TrekInk: Review of Star Trek #17

mccoy IDW Publishing returns home from the Mirror Universe with Star Trek #17, the latest chapter in the ongoing series. This standalone issue features McCoy, in a detailed and introspective portait of the Chief Medical Officer. Spoilers ahead.

Star Trek #17
Written by Mike Johnson and F. Leonard Johnson, M.D., art by Claudia Balboni, inks by Erica Durante, colors by Claudia SGC, letters by Chris Mowry, creative consultant Roberto Orci, edited by Scott Dunbier

Story

McCoy is reminded how much he hates his job all too often. While trying to comfort a crewmember whose husband is grievously ill, McCoy examines his past for clues to how he might deal with his present. A childhood walk with his father in Mississippi; meeting his wife, Pamela, for the first time; meeting a dying young child who wants to be a starship captain; the slow death of his marriage; and another walk with his elderly and still spry father. His past has lead him to Starfleet, new colleagues, new challenges and surprisingly, new resolve.

dying

Fear of flying and dying!

Review

After an action-packed visit to the Mirror Universe, writer Mike Johnson brings us back to nuTrek to focus on Dr. Leonard McCoy. In the film, Star Trek (2009), we meet McCoy with Jim Kirk. He’s crabby and not very happy. Johnson takes us on a tour of McCoy’s past to give us an idea of the events and circumstances that shaped the doctor prior to our first meeting. This is a very introspective story. On it’s own merits, I found it interesting, but came away a little puzzled and maybe a little disappointed. We’ve been told that the ongoing series will give us hints about what’s to come in the next feature film, but I don’t see anything of what might be coming, in McCoy’s story. There’s no reason that every issue has to be informative, but IDW has announced that the ongoing series ends with issue #20, so I guess I was expecting more. On the other hand, Claudia Balboni returns as the artist for this issue and does an outstanding job, along with inker Erica Durante and colorist Claudia SGC. Their art really draws the reader into McCoy’s past and present. Tim Bradstreet’s cover portrait is unusual. McCoy looks angry, but that’s ok. He does his best work when he’s emotional, in spite of what Spock may think.

Star Trek #17 is available now in your local comic shop. Coming February 20, a fleet of Star Trek comics are tentatively scheduled for release. They include Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness #2, a second printing of Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness #1, Star Trek: The Next Generation – Hive #4, and Star Trek #18.

Star Trek #17 cover art by Tim Bradstreet

Cover: Art by Tim Bradstreet

Star Trek #17 RI A cover art by Tim Bradstreet Star Trek #17 RI B photo cover

Cover RI A: Art by Tim Bradstreet, Cover RI B: Photo cover

In you case you missed it, artist Josh Howard posted an animated-style drawing of the Deep Space Nine crew to celebrate their 20th anniversary. This version includes Ezri Dax. There is another version with Jadzia Dax. This is a followup to his 25th anniversary drawing of the Next Generation crew. I hope folks at IDW are paying attention. Large versions are available on Howard’s blog. He also plans to sell prints.

Crew of Deep Space Nine by Josh Howard

Deep Space Nine 20th Anniversary by Josh Howard (click to visit his blog and find larger images)

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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Love these comics

Yay! McCoy at last for me! I heart McCoy.

The ongoing series is ending? Boooo. Admittedly, it lost some impetus with its recent single issue stories but it had a lot more potential. I agree that the McCoy story was nice but didn’t add much to the overall legend. I think these background stories should feature some decent information about new background characters.

Interesting that while never officially noted as canon, McCoy’s wife was always known as Jocelyn in star trek novels – now it’s Pamela.

I’m glad Bones didn’t tell the dying girl that her dreams of becoming a Starship captain would have been pointless since Starfleet at this point in time didn’t allow women to become Captains of a starship. Bones is a class act.

It’s unfortunate to see the ongoing series ending. But i would like more comics concluding after into darkness and where DS9,Voyager and Enterprise left off.

