In January IDW started their periodic "Star Trek: Captain’s Log" series with an issue all about Captain Sulu. This week they continue the series with an issue dedicated to Captain John Harriman from Star Trek: Generations. Can the man who lost Kirk be redeemed? You can get started in our five-page preview below.
PREVIEW: Star Trek Captain’s Log: Sulu
Written by Marc Guggenheim, art by Andrew Currie, cover by David Messina.
Synopsis:
Captain John Harriman is the commander of the USS Enterprise B. He is also the man many hold responsible for the mysterious disappearance and presumed death of James Tiberius Kirk, the renowned Starfleet captain by whom all others are judged. How does a man recover from killing a legend? Find out in this very special issue!
Guest starring Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy.
Covers (regular and photo)
5-page preview
(click to enlarge)
This series began in January with "Star Trek: Captain’s Log: Sulu". The "Captain’s Log" series will continue through 2010 (and possibly into 2011) with periodic entries. So far no additional comics have been officially announced, but Keith R. A. DeCandido has revealed he will be doing one issue on Capt. Edward Jellico. The Sulu issue is available at TFAW, and you can pre-order the Harriman issue. Future issues will be available for pre-order only after their ‘solicitation’ announcements.
May Star Trek Schedule
As for the rest of May, here is the schedule of Star Trek comics
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May 5th – Star Trek: Captain’s Log: Harriman
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May 12th – Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #2
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May 19th – Star Trek Motion Picture Trilogy TPB
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May 26th – Star Trek Movie Adaptation #4
You can pre-order the other IDW Star Trek releases at TFAW and Amazon.
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Captain Cameron! Kinda whimpy captain in generations but was cooler in of gods and men!
Admiral Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
About time too! We’ve gotta give the guy a break, but why the 1701 Refit on the front cover?
Das ist eine tolle szene :)
liebe grüße aus deutschland/ unterfranken
manfred :)
Nicely illustrated!
#2 – because covers are made to sell comics. They often contradict the continuity of the actual story. Used to bug me like hell when I was a kid (I was a little anal snot).
Wow… nice artwork!!! Looks like photographs!!! :O
#2 — And perhaps we’ll get some backstory on the Captain. He’s probably spent some time on another ship. And that ship might have been a re-fit Constellation class vessel. I certainly can’t read the registration number.
– Harry
I’ve always liked Harriman. I think people are a bit harsh on him.
Rachael Garret is an obvious choice for this series, but I’d welcome it, personally. Also Captain Pressman (from the TNG episode “The Pegasus”) could be interesting. Or Benjamin Maxwell, Chief O’Brien’s original C/O on board the U.S.S. Rutledge.
The art for the Harriman comic is excellent, and the story is definitely one deserving to be filled in. McCoy is particularly well written, I can hear DeForest in those words.
The cover illustration’s lines are a little too abstract (the same problem which led to the “feline” appearance of Captain Sulu before), but the interior artwork is fantastic–particularly the likeness for Doctor McCoy himself. :)
Looks like a promising issue. I’ll have to ask him to sign the cover when I see him in November. :)
That might be some of the best artwork in a Star Trek comic book EVER. I’ll reserve judgement until I get the issue but….wow! The only thing that may beat it is Adam Hughes work on the “Debt of Honor” one-shot.
Clearly both artists love and respect the source material.
The Harriman character was so idiotic in Generations nobody could believe he was the captain of Starfleets flagship. As a matter the way he was written I couldn’t believe him as the captain of the Love Boat.
Just another reason to hate Generations.
A story about Harriman and how he can redeem himself for losing the legend – I think, ist the right stuff for a great character story. I was allways asking how would have starfleet treated the poor Harriman and how his crew would see him (the man, who “killed” their childhood hero).
It’s a shame no one (Berman & Co) ever considered an Enterprise-B series (back in 1994 when Star Trek was still very popular) instead of that crappy Voyager-abomination.
Beside that, the artwork of this comic looks great, especially McCoy. I’ve never seen such a great character likeness! I will buy this one, that’s sure!
#13.
I agree… “ST:DOH” was a GREAT read.
Error … in the ST:V flashback panel, Kirk’s line is coming from McCoy! Rewatch the scene that image is taken from (the last one in the film), it’s McCoy seated with his arms crossed like that.
Captains log could make a great new tv show.
The art is fantastic! This is who should’ve done WOK! Can we get a do over! i see Frontier Doctor #2 is coming out, but I haven’t even seen the first one yet! Has anyone else?
wow! excellent looking art, Mccoy is dead on!
I think I figured out why the Harriman cover has the Enterprise A on it: If you look at the larger pic to the right of Harriman it looks like a bad imitation of Shatner…meaning what everyone sees as an error could be intentional and meant to convey that Harriman was haunted by the shadows of Kirk’s ‘death’ and also my the memory of the legacy of Kirk’s career… also when you look at Harriman himself, you see a wimp. HOWEVER..look at him abstractly… as if he was meant to allude to what Prime Universe’s Pike was like when he first took command… in the Prime Universe, Robert April was captain of the 1701 before Pike was, so for all we know, something similar happened to April and Pike shouldered a similar burden to what Harriman did…
I don’t often pick up Trek comics, but this looks like a really interesting story.
