TrekInk: Review of Alien Spotlight: Cardassians

The Dominion War is over. Peace has returned. Cardassia is ruined. Their object of revenge is in custody. Oh, and Kira got a new haircut. This week IDW wrapped up their second volume "Alien Spotlight" with an issue all about Cardassians, and their first forray into Deep Space Nine. Find out how it turned out below.

ALIEN SPOTLIGHT v2 #5 CARDASSIANS REVIEW

It’s been a long time between the final two issues of the second Alien Spotlight series. This final story in the second volume takes us to the time shortly after the end of the Dominion War and presents the take of a small group of Cardassian commandos that are part of a militant group known as the Rom Knights. This group wants revenge on those who killed so many of their people and left Cardassia in ruin, and the Female Changeling, recently imprisoned in Ananke Alpha, is the perfect target.

Arne and Andy Schmidt (returning to the Star Trek line as a writer, just as Andrew Steven Harris did) tell the story and dovetail it with a prior incident during the was itself when Kira Nerys was on Cardassia helping the Cardassians fight against their Dominion oppressors. Of course, things inevitably go wrong and, as is typical with any story featuring Garak, there are duplicities on top of deceptions on top of betrayals, and it is left to the reader to try and follow the maze of them through the end (?) of this twenty-two page issue.

No matter how much you complain, it could always be worse… (click to enlarge)

The Schmidts take care to tie the events of this issue into the Deep Space Nine relaunch book series by being consistent with the location of the Female Changeling’s imprisonment after the war, Ananke Alpha, a location previously mentioned in "The Dominion: Olympus Descending". It is the little touches like this that bring a cohesive feel to the post-television fiction and make it much more enjoyable to follow.

Augustin Padilla provides all of the artwork for this issue, merging timelines together smoothly, giving the feel of a dissolve from a film or television show between comic panels. His Cardassians evoke the lizard-like feel of the Cardassians from the TV show, and Garak is recognizable as the man seen at the end of the series. Padilla’s only major problem is the imagery of Kira used. Her hair doesn’t quite look right, and it takes a few minutes to actually recognize her. J.Brown (James Brown, and no, not that James Brown) does an admirable job on his first full Star Trek issue (he had previously done some color assists on the "Tribbles" issue), with the most striking image coming on the first page of the issue, right at the bottom.

I’m pretty sure that last time we saw this scene, the Cardassian wasn’t at the edge of the cliff… (click to enlarge)

Augustin Padilla also provides the cover art, coming in two varieties, one with titles and the retailer inventive version without. Presenting a Cardassian in battle gear at the ready, it gives a definite feel to the story contained within. J.Brown does the cover colors, and it’s nice to have the consistency between the internal artwork and the cover art, and the cover feels almost like a part of the story.

Covers for "Alien Spotlight: Cardiassians" #3
(click to enlarge)

Alien Spotlight: Cardassians is available in comic stores now. You can order it from TFAW. Other issues from the Alien Spotlight Volume 2 series can be picked up at TFAW, but the Tribbles issue is sold out.

Thoughts on Alien Spotlight Volume 2
This is a great conclusion to the second volume of the Alien Spotlight series. While some of the output in the two volumes has been a bit suspect, the opportunity to provide one-shot stories spread throughout the Trek history has afforded us some of the better Trek stories presented by IDW comics, this one among them. Like the first volume, this volume presents three good stories (Cardassians, Klingons, and Q), and despite the other two being a bit weaker (Tribbles and Romulans), overall, it was a good collection of tales. The trade collecting the second volume is due at the end of March 2010, and you can pre-order it from Amazon.

You can also pick up the TPB for IDW’s first Alien Spotlight series (w/ issues for: Gorn, Vulcans, Andorians, Orions, Borg, & Romulans). It is available now Amazon