I hope the ongoing series will pick up again after the new movie. Anybody know if that’s the plan?

Allegedly IDW is soliciting issues 21 in its March previews. Where lies the truth?

I have a lot to say about this comic, be warned.

I was looking forward to this one, Bones being my favourite character, but ultimately found it a really mixed bag. Appreciated the emotional motivations, loved David McCoy’s personality, and I liked seeing Bones when he was young and carefree. Didn’t appreciate the non-appearance and subsequent off-screen killing off of his mom (same thing that seems to have happened with Winona Kirk in a previous comic? What is it with this reboot and killing people’s mothers?), the Pamela character was so flimsy as to be almost a complete non-entity, and the characters were terribly drawn. I’m sorry. The colouring was beautiful, but the art was not – people’s pupils pointing in different directions, bizarre proportions, copying-and-pasting the *exact same* closeup of Bones’ face twice in completely different settings within two pages, and the design of the female officer from the Enterprise was almost identical to Pamela, down to the mole on her face.

Also, I’m disappointed that McCoy is now apparently a native of Mississippi rather than Georgia, for no good reason. (And I’m not the only one who feels like that.) Come on – McCoy=Georgia! It’s a homage to DeForest Kelley and a longstanding influence on his characterization in pretty much every fanwork out there, TOS and reboot! Why no mention?

That was really sweet. A little schmaltzy, but sweet.

Comics never end. They just keep restarting at #1.

Liked the t-shirt that David McCoy was wearing! Hotty Toddy!

Okay, why is Pine’s mug on a comic featuring McCoy?

Also, what’s with the six inch heels on the DS9 women. Was Quarks a str*p club afterall?

#9 Nony – ditto on your review….I read the preview and was hoping for something really unique, and came away disappointed in the inaccurate background details of McCoy’s life. The story was okay, it just missed begin so much more….a missed opportunity for a great background story.

#5 Who do we have as a source of reliable info on that besides the crazy Kirk hating Janice Lester? ;)

the ST ongoing is ending?

@16 Gene Roddenberry, the man who wrote that said episode. And it’s hard to argue that is not the case when the original series never showed us a single female captain, and it usually treated it’s female guest stars with about the same integrity as teen comedy movie. The only time we’ve seen a woman in command in JJ’s Trek universe is Uhura…. from the mirror universe after she’s betrayed everyone.

Maybe we’ll see something that proves otherwise in Star Trek Into Darkness, but I doubt it since women are hardly a priority in this new Trek since they’re here to “benefit the main characters”.

I think there where were female admirals in the movie at the award ceremony (although they might just have been teachers with very large hair). This implies that there are female captains. There were not many of them compared to the men and, much the same as the Vulcan science Academy, the women don’t do the talking.

This has little to do with Starfleet’s equality policy and a lot to do with sexist writers and casting directors in Hollywood. Their default setting has been male for decades and token female syndrome (where you have a high profile love interest sitting atop a sea of male characters except where wives and girlfriends are required) is still usually the norm. British TV and movies aren’t quite so bad at this. Channel 4’s Utopia on at the moment, while hilariously eccentric, is maintaining a decent mix of male and female characters in varying roles.

Although Rodders admitted Janice Lester’s line was sexist, the presence of a female captain in STIV just makes me retcon Lester’s comment as the ravings of a loony!

McCoy’s origins being at slight variance to the original series aren’t problematic for me: it’s an alt-universe, so these are all slightly different versions of the characters. I don’t see why people have such an issue with this.

While the writers have said they’d (frankly unnecessarily) respect the future history events referenced in the original universe shows up to the Narada incursion, it doesn’t mean they had to happen day-and-date the same. The Eugenics Wars obviously happened later for example, since no superhumans have tried to beat me up lately! Some crewmembers will have been born at the same time, some later.

I’d rather this new Trek stand on its own, rather than be affected by other, defunct shows.

