Viewing posts tagged DC TNG Volume 2
I'm no comics scholar. I've said as much in the past, so those who are way more knowledgeable about the subject are free to correct me, but I personally don't recall trade paperback reprints of current monthly comics to be that big of a thing in the Long 1980s. There were more traditional graphic novels and omnibuses that collected rare and out of print issues, but to my knowledge it wasn't so common to see compilation editions for lines that were still in circulation. From my admittedly limited experience, that didn't start to become a standard part of the industry until sometime around the dawn of the 2000s.
“The Lesson” is a story that could never have been made on the TV series. This is highly unusual to say, because, with the exception of a particularly lavish holodeck environment, the entire story takes place on the Enterprise and there's not a single “effects shot” apart from the exterior view of the ship in the first panel. Normally, one would expect the comic book to tell stories that were too complex or expensive to film, but this is an extraordinarily intimate and low-stakes story the existence of which reveals some odd truths about how curiously inverted the roles of the two main series have become by now.
“I owe you an apology, Jean-Luc. As it turns out, you knew exactly what you were doing. If you'd listened to me, the Beta Tarsus colony would have been obliterated – Just like the Nairobi and the Merrimac before it.”
“I appreciate the praise admiral, but you didn't call me in here just to congratulate me, correct?”
“Not entirely, no. As your superior officer, Jean-Luc, it's my duty to quote Starfleet policy at this juncture.”
“Policy, admiral?”
“That's right. And policy dictates that as long as we have any options at all, we avoid destroying that other ship.”
“I trust you're familiar with Nietzsche?”
“The philosopher? Yes, I am.”
“It was he who said 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.'”
“'And when you look long into any abyss, the abyss also looks into you.' I know the quote. What's your point?”
“I don't need any policy to keep me ...
In the past, I've expressed my disdain for courtroom dramas (in fact, the last time Star Trek: The Next Generation did a major story of this type, no less). I think they're a cheap way to artificially introduce drama while at the same time potentially dangerously misleading people when it comes to actual legal jurisprudence. Media has power because so much of what we perceive about how the world works is gleaned from it, and it is thus media's responsibility to be accurate should to choose to be realistic (whether it should choose to or not in the first place is another discussion entirely). Deliberately faulty and inaccurate legal information for the sake of conflict is but one way media can do harm and add to the world's darkness-A comparatively small one in the grand scheme of things, but a no less noteworthy one.
One of the things Star Trek is often praised for going forward is how involved it would get its actors in the creative process. Now admittedly we haven't seen a ton of that so far, especially where Marina Siritis, Denise Crosby and Gates McFadden have been concerned, but this is beginning to change. Shari Goodhartz recalls specifically consulting Brent Spiner during the production of “The Most Toys” to get his input on how Data should behave, there's Patrick Stewart's somewhat infamous alleged meddling in “Captain's Holiday” and Jonathan Frakes is, of course, now one of the show's regular top tier directors. Even Denise Crosby was invited to pitch the basic concept of “Yesterday's Enterprise”, and she'll be the guiding figure spearheading all her return appearances from now on. Yet Crosby's is not the marquee name on any of her stories: One thing the cast member's *haven't* gotten to do yet is pen their own script themselves.
Given Star Trek: The Next Generation's steadily climbing ratings and popularity, it was only natural that DC would bring the series back to the world of comics for a second volume and greenlight a monthly tie-in comic to go along with its television counterpart. In much the same way then that “Encounter at Farpoint” was the pilot for the series prior, it could be said that DC's 1987 miniseries was a pilot for this book line. And indeed, DC's Star Trek: The Next Generation would go on to be so successful it actually outlasted the show it was based on, running well into 1996. It probably could've run indefinitely had Paramount not pulled DC's license in lieu of its ill-advised mid-90s “Paramount Comics” partnership with Marvel.