Category: Licensed Product

Posted on

Lego Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu volumes 1 and 2


By Greg Farshtey, Paulo Henrique & Laurie E. Smith (Titan Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-78276-192-1 (volume 1); ISBN: 978-1-78276-193-8 (volume 2)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Ideal, cheap & cheerful Stocking Stuffers… 9/10

Toys, games, licensed characters and products have been profitable fodder for comics for the last half-century at least. Since the 1980s children’s television has been just another showroom for an increasingly strident pantheon of robots, dragons, dinosaurs and the like.

However, whatever your opinion of that fact, what can’t be denied is that most of those shows carried in their wake tie-in comics, many of which have been a new generation’s gateway into the world of graphic narrative… and I deem that a Very Good Thing.

One of the biggest multimedia franchises on the planet at the moment is Lego – which has steadily grown from the inspirational bundles of building bricks I used to jam into ingeniously spiky missiles to lob at my little brother – into a vastly expansive, nigh-infinite canvas of characters, settings, scenarios and story potentials with which youngsters and adults can while away the idle hours.

The savvy chaps behind the ubiquitous über-toy have also commissioned proprietary universes for their product, such as the world of Lego Ninjago – Masters of Spinjitzu where the dramas and memes of martial arts movies have been reconstituted into a winning heroic formula for fun and action loving kids…

As any Fule Kno… the ebullient fantasy concoction launched in 2011, following on from an earlier ninja-based iteration, subsequently releasing hundreds of themed characters and toy sets, vehicles, monsters and dragons, video games, apps, a board game, a TV cartoon series, music album and lots more, all supported by an official website.

…And a series of kid-friendly graphic novels.

Published by Papercutz in the USA and Titan Comics in Britain, the splendidly engaging comic strip romps are complete mini sagas scripted by Greg Farshtey, drawn by Paulo Henrique and coloured by Laurie E. Smith, offering light-hearted adventures to delight and charm the young at heart.

Volume 1: The Challenge of Samukai!
Debut volume The Challenge of Samukai! opens with a stunning gallery of star pin-ups and a handy map of feudal wonder-world Ninjago before cunningly recapitulating past events in ‘The Wager Part One’ as Samukai, Lord of the Underworld muses on his current unhappy situation.

His rule is being undermined by wicked, formerly mortal interloper Garmadon. The vile newcomer is also interfering with the underlord’s plans to conquer the surface world. Their seething rivalry is about to result in open warfare when they decide on a last-chance bet to settle the situation…

Reviewing the history of his enemy in ‘Origins’, Samukai again sees how the brother of noble teacher and paragon Sensei Wu tried to steal the puissant Four Golden Weapons only to be defeated and banished to the underworld for millennia.

During that time Wu hid the weapons and led a valiant, honourable life devoted to the martial discipline of Spinjitzu, but when Garmadon eventually escaped hell to attack him with an army of skeleton warriors the elderly sage was defeated.

Retrenching, Master Wu recruited and trained four young men to be his assistants and agents. Cole, Zane, Jay and foolish, headstrong blacksmith Kai (plus the rowdy last disciple’s sister Nya) eventually carried on for Wu and ensured the Golden Weapons remained out of Garmadon’s clutches.

Now the evil rivals are wagering sole rule of the underworld and Ninjago to the one who defeats the young warriors and finds the hidden auric artefacts…

The struggle begins in ‘Turn About’ as red ninja Kai is lured into a mystic trap and ensorcelled so that he appears as a skeleton monster to his brothers in arms.

Thankfully his speed and wits are enough to counter the ploy just as Samukai ambushes black ninja Cole, forcing him to face ‘A Choice of Dooms’. Observational and deductive skill prove far more effective than his super-speed fighting style…

The Four Ninja are undergoing one of Sensei Wu’s elucidatory tests when they fall into ‘The Trap’ but soon turn the tables on gloating Samukai who is sent fleeing back to his drear kingdom where ‘The Wager Part Two’ sees him face down the triumphant Garmadon and narrowly secure a new and precarious détente…

Volume 2: Mask of the Sensei
The non-stop rollercoaster thrills continue in volume 2 as Mask of the Sensei – after some more pin-ups and maps – finds Kai and his sister Nya called to the scene of an accident in their village. Mighty Sensei Wu has been hit by an ox cart and lies dangerously ill…

Thanks to their dutiful ministrations he slowly pulls through but as he quits his sickbed they notice that he seems a little out of sorts. The venerable sage has had a vision. In order to best protect Ninjago, his four students must conquer the world and rule it under him…

Worrying that the head injuries have deranged Wu, Kai dispatches Nya to fetch his warrior comrades whilst he keeps an eye on the Master. The aged savant is charming and plausible as he begins a program of strange improvements, such as fortifying the village and harshly taxing the peasants, deflecting their complaints with beguiling stories of future riches for all, but Kai knows something is very wrong…

By the time the other ninjas arrive Kai is gone “on a special mission” and Wu has equally mysterious tasks for all of them, with the fate of the world at stake.

