A routine shuttlecraft mission goes awry, leading Captain Picard to believe half his command crew has perished. Faced with continuing the mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise, the captain and crew must deal with their grief on their own time.
Unknown to the crew, though, is that the shuttle crew is not dead -- just on the other side of the galaxy! Their epic struggle to survive and ultimately find their way home fuels this power-packed story with dynamic artwork.
Reprints Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989) #20-24.
Michael Jan Friedman is an author of more than seventy books of fiction and nonfiction, half of which are in the Star Trek universe. Eleven of his titles have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list. Friedman has also written for network and cable television and radio, and scripted nearly 200 comic books, including his original DC superhero series, the Darkstars.
I enjoy graphic novels and manga every so often, and I noticed this book while browsing at my favorite online used book seller a couple of weeks ago. I have read a few Star Trek 'comics' but this was my first that concentrated on The Next Generation.
Here the Enterprise is on a medical mission to help the people of the Alpha and Beta Hydros star system. They are suffering from some type of plague. In order to reach all the patients as quickly as possible, the Enterprise and her medical staff will focus on the people of Alpha Hydros Five, while a shuttlecraft is sent to Beta Hydros Four, the smaller of the two colonies.
Riker, Worf, and Wesley Crusher are on the shuttle as well as medical staff. But something goes wrong in the supposedly straightforward trip and our shuttle crew find themselves.....where? All they know is that they are on the other side of a subspace vortex, and they are in trouble. No warp drive, only impulse power. How will they ever get home from wherever they are?!
Meanwhile, Picard and the crew of the Enterprise must face the facts as they know them and eventually give up the search, continuing on to their next mission.
From here we skip back and forth between the two groups. Usually I would be a little annoyed at this tactic, but it worked in this case and certainly kept me turning pages. I liked the storylines and I thought the artwork was wonderful.
I spent an enjoyable afternoon in space. I imagine that I will purchase another DC Star Trek title or two in the future because even after many repetitions I don't seem to be able to stick to my so-called resolution of 'the final order'.
Star Trek in comics form has a bit of a mixed history. The early stuff from Gold Key was appallingly bad but from the Marvel reboot in the 80s onwards the quality has improved dramatically. This graphic novel reprints 5 issues (20-24, 24 was double-length) from the early 90s (when DC Comics had the publishing rights).
It certainly captures the feel of the Next Generation show and Friedman's writing does a pretty good job of portraying the characters accurately. There are some massive plot holes - but that was pretty common in the TV shows as well. The artwork is generally quite good but suffers from an issue that all comic adaptations of movies or tv suffer from - it is very difficult, especially in the constraints of a monthly schedule, to draw the characters so that they closely resemble the on-screen characters. In this area, this graphic novel doesn't do a great job.
Overall, it was a fun read and a decent Trek story.
Collects issues 20-24 from 90s DC TNG comic series.
Friedman is a long-time Trek writer and he has a wonderful grasp on the characters. These issues came out originally 1991, during the third season of the show. That's when I read them for the first time.
Enterprise-D is approaching Hydros system where two Federation colonies are struggling with a disease. Enterprise is heading toward the larger colony while Riker commands a shuttle to the other colony. Riker's group has Wesley (as an ensign), Worf, Dr. Selar, and a handful of other medical personnel. Enterprise arrives to their destination and start treating the people. But the shuttle Albert Einstein encounters an anomaly which whisks it away. It disappears.
Enterprise searches for the shuttle for days but can't find it. In the end, they must face the fact that the shuttle and crew have been lost. Captain Picard can't really accept it, but the ship gets the next assignment and life must go on.
Meanwhile, the crew in the shuttle have their own problems: Riker is seriously hurt and the shuttle is in unfamiliar space.
This was a very Trek story with the Enterprise crew struggling with their emotions while carrying on their mission. Meanwhile, the shuttle crew are facing a lot of unexpected adventures. It's not one my favorite story lines from the 90s comic but it's definitely a very good one.
Whilst undertaking a humanitarian mission, one of the Enterprise-D's shuttlecraft, containing Commander Riker, Worf, Wesley Crusher and a medical team, disappears mysteriously. Believing the missing crew members to be dead, Captain Picard is forced to continue with his duty and move on to a planet where a civilisation in danger has to be evacuated offworld. Meanwhile, in a distant and unknown corner of space, the shuttlecraft emerges from a subspace vortex and encounters a colony of others who have been stranded with no way home.