@20 It was a welcome change for sure that Star Trek IV did showcase a female captain, but I would hardly give thanks to Gene Roddenberry for that since he was no longer the producer “in charge” of the franchise. Heck, the next time we did see him take charge of Star Trek, two of the show’s three main female characters left by the end of the first seasons, with the one who stayed just happened to be the only main character who doesn’t wear a uniform and was systematically raped in the first episode of the second season.

And granted, we’re not going to be seeing much of the Star Trek universe if all we are going to have are these two hour movies that come out every three to four years that seem to focus on the same story line. Earth is in trouble and Kirk must prove he’s worthy of being a captain. Doesn’t leave much room for anything else, does it? Even future films seem less likely to do anything different thanks to Lindelof’s “Earth will have a much bigger role in our movies.” comment. It’s unfortunate that any hope of seeing these characters do things even remotely Star Trek (i.e. Doing something outside of Earth and not always action oriented) is restricted to these comics that, even with the writers and producers saying otherwise, still has a shaky canon standing.

What a letdown that after so many strikes, we get a whiff on #17. Jocelyn is well-established as others have pointed out. Even makes the naming of Joanna self-referential, fitting the ex-wife’s previously established persona. I guess the argument could be made that in the JJverse, he’s avoided Jocelyn, only to end up with some other shrew of an ex-wife…. that sort of fits MWI, after all. But “Pamela”? Heck, what comic writer’s wife or daughter is named Pamela? Or are we thinking Bobby Ewing? Changing the name is so “Gold Key” that it’s annoying. Annoying to the people who are MOST likely to buy comics: those who also know about Memory Alpha and Memory Beta, and the details therein. Even the comic producers should be aware of those references. We don’t need to keep re-inventing the James R. Kirk wheel.

#5: I’ve always found that line apocryphal at best. (And Roddenberry wasn’t any more enlightened than other men in the ’60s when it came to the treatment of women — he basically thought of them as disposable playthings. Eventually he settled down with Majel, thankfully.) Hernandez commanded a starship over a century before Lester said that. Ravings of a loony indeed. She couldn’t become a starship captain because she was /mentally unstable/, not because she was female.

#12. Maybe it’s because this is the last one that examines the backstory of each of the characters, and so it’s technically the end of that phase.

To: The author Mike.

Hey, I have spent the last 2 days searching the internet and I can find no evidence whatsoever that IDW is ending the Star Trek ongoing series, repeat NO evidence. Therefore if you have a link to any concrete proof of this statement that you made I request you share it immediately, or remove the sentence saying the series is ending.

Check out posting 12. The position has been clarified for a while and the sentence crossed out. I’m really pleased.

Question is the ongoing canon as the star trek into darkness countdown

@25 Still tired: Sorry you had to search for two days. You should get some sleep. I already crossed out the comment about the ongoing series ending and discussed my misinterpretation up in comment #12.

@28. Then you should have put an “Update” tag on the article to let people know the article had changed, I mean come on, isn’t that part of the job. BTW, my name has to do with my newborn daughter so if you all want to make jokes then just imagine the most horrific profanity you have ever heard and multiply it by 1 Million times. That is my response to the damn jokes.

I think the horse has already bolted both on the error and the wisdom of having children. Mind you, it would not surprise me if the ongoing series were to be cancelled following issue 24. It’s enjoyable but I’m not sure how popular it is compared to say a 4 issue limited series. I suspect they may have a rethink following the sequel.

It will be a shame if they do cancel it though – it has a huge amount of untapped potential. I actually look forward to the re-tellings and there are loads that they could still do. I still wish they’d take slightly longer with the stories though – I really enjoyed the pace of the into Darkness prequel.

#9, Nony,

I’m with you. Although I did think for the most part the issue was well-drawn, I have grumps about:

Mississippi. Should have kept the tribute to Dee Kelly & Georgia – this would have been perfectly in keeping with other ST novels and with the “easter eggs” already present in the JJverse. I don’t care so much if McCoy attended Ole Miss, but in my headcanon he will always be from Georgia. I cannot imagine why this was changed.