Soon the heroes are ranging far and wide to recover impossible treasures such as “dust from a raging river” and a “snowball from the Great Desert” whilst in a deep underground cave Kai and the real Sensei strive to free themselves from an impossible trap…

Even once they are free and the Four Ninjas reunited, how can they possible defeat the malign shape-shifting foe who has escaped from the darkest regions of the underworld to take over the world with his equally appalling army of identity stealing cohorts?

Fast, funny, smartly plotted and expertly accomplished, this brace of tales is sure to enthral boisterous youngsters everywhere and, as surely by now every kid gets Lego for Christmas, why not get yours a version that they can read over and over again …and perhaps even develop a notionally quieter collecting bug with?
LEGO & Ninjago are ™ the Lego Group. © 2014 the Lego Group. All rights reserved.

Posted on

World War Z – the Art of the Film


By various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-178116-885-1

Regular readers will know that I’ve never been the biggest fan of zombie fiction but occasionally something comes along that compels me to re-evaluate my position. Such was Max Brooks’ 2009 companion to his excellent novel World War Z released as The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks – a truly mind-boggling piece of graphic indulgence.

Now in the interests of completeness – and because those fine people at Titan Books sent me a review copy – I’m putting you wise to the official film-book which accompanies the blockbuster movie adaptation that resulted from the aforementioned paeans to the unliving and unloved…

This should be interesting for all of us as I haven’t seen the movie yet…

Max Brooks is a successful actor and screenwriter (most notably as part of the team scripting Saturday Night Live, and animation aficionados might recognize his name from the voice credits of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Batman Beyond and Justice League. You’ve probably laughed at a lot of his dad’s movies such as High Anxiety, Young Frankenstein and the first version of the Producers.

Brooks the Younger’s wry, satirical re-imagining of those hoary shambling horror icons has captivated readers since the book’s release in 2003 and the long-awaited, much-delayed cinema release has been eagerly anticipated…

The basic premise of this specific Rise of the Living Dead posits that a virus is responsible for the fall of civilisation. The infection can be found in every corner of the Earth, and it sure looks like Apocalypse Now…

This epic Р160 pages and 272 x 214mm Рpaperback volume reprints the shooting script (complete and correct at time of going to press) liberally illustrated and intercut with photographic stills, production art, storyboard sequences, computer modelling pieces and concept illustrations by Seth Engstr̦m, Kim Frederickson, Robbie Consing and others, peppered with quotes from cast, production crew, scripters and director Marc Forster.

The global setting and the journey of nominal protagonist Gerry Lane is visually divided into a ‘Prologue’ and key locations from the picture as the hero experiences and explores the Z-zone of ‘Philadelphia’ – paying particular attention to the fact that our own war zone of Glasgow substituted for the “City of Brotherly Love” – plus critical clashes in an ‘EZ Save’ supermarket and the ‘Newark Projects’, all ably augmented by Consign’s designs and storyboards.

Other key scenes encompass a ragtag naval ‘Flotilla’ that might be humanity’s last refuge, glimpses of lost ‘Korea’, the battle for ‘Jerusalem’ and the last retreat to ‘Wales’ before a final illuminative section hands over commentary to Special Effects wizards Andrew R. Jones, Alex Reynolds, Simon Crane, Simon Atherton and Scott Farrar who reveal the secrets of making ‘Zombies’ real, building the ‘Tools’ to kill them again and the magic of ‘Shooting Greenscreen’…

For the technically minded there’s also a full list of Acknowledgements to round off your brush with death…

Always the most engaging publishing add-ons to motion picture releases, such “Art of…” compendia are as much a part of the fun these days as popcorn and gum under your seats.  This book is both intriguing and pretty: enticing and genuinely informative enough to keep any fan happy. It might even convince me to watch the film….
World War Z ™ and © 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Man of Steel – Inside the Legendary World of Superman


By Daniel Wallace with photographs by Clay Enos (Insight Studios/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-178116-817-2

Always foremost amongst the fascinating publishing add-ons to accompany major fantasy motion picture releases are the “Art of…” compendiums, and the terrific oversized (286 x 240 x 22mm) hardcover tome which supports the new Man of Steel film is both gloriously enticing and genuinely informative.

