Comic Review: Star Trek Ongoing #1

These Ongoing Comics are foreshadowing for Trek 12 ? Can’t wait to read them !

Don’t believe the hype. This issue was boring and nearly exactly the same thing as the original tv episode. If you are going to do an alternate series make it different than what came before.

@ #3. Ivory.

In a recent interview Johnson said the first few stories would be like the original episodes and that we would see more changes as the timeline evolves (eventually foreshadowing the nest film). So I think the early similarities are intentional.

I thought it was a pretty cool myself. They captured the looser, more energetic style of the new movie really well (especially loved Scotty’s log entry), and the art was the best I’ve seen in a Trek comic.

Makes me want to see these guys onscreen again even more.

I liked it a lot. They hinted at differences, like Dehner not joining the crew because McCoy was already there.

Remember, her influence and later conflict with Mitchel is what saved Kirk in the original time line.

What will happen next issue without her?

The story is indeed very similar to the original. I thought it was very entertaining though and different enough to tease us with the potential for future issues. The differing views are interesting though. I thought the story was a bit rushed and would prefer it if they took more time to establish the guest characters (e.g. three issues long) while others have said it was slow and boring.

The inclusion of Chekov and Sulu is conspicuous becaue they weren’t really needed for the story (although Sulu was in the original), so it may be that they are contractually obliged to include all the actors from the movie in each issue. If they intend to use Chapel or Rand in the sequel movie and they haven’t cast the actresses yet we may see those characters absent from any stories until they do.

The thing that concerns me is the sexism. There is no yeoman (although she was superfluous to the original story) and Dehner, who was important to the story, is now absent. If they are contractually obliged to include all the main cast (86/14 split or 88/12 with Keenser) and they are only including the main protagonist guest stars, we are going to see the number of women plummet even further than the inappropriate 70/30 of the sixties. Most of the women in the sixties were either window dressing or there as a love interest for one of the male characters so if they aren’t prepared to use one of the few women who was key to the plot and wasn’t a love interest by, er… turning her into a love interest, it really doesn’t bode well for the others. They need to ‘adjust’ some of the supporting cast e.g. use Angela Martine instead of Lee Kelso to even up the numbers. Rand, for example, only had a significant role in 4 of her 8 appearances, one of which (the Man Trap) was just really an introduction to her as a main character and two of which (the Enemy Within, Miri) used her to highlight the attraction between her and Kirk. My fear is that they will hand wave Rand away (and possibly other characters like Helen Noel – who as ship’s psychiatrist should really have appeared in this issue instead of Dehner) and use her roles to give Uhura something more to do, this will leave us with only one woman of any note, which is terrible if it makes the 21st century Trek more sexist than 60s Trek. If they add more women to the crew of the Galileo, that would be a good sign. Uhura did have something useful to do on the ship in that episode and fretting for her man seems likely so Yeoman Mears is likely to keep her role. However, Mears was a hasty addition when they fired Grace Lee Whitney, so they could revert to the original intention and use Rand instead if they do intend to use the character at all.

Kirk’s brownish eyes bugged me. Pine’s blue eyes are one of the most striking and distinctive things about his appearance; it makes zero sense to change the color just to have them match up with Shatner, when they didn’t change the color in the actual movie, and he just looks wrong.

I’m pretty sure Tim Bradstreet’s photorealistic cover IS a Photoshop job of actual movie stills, or at least a direct tracing. I recognize all those exact poses either from the movie (Yes, I have watched it a lot), or from publicity stills.

That said, the little changes to the story are very interesting and I hope it all comes to a very different head in the next issue. I went ‘nooo!’ when it left off when it did.

What do I have to do to get some new stories set in the new Star Trek universe? Great Art on this new series.

#3: Not true!

I like the story, although I don’t know that I approve of the deletion of Dr. Dehner’s character from this story.

Although the sixties actors were jot entitled to royalties, I wonder if they can only use images of the original actors if they can get permission from the actors or their estates? That could explain Kellerman’s absence? This could also affect the dynamic of the future issues I suppose and could affect the order in which the stories are told? Or are they under an obligation to use the original actors unless they ask not to be included? I hope they aren’t under such strict contractual contraints. I’d quite like to see Helen Noel, Kevin Riley, Janice Rand, or Ann Mulhall appear in more than just their original stories.

I suppose the names United Space Probe Agency (the precursor to Starfleet) and SF have always been interchangable.

