits character development for the supporting cast. Cline did fix that in Armada, his second book, which was published in 2015, thank goodness, but still, as a screenwriter, he should've understood how to develop characters beyond the point of view lead character. Then again by 2010 when he began writing the book, he had only written one screenplay and that was Fanboys, which he co-wrote the final version of with Adam F. Goldberg. 

I realize I sound negative in this review, but these are the biggest problems with Ready Player One, the novel. Cline actually fixes some of those problems in the screenplay for the 2018 movie adaptation. I love this book, despite those problems. After all it was Cline's first novel and writing a novel is different from writing a movie screenplay. It's just no piece of entertainment media is perfect and flawless, because we as human beings aren't perfect and flawless.

The geeky references in this book are fine. But, being someone who was born in 1986 and grew up in the '90s and 2000s, there are alot of '80s references in this book I didn't know what they were since I grew up with different shows, movies, comics, books, and music than Cline did. I mean yeah, I watched movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Star Wars Trilogy, the Star Trek movies, and films like E.T. and Flight of the Navigator, but I didn't see movies like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off until I was in my early 30s in the late 2010s. I didn't grow up with them. I also didn't grow up with any of the video games from before Super Mario Bros. came out for the Famicom and the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. So there was definitely alot more references that I've never heard of or watched/read/played/listened to.

Overall, despite my problems with this book, Ready Player One is still a pretty good read. I recommend it more if you were a geek growing up in the '80s, but people my age and younger can still appreciate it too. Like I said, it kind of predicted how we deal with online interactions in the age of Covid and the book came out in 2011, nine years before the pandemic hit. 

Alright my friends, I think that's gonna be it for me for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of the movie adaptation of Ready Player One. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 4: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1988)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I've got a double feature for you today. First up is part 4 of my overview of DC Comics's Star Trek comic book line where we'll take a trip back to 1988 to talk about their six issue Star Trek: The Next Generation mini-series. Then, I'll have a review of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline later today as well. Also, before I get into this post, I had intended on starting to watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers season 1 this afternoon, after I post my Ready Player One review. But, there are a few movies that I want to watch and review before I can focus on watching the show, because this is a long journey I have ahead of me, and if I don't get to these movies now, I'm not gonna get to them until next year. First up will be Ready Player One directed by Steven Spielberg. So with all that out of the way, let's slingshot around the sun in our Galaxy-class starship and journey back to 1988. Let's get into it.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation was announced by Paramount Pictures in 1986, DC Comics got the comic book license for the show, as they already had the license for Star Trek (1966-1969) and the Star Trek movies from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) onward. However, because even though the comic wouldn't start being published until February 1988, Mike Carlin, who is well known for being the editor of the Superman comics during The Death of Superman, needed to start writing the comic about six months before the first issue would be published. So, "Encounter at Farpoint" hadn't even aired yet, and all he had to go on were character descriptions and some early scripts. Which is why all of the characters are not who they are on the TV show. In fact, this comic is probably where people got the idea that Wesley is obnoxious and can do the crew's jobs better than they can from, because wow, he is unbearable in this series. Particularly in this first issue. Which is where he has the most screentime.

Aside from the Enterprise-D, which is sometimes based on an earlier design that Andrew Probert drew, the artwork is pretty spot on. Unlike with the first Star Trek ongoing monthly series that DC published, which I covered in a previous post, all of the main sections of the ship, including the Bridge, the Battle Bridge, Sickbay and the corridors look like they do on the show, though the Transporter Room is a bit off, but that's mostly because the comics never got that right, even in the ongoing monthly TNG comic that DC published from 1989 until 1996. The only sections of the ship we don't see are Engineering, the shuttlebay, the cargo bay, and the Observation Lounge, though we do see Picard's ready room. Issue #2 is unique because it's the only Christmas themed Star Trek anything we've ever had. Of course the aliens in this issue are Grinches and are after Santa Claus's celestial spirit or whatever it's supposed to be.

Issue #3 is the first in a three issue Q story that has story elements similar to later episodes of TNG, particularly the season 3 episode, "Deja Q". And because the show hadn't aired when this issue was put together, the artist has Q wearing all of the outfits he wore in "Encounter at Farpoint" and then a Klingon uniform from the TOS movies, despite the fact that we wouldn't see Klingons, besides Worf, on TNG until near the end of the first season in early 1988.

One thing they tried to do with this series is give more for Tasha Yar to do, including adding to her backstory, which the early novels published by Pocket Books also tried to do around this same time. It kind of worked, but the focus wasn't on Yar as much as it could've been, so Carlin didn't add much to the character at all in these six issues. In an interview he did for Star Trek Magazine in 2007, Carlin did state that the two things he regrets most about this mini-series is their emphasis on Captain Picard being French, as he began writing the comics even before Patrick Stewart had been cast as the captain, and the lighter, almost silly, tone that the comic had in comparison to the TV show. Particularly when it came to the married couple he created, the Bickleys, whose race bicker all the time, especially when they're married to each other. That's always been the worst part of this mini-series for me.

You may have noticed that I haven't actually talked about each individual issue, aside from issue #2, due to the Grinch/Christmas thing. That's because all six issues form one continuous story as each issue leads into the other, resulting in the Enterprise-D arriving at the almost mythical planet of Faltos, which I'll talk about more with the next issue. Issue #5 is the only issue of this mini-series that I didn't have in single issue form. I got the other five issues at Ottawa Comiccon a number of years ago though I got rid of the single issues once I got the trade paperback edition that DC Comics published in 1996, shortly before the comic book license moved from DC back to Marvel.

Issue #6 has a story similar to "The Time Trap", which is an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974), where the Enterprise-D finds itself in an alternate dimension, where people such as the Klingons, and Bele from the TOS episode, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" where Frank Gorshin played that character, live together in peace, because the planet of Faltos only enters the main dimension every 64 years, and time moves much slower in that dimension.

I'm not sure why this series was only six issues. Carlin doesn't mention it in his 2007 interview with Star Trek Magazine, but I suspect it has to do with DC's revamping of both Star Trek comic book series, since the first issue of the ongoing monthly series was published at the same time as the first issue of the second TOS comic book series. Another possibility is that this mini-series was meant as testing ground to see if a TNG comic book series would sell as well as the TOS comic had been since 1984.

The mini-series was collected in trade paperback format in 1996, near the end of DC's Star Trek line. I remember seeing an ad for it in Star Trek: The Next Generation #72, which had the cover for issue #1 instead of the trade paperback cover that you see above. It's an interesting cover because only Picard, Riker, and Crusher are in their season 1 looks and neither Wesley nor Tasha are on the cover. Like most DC trade paperbacks from the '90s, the colours were touched up for the trade paperback release since it's printed on different paper from the old newsprint paper that the original issues were printed on. None of the colours were changed. They were just touched up a bit.

1988 was a major year for Star Trek comics as the original series that began in 1984 ended, and this first TNG volume happened. But more was to come as DC began implementing plans for two new series based on the movies and TNG that would start in 1989. So that's where we'll start next week.

Alright my friends, that's it for me for now. I'll be back soon with my review of Ready Player One. Later.