Author Daniel Wallace has compiled an eye-popping mix of production art, panoramic stills, pre-production designs and concept paintings gleaned from the various art departments and combined them with behind-the-scenes interviews, commentary and colour to produce a celebratory coffee-table art-book that is absolutely breathtaking.

After a Foreword by producer Christopher Nolan and Introduction from director Zack Snyder, ‘Modern Day Mythmaking’ reveals how the project came about with ‘Making it Happen’ and ‘Making it Real’, further disclosing the secrets of ‘The Suit’ before closing with the film’s philosophical mission statement in ‘Superman Vérité’.

The all-important ‘Casting Man of Steel’ explores and examines the actors, roles and thinking of the vast and stellar cast over nearly thirty electrifying pages, paying great attention to the costumes and designs of a scenario and society such as Superman fans have never seen before.

That imagination overload continues into ‘Welcome to Krypton’, highlighting ‘Kandor’ and ‘The Kryptonian Chamber’ before digressing onto a page dedicated to ‘Speaking Kryptonian’ (in my day it was “Kryptonese” but that’s my own personal digression-lite), after which the visual secrets of ‘The Ruling Council’, ‘Crafted Technology’ and ‘Automated Helpmates’ bring the planet’s robotic excesses to astounding life.

Now a ravaged, worn-torn world, Krypton’s martial advances are spotlighted in ‘Armed for Battle’ whilst ‘The House of El’, ‘Flora and Fauna’ and ‘The Genesis Chamber’ readily inform and expand on the unworldly realities of the lost planet and Superman’s history.

Further visualisations and revelations depict ‘Last Hope’, the awesomely appalling ‘Black Zero’, ‘The Dead Colonies’ long-abandoned by Krypton, and explain how the film designers attempted ‘Communicating with Contours’ before concluding with views of the pivotal ‘Scout Ship’ that changed Clark Kent’s life forever…

Locations and sets star in ‘Welcome to Earth’, with specific attention paid to the hero-in-waiting’s ‘Northern Journeys’, ‘Smallville’, Earth’s military bastion ‘U.S. Northcom’ and of course, ‘Metropolis’ before the epic exploration ends with a heartfelt appreciation of ‘The Heart of the Legend’…

Admittedly Inside the Legendary World of Superman was released to cash-in on the long-awaited movie, but this utterly engrossing picture-treat is such a superb slice of sheer imaginative indulgence no fan of film or funnybooks will want to miss out on such a marvellously magical experience.
© 2013 DC Comics. MAN OF STEEL, SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements ™ and © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Man of Steel – the Official Movie Novelization


By Greg Cox (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-599-7                  E-book edition ISBN: 978-1-78116-600-0

As you might have noticed, there’s another Superman movie hitting big screens at the moment and, as is the norm, the movie blockbuster comes with all the usual attendant extras.

Released a week after the premiere of Man of Steel, the Official Movie Novelization recapitulates that tale in an absorbing 320 page paperback – sadly sans any illustrations – for fans of a literary bent, duly expanding the breathtaking visual experience in the adroit, incisive way specialist author Greg Cox has made his own.

Don’t take my word for it: check his adaptations of films such as the Underworld trilogy, Daredevil, Ghost Rider or The Dark Knight Rises, comics series such as Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Final Crisis amongst others, as well as his legion of cult media tie-ins and comics-related books…

Spoiler Alert: since almost everybody alive knows the mythos of Superman by now and the whole point of this latest movie is to reinterpret, reinvigorate and reinstate that legend, I’m going to manfully restrain myself from outlining the plot of this engaging prose package in anything but the vaguest detail, in case you haven’t seen the stunning visual tour de force yet.

Krypton dies and scientific rebels Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van send their newborn son to another world to escape its destruction. However a goodly portion of film and book concentrate on the fabulous, uncanny and war-torn planet where Jor-El struggles with former friend and desperate terrorist General Zod as each strives to preserve Krypton in their diametrically opposed ways, so you won’t be reading about the child of two worlds until chapter seven…

A ship lands in Kansas, years pass and strange, anonymous miracles occur…

A young reporter begins to chart these odd occurrences.

