TrekInk: Review of Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #3

slar Starfleet officers and Legionnaires finally meet face to face in the third installment of Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes from IDW Publishing. Once everyone gets their egos and timelines sorted out, the Imperial Elite arrive for a good old fashioned comic book smackdown. Spoilers after the break.

Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #3 (of 6)
written by Chris Roberson, penciled by Jeffrey Moy, inked by Philip Moy, colored by Romulo Fajardo, Jr., lettered by Shawn Lee, edited by Chris Ryall

Following a brief exchange of phaser blasts and super-powers, Starfleet officers and Legionnaires stop posturing and begin discussing their common problem. While learning that neither group belongs in this timeline, they also learn a little about their respective homes, the United Federation of Planets and the United Planets. Spock and Brainiac 5 believe that the timestream has been altered, erasing their timelines from existence. Then the Imperial Elite arrive. Comprised of familiar alien adversaries, the Elite order a surrender for immediate judgment and sentencing. Enterprise crew members pair up with Legionnaires to overcome the Elite, then join forces again to correct the timestream. One joint team will look for a temporal disturbance in the past, while the other will examine a temporal disturbance in the present.

posturing

A meeting of the minds.

I fully expected to encounter some silliness in the pairing of Star Trek and the Legion of Super-Heroes and it finally shows up in this issue. The good news is that writer Chris Roberson knows both franchises well and the silliness works just fine. I know some readers have dismissed this mini-series entirely as inappropriate for Star Trek, and that’s ok. I’m looking for good entertainment and that’s what Roberson is giving us. We’re getting a little Legion history with our Trek history, spiced with sparring characters from both universes, plus a bit of bizarro (but not literally Bizarro, although he is a DC character). For me, this kind of playful storytelling takes me back to the days when I spent more time reading comics than watching Star Trek, and I’m enjoying the ride.

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It’s clobberin’ time! Oops. Wrong comic franchise.

The Moy brothers, Jeffrey and Philip, are clearly having some fun with Roberson’s story. Not only do they get to draw the usual Star Trek and Legion suspects, they also get to show off their artistic chops drawing dozens of memorable original series aliens and DC characters. And all that happens before the villains arrive and the fighting starts. The Imperial Elite are a crew of bizarre, yet familiar aliens, designed to give Trek and Legion fans everywhere, a few nightmares. Combined with Romulo Fajardo’s vibrant colors, this issue is a standout. I’m not sure who’s doing the layouts for this mini-series, but everyone, including letterer Shawn Lee has done an excellent job.

There are three covers for Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #3. Help me out here. I don’t recognize the mirror image characters on Phil Jimenez’ Cover A, but I presume they are not friendly. The cover is striking but doesn’t really have anything to so with the story. Classic Legion artist Mike Grell, provides the artwork for Cover B, which features floating heads and lots of superhero musculature. The retro-style art suits this retro-style story. Finally, Italian artist Mario Alberti features Lt. Uhura and Shadow Lass on background art by George Rodriguez, in the same style as previous incentive covers by Rodriguez. Alberti’s exotically beautiful Uhura and Shady make for a terrific cover. Too bad it’s not more widely available.

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Cover A: Phil Jimenez, color by Romulo Fajardo, Jr., Cover B: Mike Grell, color by Romulo Fajardo, Jr.

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Cover RI: Mario Alberti, background by George Rodriguez

Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #3 is at your local comic shop this week. IDW Star Trek comics can also be purchased online. A trade paperback collection will be published spring or summer 2012.

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#1 of 6

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#2 of 6

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#3 of 6

$3.59
(Oct)

$3.59
(Nov)

$3.59
(Dec)

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#4 of 6

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#5 of 6

Star Trek
Legion of Super-Heroes
#6 of 6

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$3.19
(Jan)

$3.19
(Feb)

$3.99
(Mar)

Gorn again

Last week, IDW Publishing released a trade paperback reprint of Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Gorn Crisis, a graphic novel originally published by Wildstorm in 2001. Written by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta, and illustrated by Igor Kordey, The Gorn Crisis is set during the Dominion War, telling the tale of a coup on the Gorn homeworld staged during a diplomatic mission. Picard and the Enterprise must sort out a royal mess and ask for help fighting the Dominion. Kordey’s painted artwork is striking and unique among Star Trek comics. Wildstorm reprinted this title in 2002. If you missed it the first time around, you have a second chance.

Mark Martinez is an obsessive-compulsive Star Trek comics reader and collector. You can visit his website, the Star Trek Comics Checklist for more than you ever needed to know about Star Trek comics.

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These crossovers are ill advised at best…

They should do one with the Justice League.

I rather like these Comics. Just some good plain fun.

How is this ill advised? It’s a sci-fi story, not a treaty.

Can we get DarkHorse involved?

Who’s up for Star Trek vs. Predator?

Seriously IDW, are these the last books we’ll see the TOS crew in?

Please tell me that they won’t all be in the ST’09 universe from now on!!

4 – Ill advised because they come off looking forced and corny, like the only reason for existing is to combine two lucrative franchises and sell comics, as opposed to tell interesting stories with a basis in their own established universes… while selling comics. Blatant money grubbing marketing vs. money grubbing marketing couched in the art of storytelling.

So, just like all those ill advised vintage Marvel/DC crossovers then? ;)

Nice to see The Gorn Crisis back in print. It would have made one hell of a TNG movie!

#6 – So what? This is a one-off mini-series, purely for fun, nothing more. There’s plenty of Very Serious Star Trek out there to satisfy you and others who insist on ONLY that sort of thing, so how about doing everyone else a favor and stop pissing in their cornflakes just because this isn’t your cup of Earl Grey. They don’t need you to arrogantly waltz in here with your Very Serious Message about how this is a Very Silly Story and isn’t Very Serious Star Trek. They know it already, and they’re fine with it.

That last comment reminded me of Monty Python’s Flying Circus where an Army officer would keep walking into sketches and stopping them cold; declaring them to be “too silly”.

:-D

:) Enjoy, I’m just expressing my opinion! I’m glad people enjoy Star Trek in any form.

I see my comment regarding the new 09 Universe comic was removed. How lame.

Well, there are a number of people screaming that there isn’t nearly enough Trek available for the show to be a viable product. And when something does make it to market, it gets ripped to shreds as cheap, silly, or mass marketing. The Trouble with Tribbles and space hippies were not silly enough, now? Horny Betazid women were not silly? Trek 5 wasn’t silly?

The “mirror image” characters on the cover are Khunds – a warrior race, long a part of the Legion mythology and pretty much the Legion equivalent to the Klingons.

I’m waiting for a TPB collection of these issues, but I can’t think of a better collection of writers and artists to tackle the project. It’s the kind of thing that those who are fans of both franchises have always thought about, and yet been afraid to see realized… for fear of it tanking.

(The first Legion comic I bought, Superboy #200 – 1974, included an unauthorized cameo by Spock.)

@ 12…….Naw, those are not silly. Now Spocks Brain……….

@13 Thanks for the Khund/Klingon explanation. Now, pardon me while I go look for a copy of Superboy #200 for my collection.

12 – All those bad episodes/films named were indeed bad. Not quite my point but yes, they sucked and were silly.

For myself, i did not need or want Trek to cross over with any super-hero franchise or any fantasy genre. I consider those an entirely different genre than Trek, as sci-fi and their universes so disperate that combining them seems forced.