Where the hell was Joanna, McCoy’s daughter? She was a heartbreaking loss in McCoy’s life and this loss explains a lot of the bitterness in his character. Admittedly, she was not part of filmed canon, but she *was* in the backstory as noted by “The Making of Star Trek” (1968).

Yeah, “Pamela”? Why not Jocelyn, per many of the non-canon sources?

And may I ask why there is such a predominance of Euro-American characters in the movies & comics? Couldn’t the husband/wife from the Enterprise have been Starfleet-member aliens, or Indian, or Chinese? Or the little girl who wanted to be a starship captain? Notice, whenever there’s a little kid, he or she is always Caucasian and blue-eyed? My goodness, 200 years in the future and “we’re” still leading the world, nay, the GALAXY!

OK, I’m very glad this little girl had high ambitions. But she died.

There is some sexism and weird writing about females, to wit: Not once in any officers’ conference in the comic series has Uhura said a WORD. Hey, at least she’s there. The boys didn’t have a meeting without her.

Females are either absent from the picture or cast in old-timey roles. Witness

(1) Winona Kirk, who lives with her brother, who has “taken in” her and her boys. No job, no Starfleet career for Winona! Nope, living on her brother’s charity. Didn’t she even get death benefits from Starfleet? Cheesy of them. And yes, I know that mothers work raising their children, but to resort to living with her brother and not using her own abilities to make a living – her boys are old enough for her to leave them in care; why wasn’t she working outside the home? A sore point.

(2) Amanda in Countdown #1 to Spock: “My brave boy!” I cannot imagine Amanda saying this, even as Human and sentimental as she might be, to a grown Spock. Perhaps she said this because it was a dream, and Spock’s dreaming mind mixed words from the distant past with his latest memories of his mother?

These are the two most egregious examples, but there have been others.

I love that Uhura is a capable, confident and respected Starfleet officer. I’d like to see more of that, but I would also love for the creators to remember that she cannot carry all of Federation Women’s Equality on her slender, albeit well-muscled, shoulders.

#30, I agree with the “longer pace” idea. It’d be great to have 3-issue tales; this would allow stories to be a tad more complex.

I think the comics are great [except for my whingeing above]. Most are beautifully drawn [I still have heartburn over Mirror Spock on the interiors -the cover WAS GREAT], and much of the dialogue is wonderful too. Some of the stories are *meh* but some are very good. Outside of the drawing, I liked the Mirror story. I would love to have seen some expansion on what happened with Mirror Spock and Uhura, why she felt comfortable doing what she did and leaving him like that

… and I would love to have seen Uhura cooing over a tribble, and Spock holding one and catching himself petting it, and turning all logical. One of the best moments of The Trouble With Tribbles, IMHO.

#31 McCoy does mention his daughter in the TAS episode “The Survivor”, and it was done on film. :)

@31. I don’t think Frank is actually a true “Uncle”, but a stepfather or sig-o. Alternatively, Jimmy lived with Uncle Frank, because Winona had an active career in Starfleet. Still doesn’t explain why she’s not around when Jim’s 20-something.

“(1) Winona Kirk, who lives with her brother, who has “taken in” her and her boys. No job, no Starfleet career for Winona! Nope, living on her brother’s charity. Didn’t she even get death benefits from Starfleet? Cheesy of them. And yes, I know that mothers work raising their children, but to resort to living with her brother and not using her own abilities to make a living – her boys are old enough for her to leave them in care; why wasn’t she working outside the home? A sore point.”

What are you talking about? Did you not see the movie Star Trek or the subsequent ongoing comic? When Jimmy totalled the car, his mother was off-planet, working in Starfleet (afaik). She was called home because of what her younger son did. Uncle Frank was Winona’s older brother.