Another star-craft is found, buried millennia-deep in polar ice…

And one day a ghastly extraterrestrial war-craft comes to Earth, full of deadly super-beings hunting someone called Kal-El…

Full of sly in-joke nods to previous comics, film and TV iterations and littered with those arcane snippets of lore beloved by seasoned fans, this engaging yarn, based on the original screenplay by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, adds some depth to the frantic on-screen spectacle and will delight every Superman that loves to curl up with a good book.

© 2013 DC Comics. MAN OF STEEL and all related characters and elements ™ and © DC Comics.

Posted on

Star Trek: the Further Adventures of the Starship Enterprise – Marvel Illustrated Books


By Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Tom DeFalco, Luke McDonnell, Joe Brozowski, Mike Nasser, Tom Palmer & Klaus Janson (Marvel/)
ISBN: 0-939766-00-0

The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise might not have actually reached any new worlds, yet it certainly has permeated every civilisation here on Earth, with daily live-action and animated screen appearances appearing somewhere on the planet and comics iterations generated in a host of countries long lying fallow and unseen.

If only somebody could sort out the legal and logistical hassles so we could see again those stunning UK strips which appeared in Joe 90, TV21, TV Comic and Valiant from such fabulous creators as Angus Allan, Harry Lindfield, Mike Noble, Alan Willow, Ron Turner, Jim Baikie, Harold Johns, Carlos Pino, Vicente Alcázar, John Stokes and others, I might die a happy, nostalgia-drowned boy…

In the meantime however, here’s a little-seen lost artefact and another early glimpse at how our industry gradually became mainstream literature or “graphic novels”: a pulse-pounding paperback package for action fans, fantasy freaks and movie-lovers alike.

After a few abortive attempts in the 1960s to storm the shelves of bookstores and libraries, Marvel made a concerted and comprehensive effort to get their wares into more socially acceptable formats and, as the 1970s closed, purpose-built paperback collections and a string of new prose tales tailored to feed into their burgeoning brand began to emerge as the company continued its crusade to break into regular, real-world bookshops.

The company’s careful reformatting of their own classic comics adventures were generally excellent; a superb series of primers and a perfect new venue to introduce fresh readers to their unique worlds. In addition, by judicious partnerships with major film and TV properties, they expanded the market share for their little books in real shops and stores.

In this particular case the fact that the mighty Star Trek franchise’s comicbook requirements were being serviced by a stridently ascendant Marvel (after years with the commercial diffident Western/Gold Key Comics) made for an ideal repackaging opportunity…

The Further Adventures were all set in the days after Star Trek: the Motion Picture (which rebooted the long-dormant phenomenon and allowed Marvel to produce a vastly underrated 18-issue series) and recounted new exploits of the starship Enterprise and older, wiser, re-united Federation voyagers James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, Montgomery Scott, Nyota Uhura and Pavel Chekov.

This full-colour delight reformatted three of very best comicbook episodes and begins with ‘Eclipse of Reason’ by Alan Brennert, Martin Pasko, Luke McDonnell & Tom Palmer (originally seen in issue #12, March 1981) wherein the comrades are reunited with former Yeoman Janice Rand.

She has since married Kadan of Phaeton, an alien being composed of pure thought and volunteered for a one-way trip with him and an equally disembodied crew beyond the energy barrier that seals off our galaxy from the rest of the universe. However as in the TV episode “Where No Man has Gone Before”, collision with the barrier produces terrifying psionic anomalies and the exploratory starship U.S.S. Icarus turns back, its conceptual crew driven mad and determined to return home at all costs.

With the anti-matter powered ship on a collision course with the densely populated planet, Kirk, Spock and Rand must overcome extraordinary perils to save an entire world and a unique, extraordinary love…

Pasko, Joe Brozowski & Palmer collaborated on ‘Like a Woman Scorned’ (from previous issue #11, February 1981) wherein the Enterprise was despatched to evacuate a cult leader from a radiation-drenched colony world and Scotty was unhappily reunited with bitter old flame Andrea Manning – and her charismatic guru Carl Wentworth.

Even as the reluctant evacuee began exerting an uncanny persuasion and fomenting actual rebellion aboard ship, the downhearted engineer and his beloved ship began to suffer impossible attacks from creatures out of dark fairytales, leaving Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy to divine the incredible secret to the inimical invasion…

Last included is the marvellously twisted ‘Tomorrow or Yesterday’ (Tom DeFalco, Mike Nasser & Klaus Janson from #7 October 1980) wherein a landing crew beams down to doomed world Andrea IV to rescue the indigenous primitives from a devastating radiation cloud only to find the natives welcoming, aware of the danger but strangely unworried.