Until I took a look at the above panels, it never really hit me what a fertile ground for storytelling the aftermath of Kirk’s death in Generations was.
The art looks good for 2 reasons: photoshop & the original comics. I had them way back in the day. gave them to my brother in law because his toy collection was more complete than mine.
They obviously scanned in the slides or negatives they got from ST G, plus the old art from the guys that worked at DC back in the day. Look at the difference in the McCoy closeups compared to the far shots…
Still, I might get this one.
Oh yeah, about Harrison being a wimp, he had to be in order to make Kirk look more heroic than he really was.
Generations was whipped out in months instead of years and the writing was not as polished as it should have been
Am I imagining it, or was McCoy’s line when he sees the bridge “What, Starfleet designers only know one design?” a wonderful reference to an alternate universe bridge that looks like the Apple Store?
I think so! I’ve wanted to say this for years: I never liked the dark bridges of STII and III, certain other movies, Voyager, Enterprise…. Light bright bridges, please! It’s all Nick Meyer’s fault because he liked the idea of a submarine bridge. Frankly, I love bright shiny TOS, Excelsior (in STIII), TNG and Star Trek 09 bridges. I think McCoy’s on to something.
Good writing though to take advantage of detail, and make McCoy deliver a corny “if I live to a hundred thirty seven” :)
Nice art, but Harriman?? Captain Harriman?? You gotta be kidding me.
What’s next, the adventures of Captain Esteban on the Grissom?
Harriman is an interesting character. I’ve always wanted to know more. I’ll be getting this one.
Would love to see Captain Garrett’s story after the ‘C’ went back through the rift
ROFL the WORST captain ever on screen get his own comic.
“What do I do?? What do I do??” errrrr,
*Confusion
*Hesitation
*Clueless
*Transport blows up
Kirk, Little help?
Of course he deserved command of the Enterprise-B….
Those are fantastic likenesses of the cast.
Incredible!
Looks cool, and the art is very nice. But I have to agree…Captain Harriman?
If this series leaves out Janeway and Archer, then IDW has some screwed up priorities.
I don’t care what the vocal minority says, but those were great shows and are deserving of comics MUCH more than Harriman.
If they do a Captain Styles one then they’ve gone too far….
Anything featuring Bones is automatically worth checking out!
That said, given the number of journalists on the Enterprise recording Harriman’s obvious incompetence, I doubt he would have been allowed to keep his job and heads should have rolled higher up in Starfleet.
Questions should have been asked about why an improperly-fitted-out ship was allowed out of spacedock, even for a publicity stunt and why there were no other ships in the vicinity of Sector 001. I mean, anyone could have invaded and there are no functioning ships around Earth?! WTF?!
Sorry, but Harriman should have been written into history as an incompetent failure and fired.
Unless . . . there was something going on in the background of these events. What if Kirk’s death wasn’t so simple and someone blew up that section of the ship as they cleared the Nexus! Maybe a coup was being staged in the Federation or something! ;)
The older I get the more my affection for the Big Three develops. Spock was my favourite as a child, Kirk in my 20s and, now in my 30s, it’s McCoy. All three tend to be essential to one other to work properly. Witness Spock in Unification being utterly dull with out the other two, while he was great played off against Kirk and young Spock in ST09. McCoy however played off Data very well in Encounter at Farpoint!
For me, McCoy is the beating human heart of Star Trek. And, IMHO, Deforest Kelley quietly stole the show and movies from all his co-stars. Karl Urban had, to my mind, the hardest job of all in ST09. Kirk and Spock are reasonably straightforward characters to get a grip on. Any good actor can pick up on the basics of those two characters and take them in their own direction. Pine and Quinto certainly made their mark! Bones is far more complex and Urban was just wonderful. If you don’t get a character like McCoy right, you end up with Simon Pegg’s Scotty who is fun, but lacking the depth of his predecessor!
The scene with McCoy is very nice and reminds me of the Spock: Reflections graphic novel!
BTW, are the captain’s logs getting released in some sort of trade paperback?
I mean ‘the scene with McCoy in the deflector control room . . .’
RE: Capt. Log TPB
It is expected they will be, but that probably wont be until sometime in 2011.
Interesting fact, that many people here are very quick to damn poor Harriman and not allowing him to redeem himself – not even in a comic!
I think the fact, that he was shown in GEN as a seemingly imcompetent loser makes his story far more interesting as from every other Captain (because they are allready heros). Could there be any character with more self-doubts and the need to rise before he destroys himself (psychological)? Is there any other character in Star Trek we would never await great things from? I think not.
Harriman is the perfect character for starting as THE perfect anti-hero and endig as a starfleet-genius.
26: Perhaps not Captain Esteban, but Captain Tyrell on the Reliant could be an interesting one, as well as an opportunity to introduce Chekov and Kyle into the comics.
#36
They did an issue of “Alien Spotlight: Gorn” featuring Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov. Took place shortly before “Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan”.