Hang on – “her boys are old enough for her to leave them in care” – what kind of care do you mean? What makes her care less valuable, less essential than someone else’s care.

Well, she did leave them in care, of her older grumpy brother’s care. Uncle Frank and nephews George and Jim did not get on and eventually George left the uncle’s home to stay with a grandmother. The younger Jim was left alone in the care of his uncle while his mother worked off-world “using her abilities to make a living”. Wow! Meanwhile, the young James Kirk felt ABANDONED. You are right about the sore point. Ask Jimmy Kirk who is alone, no father and rarely ever seeing his mother because he is pretty much regarded as a hobby as opposed to her all important career. (See ongoing comic – don’t remember number where the family situation is explained at the time when the antique Corvette is totalled).

Anyway, this is how I am calling it…

#19 Pauln6:

This has little to do with Starfleet’s equality policy and a lot to do with sexist writers and casting directors in Hollywood. Their default setting has been male for decades and token female syndrome (where you have a high profile love interest sitting atop a sea of male characters except where wives and girlfriends are required) is still usually the norm.

This!

Agreed. In fact, I’m in danger of whiplash I’m nodding so hard in agreement. ;)

This is exactly the problem, and as much as I’d love to say Trek was/is exempt from such blatant unbalance, we know its not – as placing Uhura as one half of a token romance in the last movie proved (and let’s throw in mentions of Deanna Troi, Jadzia Dax, and B’Elanna Torres for good measure, just to really get the point across).

Single, lead, female professional protagonists in Hollywood share a commonality with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, as in, they don’t exist.

Miles to go yet before true equality is portrayed (i.e. yes, female characters can be interesting without romancing them up, promise).

#35 Rose (as in Keachick):

Hi Rose. :)

If you could remember the name of that comic, I would appreciate it as I’d love to read it.

Now on to this…

Ask Jimmy Kirk who is alone, no father and rarely ever seeing his mother because he is pretty much regarded as a hobby as opposed to her all important career..

You know, Rose, I know from our previous conversation that your views of house and home are somewhat antiquated, but this really takes the cake. Talk about victim blaming! If what you’re saying is accurate, and this was explained in one of the comics (I can’t vouch first hand, I’ve only recently started reading the comics and haven’t read that one yet) one can hardly fault Winona for working – yes, even you. The woman was widowed! Therefore she is a single parent. A parent responsible for the feeding and clothing her sons. Money (or ‘credits’ as the case would be in the 23rd century) does not grow on trees!

She in a damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t situation. Were she to stay at home it is entirely possible she and her sons would be impoverished, and in her going to work you consider her somehow unfit?!

Don’t get me wrong, yes the situation entirely sucked for Jim. Just having his father die the way he did sucked for Jim. But one can hardly fault Winona for trying to make the best of a poor (<- pun) situation! It was fortunate that she had an education and prior work experience thus could support her boys and herself.

I really hope that the tears that will come from into darkness are not cause we end up seeing the Good Dr, is killed.

So far we have had an anouncement trailer, a teaser trailer, and a superbowl ad spot, and McCoy is hardly to be seen, considering McCoy is one of the main 3 characters. Hope I am not reading to much into and that the 2nd trailer when it surfaces give us more McCoy.

@35. “Uncle Frank” was not Mrs. Kirk’s brother, his name is listed as Frank Kirk, therefore he was George’s brother, not Wynonna’s, cause if he had been her brother his last name would not have been Kirk.

@ 36 & 37. Trekkiegal63

36. – Umm – what about Capt. Janeway? … and B’Elanna Torres didn’t begin to become involved with Tom Paris until Season 3 (kinda like real life – I met my husband through work). … and I don’t recall 7of9 being involved with anyone (although I’ll admit she was eye-candy for adolescent male viewers).