To make matters worse the encroaching Rad-storm has made return to the enterprise all but impossible.

In the great square the mystery deepens as destruction looms, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy observe the natives praying to statues of the Saviours destined to save them all: perfect likeness of the Federation Officers sculpted 24,000 years previously…

With time running out, the desperate heroes find themselves trapped amongst blithely unworried masses, all patiently waiting for the prophesied messiahs to save them – just as they have already done…

Smart, effective and lovingly executed, these classic yarns are long overdue for a compilation re-release (as far as I’m aware the stories from this comics series were only ever available in this paperback and as part of a CD-Rom package), and Trekkies, Trekkers and comics aficionados alike should rowdily unite to agitate until some publisher gets the message…
© 1980, 1981 Paramount Picture Corporation. All rights reserved. At that time Star Trek was ™ Paramount Picture Corporation.

Posted on

Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone: Walking Distance


Adapted by Mark Kneece & Dove McHargue (Bloomsbury)
ISBN: 978-0-7475-8787-3

The Twilight Zone was an anthology television show created by the incredibly talented Rod Serling which ran for five seasons between 1959 and 1964. It served to introduce real science fiction, fantasy and modern horror themes to adult audiences who had thus far only experienced escapist, gung-ho space operas such as Flash Gordon and Tom Corbett: Space Cadet.

Serling’s show and the rivals and spin-offs which followed such as The Outer Limits and Night Gallery proved that such themes had both literary value and commercial potential during the turbulent “Space Age” of the 1960’s, and Twilight Zone in particular, thanks to Serling’s progressive views even addressed many social evils of the day.

There were 156 episodes of the first series – over half written by Serling – with such luminaries as Richard Matheson, George Clayton Johnson, Reginald Rose, Charles Beaumont, Earl Hamner Jr., Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight, Harlan Ellison, Lewis Padgett, Jerome Bixby and even Ambrose Bierce, also contributing episodes or tales for adaptation. It was revived twice (in 1985-1989 and 2002; a further 109 episodes) and the various incarnations ran continually in syndication from 1959-2003). Without the Twilight Zone and Rod Serling, it’s doubtful that shows like Star Trek would ever have been made…

Now Mark Kneece (see the superb Trailers, which he produced with Julie Collins-Rousseau), in conjunction with the Savannah College of Art and Design, has adapted some of those landmark early episodes as graphic novels published by Walker Books for Young Readers in America and available in the UK through Bloomsbury.

Martin Sloan is driving his expensive car. A 39 year-old ad exec at the top of his game, he is rich, busy and slowly dying inside. When his car crashes he finds himself near an old fashioned small-town just like the one he grew up in. Exactly like it. In fact, there’s a young boy over yonder who looks the spitting image of…

Illustrated with understated efficiency by Dove McHargue, a tutor at the Savannah college, ‘Walking Distance’ is a melancholic assault on the Rat-Race of Sixties America, an elegy to simpler, happier times and Serling’s most personal – almost autobiographical – story. This is a powerful shot at the relentless American Dream of success at all costs, with just the right amount of tension and terror to spice up the fable whilst keeping the message poignant and welcoming.

As Sloan confronts his past and reshapes his future, in this wonderfully enticing tale it’s easy to see and painful to admit that even though the warnings were clear fifty years ago (the episode was the fifth to air, a Halloween treat which debuted on October 30th 1959) the lesson still needs learning today.

Serling was a comics fan from his earliest days, particularly of the EC tales that shook America in the days before the Comics Code: a fact obvious to anybody who has read those challenging masterpieces and watched his magnificent continuation of them in television. This adaptation of his work is both a fitting tribute and an excellent introduction to a world of graphic narrative a little further out and deeper in than the costumed mainstream, and one any older child can – and should – happily experience.

Text © 2008 the Rod Serling Trust. Illustrations © 2008 by Design Press, a division of Savannah College of Art and Design, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Star Wars: Empire vol 5, Allies and Adversaries

Star Wars: Empire vol 5, Allies and Adversaries 

By Various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN 1-84576-272-X

Space opera fans have another fine romp on their hands as the classic cast members of the now-legendary film franchise strut their swashbuckling stuff in a selection of tales taken from issues #23-27 of the Dark Horse comic.