I will happily give this book the highest praise that I could bestow given the circumstances; it felt exactly like an episode of the TV series. I'm a lifelong fan of TNG and it was really refreshing to get a Trek graphic novel which has the tone and content of the onscreen version nailed down perfectly. All of the characters felt authentic and everything that happened felt like it fitted easily within the universe established by Gene Roddenberry. Things that honestly can't be said about all Trek spinoff stories.
I also like the concept of encountering Romulans, Ferengi and Klingons who have been stranded for so long that the latter aren't even aware that they're now allies of the Federation.
A fan of TNG? You wouldn't go far wrong with this book.
I love Star Trek the next generation. I grew up watching the series. I didn’t know there were Star Trek comics till I was in high school and I didn’t think comics could do Star Trek justice, I’d tried a few and they didn’t work. Now 25 years after publication I’m reading my first DC comics Star Trek comic. I’ve read the new IDW comics, but never DC.
This comic was so much fun. I thought it’d be five singular stories put into a trade, but it wasn’t. This comic trade is a beautiful story of survival. The story is a bit longer than a regular episode. This allows for things to move at a different pace. We get a set up where a shuttle is lost in space. The enterprise has to move on to complete more missions. Not knowing what has happened to it crew. We get the story of shuttle crew’s journey home. A well written story that would make for a great Star Trek episode.
A collection of five issues DC 20-24. It stars off well, but devolves with the ham handed portrayal of the “hostiles” by the conclusion. It’s just too much “They are the enemy! Let’s kill them!” That alone would have dropped this to a 1-2 stars, but I’ll give it three as it started as a decent Star Trek story.
A nice feel-good story to help us fans keep company with our heroes in graphic novel format although this would have also made for a satisfying episode or two of TNG.
While books have the advantage of allowing the reader to imagine the scene and events, in science fiction where the situations are out of our normal experience, this is often a disadvantage. With the artwork properly done, a graphic novel can be a wonderful thing to behold as the reader can see the situation unfold and appreciate the scenery in a way that cannot be completely described using only words. This graphic novel has great artwork and a quality two-track story. It opens with the Enterprise on a rescue mission to two planets where a dangerous illness has reached plague proportions. Commander Riker, Lieutenant Worf, Wesley Crusher and others take a shuttle to one of the planets while the Enterprise continues to the other. The medical people of the Enterprise quickly deal with their planet and are stunned when they learn that the shuttlecraft never arrived at the other planet. They have been sucked into some form of wormhole and have been transported a great distance and their warp drive has been knocked out. It is up to the shuttle crew to somehow find a way to return. Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise they have to give up the search for the shuttlecraft and move on to their next mission. It is difficult for all of them to accept the apparent fact that their crewmates are dead. Their next mission takes place on a water planet that is about to be destroyed by a collision with a massive comet and they are to evacuate the sentient beings. It turns out to be a difficult mission as the species that they are communicating with is not telling the truth. However, in true Enterprise fashion both groups manage to solve their respective problems and they are reunited in a situation where there is a dangerous standoff with some Klingon ships. The action is worthy of a Star Trek episode with descriptive artwork that allows the reader to see the unusual background essential to the story.
This book collects issues 20-24 of DC's comic series from the early 90's. In the story, part of the crew is lost and believed to dead when they are transported to another part of the galaxy. They find several other refugees from the Alpha sector there, living in a huge structure created from the flotsam and jetsam that came through the same wormhole to land in this distant place. Meanwhile, the Enterprise and crew believe their crew-mates dead and try to move on. It was a good story arc and worthy of a collected edition, but not the most fantastic Star Trek comics I have read.
My step dad gave me this book. I'm not a huge Star Trek fan, but it was a good story that didn't require a bunch of obscure knowledge to understand. There was of course some of the melodrama that you typically find in these types of works, but it didn't distract from the story. Very good representation of the characters. Especially liked Capt. Picard and his inner dialog.
This was the first Next Gen comic I've ever read. It did a good job of capturing the tone of the series and even taking some of the annoying edge off of Wesley "Jar Jar Binks" Crusher. Good character moments and a unique story.
Interesting to read one of the old comics (found this in the library catalog). "We're doomed! Kiss me, Wesley!" LOL Liked how they combined two plotlines.