@37. – I would hope the issue Rose is getting at here not that Winona works instead of being a stay at home mum, it’s that she works off-planet without her sons. I worked while my sons were kids, but they still lived with me . I would assume that this would be expected to be the optimum arrangement unless I was an abusive or neglectful parent. I would also hope that any employer (even Starfleet) would make a reasonable effort to enable any single parent, male or female, to keep their children close at hand if that was what the parent requested.

By the way, the comic in question would be Ongoing #5: Operation: Annihilate part 1. In the comic, Winona refers to Frank as her big brother, and that he has given them a home.

40. continued…

Just another point about that comic (Ongoing #5) that I ‘ve just thought of: it makes no mention of Winona being in Starfleet or otherwise off-planet. In fact she is home when the policeman tells Frank the car is beyond repair. The comment Marja makes at #31 regarding Winona’s circumstance seems quite reasonable if we rely only on what the comic tells us as the implication and tone of the scenes in the comic is that Winona and boys are dependent on Frank for support. It does seem to be inconsistent with what we saw in the movie, or else that was one fast trip back to Earth for Winona.

@41 Winona was in Starfleet when James Kirk was born. She was posted to the USS Kelvin.

My conclusion is that Winona was working near Earth in space, such as on a station in orbit. You know “I’m from Iowa, I only work in space” as Prime Kirk once said. Beaming down in the aftermath of Jimmy running off with the Corvette makes sense…

36. – Umm – what about Capt. Janeway? … and B’Elanna Torres didn’t begin to become involved with Tom Paris until Season 3 (kinda like real life – I met my husband through work). … and I don’t recall 7of9 being involved with anyone (although I’ll admit she was eye-candy for adolescent male viewers).

Actually, 7of9 did get paired up. With Chakotay (not sure if you watched the 7th season? But that’s when this *cough* blessed event occured). And Paris and Torres may not have officially started dating till the third season, but it was certainly deliberately hinted at prior to that. The two of them being paired up was not a surprise to anybody.

As for Janeway, you’re right, she was single. Thank the gods. I love this fact. But since they already had Paris/Torres and later 7/Chakotay, they had met the standard quota for token romances within one show.

Now a note on Winona and working… as you pointed out there is nothing saying she didn’t work close by. The movie just stated she was off planet at the time. It sounds like, based on the information you provided in post #41, that the comic didn’t point to a regular pattern of her being off-world either. In the real life army reserves each member is required to devote at least one weekend a month and two weeks a year in service (when the US is not at war). There is nothing saying Winona wasn’t upholding that kind of schedule to keep her benefits and feed her children.

My point in all of this is that all we have is speculation, so judging Winona for her choices first, without the whole story and without giving her the benefit of the doubt does not point to a proper attitude nor supportive nature towards women in general. She’s being accused of ruining Jim for life without any real concrete empirical evidence. There could have been numerous contributing factors to the destructive behavior we witnessed Jim engaging in before Pike recruited him. For example in “Conscience of the King” we learned that TOS Kirk had witnessed both famine and genocide – the massacre of 4000 people – on Tarsus IV as a young child. If 2009 Kirk witnessed similar events, well, that would do it.

I liked it, the bit about the little girl was touching and it fits Bones arc as a character. I have to say with the lack of promotional pictures featuring him I needed this comic! Where is my McCoy?
ps: I found it funny that when he talks about the academy days and the friends and colleagues from there, you see Spock’s face instead of Kirk. I’m a bit disappointed that there is no mention of him, tbh

now excited about the comic about Uhura :)

There are some decent female characters, especially in DS9 and Voyager but the issue is that there are simply not enough of them. If you go through every show from TOS to Enterprise, there is a consistent imbalance of 2:1. That can’t be accidental.

NuBSG certainly gave the impression that they had a better handle on the issue, with a balanced central cast, including the Cylons, although I would hesitate to say that they ended up with a 1:1 ratio off the top of my head.

