IDW’s second Alien Spotlight comic book series is back, and this time the Tipton brothers are on board, bringing us an issue all about Q. Seen in his natural environment, how will Q survive? Read our review to find out. Plus the fifth and final alien for the series has been announced.
ALIEN SPOTLIGHT: Q REVIEW
The Tipton brothers take a quick break from all of their other Trek books this month to bring us the fourth issue in the Alien Spotlight series. This one is set shortly after the events of "First Contact", just after their return to the 24th century. As per usual, the Enterprise is immediately thrown back into the thick of things with a diplomatic mission to stop a war.
The story begins with some introspection that we did not get to see at the end of the movie. Picard’s introspective Captain’s Log discusses his unease at the return of Locutus to the fore of his mind, but is "confident that the unpleasant memories will once again fade with time." Of course, a visit by Q will do nothing to improve his mood. This time about Q has decided to experience humanity in Picard’s body, during the upcoming diplomatic relations.
Just the kind of uninvited visitor we all love… (click to enlarge)
Elena Casagrande returns to do the art, her first major artwork since her work on the Orions spotlight in the first volume. Her artwork, like most of those working with David Messina’s studio, is very much in the same style as Messina’s. In the Orions book it really worked, but this book, some of the body language and facial structures seems a bit off. Closeups of Picard and Q are fantastic, but some of the body poses on the larger shots seem a bit awkward.
Casagrande also provides a cover for the issue, which is by far the better of this two – the alternate cover being provided by IDW Trek cover regular Joe Corroney. This is the first issue in this volume that David A. Williams has not provided a cover for, which he made up for on the first issue of the "Spock: Reflections" series.
The colors are very much in the style of the Messina studio style and do suit the story well as Ilaria Traversi fills her role well. Neil Uyetake is tapped to do the letters and does not have much stretching to do, but one of the panels features excellent coordination between the art and lettering style as the participants of a meeting are shown laughing at one of Q’s absurd suggestions at the bottom of page 15.
Something tells me that nobody was expecting to hear such effervescent praise… (click to enlarge)
This story from the Tiptons is not one of their best and the artwork falls a bit short of the quality we’ve seen from their collaborations with David Messina’s studio, but it still holds together as a decent story. The turn of the tables from the normal circumstances of Q’s appearances, especially on TNG, makes for a clever and fun conceit.
Covers for "Alien Spotlight: Q"
(click to enlarge)
Alien Spotlight: Q arrives in comic stores today. Apparently this is a popular issue as the backorders all sold out at at TFAW, but check the link below later to see if they get more into stock.
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Alien Spotlight II TPB Announced – Confirms Cardassians
The trade paperback for Alien Spotlight Volume 2 is now available on Amazon. It confirms that the series will be 5 issues, with the fifth covering Cardassians (to be written by Andy Schmidt). As it is hard to collect all the issues for this series, the TPB may be the way to go, but you have to wait as it doesn’t come out until March 2010.
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That’s ok- Q hates being known for just being Q so it’s better if this is not a great comic.
If even the guy who played Q has no longer any fond memories of his role, then how must we feel?
I’m not much of a Q or Next Gen fan, but I’ll say the artwork looks very good.
Q in one episode: funny.
Q in two episodes: entertaining.
Q in three episodes: let’s see what’s up.
Q in four or more episodes: the same old thing.
What I like about the Q character is that no matter how much Humanity learns about the universe, there’s always something utterly, chaotically unknown / unknowable around the corner.
Plus, he gave us this amazing quote:
“If you can’t take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It’s not safe out here. It’s wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it’s not for the timid.”
But why does it always have to be about this Q? Where’s Q2, Mrs. Q, Quinn, Q junior, etc.? I mean, it’s supposed to be a spotlight on a race of alien”S“, no? This is just spotlight on one alien.
Perhaps a seQuel.
#5 CarlG
Have to agree. That has always been one of my favorite quotes in all of Star Trek. It’s almost as if the writers and producers of TNG were acknowledging that TNG was a bit on the sterile side and that space was indeed a place filled with “darkness and disease”.
I want more Q in novels and comics. He’s one of my favorite characters. I’m hoping to see more.
i always thought that Q was one of the best alien species in Trek, but in the light of JDL saying he’s “bored” with Q?
We need some Q novels narrated by JDL and hyped by him… now is the time.
Looking forward to this.
@9: An actor who’s bored with a character roped into performing that character again is NOT going to give the performance you want.
I think Q was most effective when his motivations were beyond human understanding and there was a glimpse of divinity in his fore-knowledge and the path he forced people to choose as a reaction to his antics. I think episodes where they cheapened the character by presenting him as flawed but didn’t hint at that divinity are quite forgettable. With that in mind I don’t see how you make a good comic about Q himself. That would further take away the mystery and cheapen him.
I think doing Q stories is like what happened with TREK doing Borg stories.
Too many times to the (collective) well removes the mystery, the intrigue and the terror.
That said, I like Q, but I wonder just what can possibly be done that is new and different with him. omnipotence does have its limitations (is that an oxymoron?) when it comes to writing stories about the Q.
Read it at Newbury Comics — NOTHING special at all. In fact, pretty boring. Art was OK, nice to see something set after ST:FC, but not special at all. Although at one point Q offers to remove Picard’s memories of Locutus, which was unexpected.
#13; Only as limited as the scope of a creative imagination.
Received my copy to day. Enjoyed it, but it was pretty light. Always nice to see some TNG crew action though.
This comic is terrible, one of the worst from IDW (I’ve read them all). The portrayal of Q is just horrible; he (a nearly omnipotent being) misses an obvious solution to a problem — yet a solution that likely wouldn’t have really worked, anyway, but does in this poor story — and to a problem that is pretty lame and poorly defined in the first place. It illustrates some of the worst aspects of Q, ignoring the best — and the best can be great.