I think we’ll see the “Captain’s Log” series follow the “Alien Spotlight” series with the first five come out followed by the trade paperback then followed by round two of “Captain’s Log”.
Because there are so many stories to tell. Prime Pike. Alternate Pike. Captain Rabau. Captain Garrett. Captain Riker. And maybe Bob Orci can write a Captain Pressman issue.
(Pressman was played by Terry O’Quinn who stars on “Lost” which was co-created by J.J Abrams and Bob Orci, natch!)
35. Captain Rickover: ‘Interesting fact, that many people here are very quick to damn poor Harriman and not allowing him to redeem himself’
Nah! He was a dick who messed up a rescue mission and his incompetence led to the apparent death of Starfleet’s greatest captain. All of it recorded in front of the press too.
Sorry, that’s a sackable offence! Dole queue Monday morning!
Someone more competent could then be on board to to take Tuesday’s photon torpedo delivery! If Harriman was on board, he’d probably push the wrong button and launch them at Starfleet HQ!
The biggest question is how such an inadequate loser got put in charge of an Excelsior-class Enterprise in the first place!
may actually buy it….
“Spent most of my time in the deflector control room”….. oooh, burn! Gotta love Bones!
If anyone needs character development, it’s poor ol’ Harriman. Looking forward to this.
Great, great artwork, and wonderful re-creation of the opening scene in ‘Generations’ (and the opening 10 minutes on Enterprise-B is the best part of that movie).
But this is several years after we last saw McCoy in ST:VI, but this comic version makes McCoy looks a little young-ish – as if his likeness is lifted from ST:II or ST:IV era, say 1986, not what he’d look like in 1994.
Still – great preview!
Ooh, speaking of Captain Maxwell, I’m working on a project to create a sprite comic of the Setlik III incident using only what can be freely found online and working mostly in MSPaint. I’m wondering now if I can legally post it online anywhere once it’s finished.
38. In fairness, Dom, Starfleet are equally as culpable for not kitting the ship out with pretty much anything. I’m sure they wouldn’t bother sending a ship out “around the block” without installing proper equipment on board now!
42. You should be able to distribute it online as long as you’re not making any profit and state the copyright details clearly. Star Trek is one of the few properties that allow people to do this. Hence, Phase II, etc. Although if you’re using sources already available and just drawing over them in MS Paint, it might open another can of worms for you. That much is beyond my knowledge I’m afraid.
@ #31: “If this series leaves out Janeway and Archer, then IDW has some screwed up priorities.”
I can’t agree more!
@ #31: “If they do a Captain Styles one then they’ve gone too far….”
LMAO!
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The comic’s art is awesome. Love the details on McCoy. And his dialogue is so in-character! I might just buy this… If I can find it, that is. Sure, Harriman was kinda wimpy in GEN, but I loved him in OGAM. The facial hair made all the difference.
Wasn’t the original plan to have Spock and McCoy at the launching? No offense to Scotty or Chekov, but maybe they could write a version like that…
And, yes, because I’m a Trekkie: An ensign should not be wearing an enlisted man’s uniform.
31/44: Why would they tell the story of Janeway and Archer? OK, Archer has a lot of unfinished business, but that could be a whole other series of comics (and no doubt will be). But Janeway? She’s had her Seven Seasons In The Sun. Still bored the backside off me too.
Man, those likenesses are superb
Commodore Decker next !!!
I’d have to read it again, but IIRC, Harriman redeemed himself pretty well in the novel “The Captain’s Daughter”. Didn’t it turn out his father was an admiral or something and he was having trouble living up to the father’s expectations? (Of course, that kind of sounds like Tom Paris, doesn’t it?)
I like the idea of this series, though, and would love to see some sort of ST-anthology-type series on TV. I always envisioned it as a “Tales of the Federation” kind of show, where you could have various one-shot stories, plus a few recurring segments (Captain Sulu and the Excelsior, for instance), but I’ve been told that such an idea would be too expensive to actually produce. Oh well; at least comics don’t cost more to produce no matter *how* many worlds you portray! ;-)
Despite Harriman’s incompetence in Generations Kirks supposed death was far more noble and heroic in those early scenes of the film.
His latter death came right after he had a different personality to the Kirk we knew.
But Harriman is not the most incompetent Captain is starfleet history. That honor goes to Captain Jean Luc Picard who in the same movie is caught in the nexus and being able to go anywhere at any time he chooses to take Kirk back to the point where Soran is about to launch his rocket.
Any grade schooler would have told him to go back to when they had Soran on the enterprise and have him locked up there.
Hmm you could have any reality you wanted in the nexus. No different to the holodeck.
I would have much prefered it had the story been written so that the Enterprise was in a no win scenario and the holodeck had been used so Picard could consult Kirk.
perhaps even give command of the ship given the kobayashi maru to holodeck Kirk as Picard is forced to surrender to buy more time. Picard instructing Kirk to not take his life into account but given Kirks personality has been programmed into the holodeck he takes the liberty of saving Picards ass as well as destroying all enemy ships.
Ok, rant over.