NuTrek has a disadvantage in that it decided to go with the big 7, leaving out two of the three recurring women but then went on to add male character after male character (Keenser, Olsen, Pike, Nero, Cupcake) instead of trying to make up the difference in the supporting cast, reserving the women for medical staff and sex objects. It’s great that Alice Eve is coming on board but from the cast list I’ve seen, there are yet again, a lot more new male characters, and some of the actresses seem to be in sexist roles once again. It’s uninspiring.

The ongoing comic has added in Rand and Zahra as recurring security staff but has as yet avoided elevating Rand to the status of a character in her own right, while Cupcake and Keenser have got their own issues. They wrote out Dr Dehner but decided that the Enterprise had no psychiatrist at all instead of using Dr Noel (which would have been a very popular move). There have been some issues (Where no Man has Gone Before and the recent Into Darkness prequel) where women have been almost absent from the story. This is an ongoing problem and it’s astonishing that the producers don’t have a Trek bible that states quite clearly that the cast in every episode and issue should be balanced by ensuring that every guest character’s gender should be applied randomly (flip a coin) after the character’s purpose in the story has been written, with the exception of ‘love interests’. It should be easy.

Pauln6: You raise some very good points, sir.

#40 Yes, that is what I was getting at. I did not say that Winona’s conduct ruined Jim for life, nor did it necessarily help him. If this Kirk had later moved with his mother to Tarsus IV and witnessed the massacre, that would have had a huge impact on him…

My impression is that, most of the time, Winona Kirk worked off-planet. Uncle Frank came to resent the fact that he was left as the primary caregiver for children who were not his own. Jimmy was a minor, a child, therefore he required day to day care, something his mother was not providing because she worked off-planet for a good part of the time.

Maybe Bob Orci might like to clarify just where Winona was and what she did while her two sons grew without having a father around – either.

Trekkiegal – I do not think that my ideas are that antiquated. I am not opposed to women working outside the home to support their families.

I resent the fact that biological mothers are deemed less valuable than strangers when it comes to looking after children. The expectation is that they go back to work (outside the home and away from their little ones) and then spend some of their hard earned incomes to pay strangers to take of their children. What would these day-care (note: not night-care workers – children often have sleep problems) do that the mother could/would not do herself, and more? For those mothers fortunate enough to have rewarding careers, then great. However, most women are not in that position, even if they have a good education. They have little or no choice in the matter of working for money and their situation is not helped by the kind of expectation and labels put on those who don’t conform. Mothering is work and always has been.

@47. You Said. “For those mothers fortunate enough to have rewarding careers, then great. However, most women are not in that position, even if they have a good education. They have little or no choice in the matter of working for money and their situation is not helped by the kind of expectation and labels put on those who don’t conform.”

What world do you live in? There is no resemblance to reality in that statement, at least not for American women, if its like that for NZ women then I really pity all of you, and hope your government is overthrown in the very near future.

Really? What kind of world do you live in? Most people, men and women, have to work for money and are not necessarily fulfilled by the work they do. People feel themselves lucky/fortunate if they have a job that is not only financially rewarding but fulfilling on other levels as well. Economics is the overriding factor.

Ask many an average worker how they feel about their work – I think you will find that they often feel frustrated, tired, bored and fearful that they will lose the crappy job they do have, but bills need to be paid. I also think that this answer is more likely to come from the average American worker (male and female) than from a NZ worker. Many American workers are at will employees and work long hours for low pay.

I think there is an obsession to varying degrees in many cultures with relationships between fathers and sons – this includes Chinese culture, Muslim culture, and US culture. Winona is an afterthought because of the American version of ‘Little Emperor Syndrome’. For Kirk it’s all about the Dad he never knew and his Mum rarely gets a mention and is even absent from his awards ceremony. Amanda gets a better showing because she represents the personification of Spock’s human side.

Personally I would have preferred more balance. And some Hollywood movies do achieve this. Compare Rosemary Harris’ May Parker to Sally Fields’. The former has something to add to her relationship the latter leaves Peter to fret about his uncle without having anything to add.