The action starts with “The Bravery of Being Out of Range” by Jeremy Barlow and Brandon Badeaux, a tale of smuggling and subterfuge, and proceeds with “Idiots Array” by Ron Marz, Jeff Johnson and Joe Corroney, with Han Solo and Chewbacca betrayed by old friends whilst on a mission for the Rebels. Darth Vader is on hand to provide some chills, too.

“General’ Skywalker” from Marz, Adriana Melo and Nicholas Scott closes the book, with the boy-hero teaming up with a stranded Clone-Warrior, lost since before Palpatine made himself Emperor, against a horde of Imperials on a rampage.

There’s no great import to these adventures, just good old-fashioned thud–and-blunder heroics, drawn well and engrossingly scripted, and surely that’s enough to ask for?

© 2006 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Star Wars Clone Wars Vol 9: Endgame

Star Wars Clone Wars Vol 9: Endgame 

By Various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN 1-84576-338-6

As the 30th anniversary of the monumental film franchise rolls on, this particular segment concludes with the final volume reprinting material from Star Wars: Republic issues #79-80, 81-83 and the one-shot Star Wars: Purge.

The long running plot involving Jedi Quinlan Vos, who might have been seduced by the Dark Side or might possibly be an agent of good submerged deep, deep undercover is resolved in spectacular manner in the first story Hidden Enemy. Written by John Ostrander and illustrated by Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons, all the questions of his allegiances are answered against a backdrop of the Emperors masterstroke against all the Jedi coming into effect.

Into the Unknown by Welles Hartley and Douglas Wheatley feature an overview two days after the Jedi were slaughtered and depicts the decisions of a pitifully few survivors on how next to proceed.

Set one month after the slaughter of the Jedi, Purge by Ostrander and Wheatley finds yet more survivors encountering the Emperor’s new weapon as Darth Vader goes on his first mission since donning his emblematic black mask and helmet.

These are all strong stories both for fans of this brand and also comic narrative in general. Edgy, fast-paced, action-packed and very well illustrated, they serve to show what can be produced when top talent gets to play with mass market properties that have a willing, eager and receptive audience.

© 2006 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Star Trek: The Trial of James T. Kirk

Star Trek: The Trial of James T. Kirk

By Peter David, James W. Fry & Gordon Purcell

(Titan Books) ISBN 1-94576- 315-7

This edition of Titan’s Star Trek series of graphic novels collects issues #7-12 of the DC comics series from the 1990s. Here the creators try for tense rather than action packed, with a tale of political intrigue as a coalition of alien races (the Klingons and an uncomfortably Iranian-esque fundamentalist species called Nasguls) attempt to have Captain Kirk thrown into prison.

Things come to a head when the price on the Captain’s head leads the universe’s greatest bounty-hunter to attempt his capture — almost destroying the Enterprise in the process. Kirk voluntarily surrenders himself to end the constant disruption and naturally pulls a stunt that turns all those stacked tables against his foes. This stuff is pure classic Trek. The fans loved it then and will now. It’s also a very good example of how to do a licensed property in comic form and readers and wannabe creators should buy and take note.

™ & © 2006 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Star Trek: The Return of the Worthy

Star Trek: The Return of the Worthy 

By Peter David, Bill Mumy, J. Michael Straczynski & others

(Titan Books) ISBN 1-94576- 319-X

Titan’s reprinting (issues #13-18 of the DC series from the 1990s) of the venerable TV phenomenon continues with a sly pastiche of Lost in Space courtesy of Mumy and David, with art from Gordon Purcell and Arne Starr. The maturing crew find the preserved ship of a legendary family of Space Heroes, (complete with a pneumatic-tube-arm waving robot) and must help adapt to a time that has largely left them behind. There are dramas and in-jokes aplenty in this fond romp, balanced in part by Worldsinger, a more traditional Star Fleet tale from J. Michael Straczynski, Purcell and Starr as the crew must convince a poetic alien survivor not to die with his doomed homeworld.

Ken Hooper and Bob Dvorak illustrate Howard Weinstein’s Partners?, a two-parter that fills out the volume. Once again the Enterprise is in a deadly face-off with Klingons after a suspicious border incident threatens to start a shooting war.

As always, these licensed comics are a welcome treat for Trek-deprived fans and in purely strip cartoon terms they are well-written, competently drawn and thoroughly readable. The added fillip of silver screen creators can’t hurt either.

™ & © 2006 CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.