Paul, your logic is questionable! Racism is harder to pin down when you are talking about the absence of a particular ethnicity since they may only represent a small portion of the overall population. It is harder to apply defend the absence of women, who form 50% of the population! Sexism in sci fi has been a pet hate of mine ever since I wrote my English Literature thesis on the subject 25 years ago, so I suppose I am more sensitised to the issue than most. More generally, this kind of subconscious sexism is a major problem for movie actresses who struggle to find decent roles even today. I prefer to pay attention over a period of time so I can say with some authority that the male/female ratio is not ‘a random thing’. In TOS though, we know that they officially had a policy to have more men and they were openly sexist. This means that, if they do nothing to change that ratio by introducing more women, the new version in the movies and the comics will also be sexist. That is perfectly logical. I don’t think that the writers of NuTrek are intentionally sexist, I think they are (like most of us and certainly most writers of Hollywood movies) subconsciously sexist. So their default setting for a character is male unless they can think of a reason to make them female, usually by reason of them being a wife, mother, girlfriend, etc. They can get away with it in a cop drama or murder mystery but in a sci fi show with pretensions of equality, it doesn’t really wash. If we have four men and three women on the Galileo 7 and some all female security teams, that will go some way to showing that they are at least aware of the gender issues. If the Galileo 7 consists of six men and one woman and the men are officers while the woman is an enlisted yeoman, that suggests that they are still sexist and need to be made aware of their shortcomings. Watch Eddie Murphy’s movie from the 80s called Boomerang. It was a silly movie but it played artfully with sexism and racism in quite a subtle way.

Pauln6 wrote: “If the Galileo 7 consists of six men and one woman and the men are officers while the woman is an enlisted yeoman, that suggests that they are still sexist and need to be made aware of their shortcomings.”

And if it is six women and one man? What if four men, two women, and a sexless race member? What if one woman but she’s an admiral? I really have a problem with telling people who are creating art about their perceived “shortcomings”. You are welcome to like, dislike, or criticize a work – but don’t set quotas, participation thresholds, or other barriers to what can be a good story with interesting characters.

Oh and you don’t need quotas. Just alternate the genders whenever you introduce a guest character. You can keep it as an ongoing process or just reset the clock for each new issue. In some ways the second method would work better because if you always start with a woman, it will help to even up the imbalance created by the traditional main cast. In WNMHGB, this could have been Dehner, Mitchell, and Smith (in the new timeline Smith is a navigator instead of a yeoman). Hey presto, they’re still using established characters and they’ve evened up the genders a bit. In the Galileo 7 the process is trickier if the story uses Spock, McCoy, and Scotty on the shuttle. You would end up with just two women and six men on the shuttle but it’s a simple process that would still improve the sixties divide and would at least give us female security guards and engineers through a process of elimination.

Lol – I dunno – I think it’s an issue with my PC…

Is this thing on?

The problem with having women doing security, ie being in the red shirts a lot of the time, is that, traditionally in Star Trek, the ones in the red shirts are the first to get killed. This means that you have a (good) proportion of the young, healthy female population getting bumped off.

I actually believe that there is a degree of genuine hardwiring in both the human male and female brains that would not allow for this in general to occur. The instinct is to protect the young female, which means she does not generally get to go onto frontline duties. Tasha Yar was an exception, as there will always be.

It is a primordial survival of the species instinct and it is about enough young women being able to successfully procreate and, with assistance, rear the next generation. This is common sense and it is not being sexist. Being sexist is young women denying that part of themselves or having it denied to them in various ways. What is wrong with women characters being lovers, mothers, as well as being competent star ship crew members? Women get to play many roles, be many things in life…sometimes I feel sorry for guys, because they just can’t get to do/experience what a good majority of females can be and do. It is hard work though – for many.

But Keachick, you are viewing the prospect of female security guards through the prism of your 21st century human prejudices. Those prejudices have no place in the 23rd century and even if they did, they need not apply to many other species. Australia has just removed its restrictions on allowing women to serve on the front lines. Other nations will follow.

Do you also have something against female engineers? :P

Yeah I’m just teasing. Starfleet employees represent a tiny proportion of Federation members and few members of Starfleet, whether male or female, seem to have children. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to worry about women in Starfleet security’s future breeding prospects.

I ordered my copy and got an issue with the comic book cover but with hindsight, if they are doing a series of movie covers including elements of the new stories, I think I would have preferred that. Maybe I’ll need to buy another copy. I’m tempted to buy the trade paperback of the movie tie ins. Is it worthwhile?

On the gender divide issue, I’ve dipped into Warehouse 13 and it seems that they have the right idea on that show, even it is cheesy in many respects. They had 2 men and 1 woman as their main cast, supplemented in season one with three part-time female characters and one part-time male character. Season two became 2 men and 2 women, supplemented by 2 part-time female characters. Season 3 seems to be 2 men and 2 women supplemented by 4 part-time female characters and 3 part-time male characters.

Well that ship has already sailed… but I admit, I would not have been a fan of converting male characters to female myself. I would much prefer them to do something with the female characters that the franchise already has. Purists would have understood why Chekov was absent. His inclusion in the first movie was an understandable but unnecesary step. Anton is great but from a gender divide perspective, including Ilia, Number One, or Janice Rand would have been better.

NuBSG did ‘convert’ some of the traditionally male characters into female characters but in name only. Starbuck was the only recognisable character conversion. In fact I was disappointed that there was no recognisable attempt to convert any of the pre-existing female characters despite a lot of potential. Duala had elements of Athena but after some promising moments in season one, including a scene where she dresses down Adama, they limited her to love interest territory. The nuAthena didn’t really have much in common with the original concept. Six had elements of Cassiopeia but I would have loved to see her as a fully realised hooker character in her own right; NuSheba only really appeared in Razor and they didn’t even bother to name one of the journalists after Serena.

Star Trek can do ok on the issue as long as it is on their radar. They aren’t deliberately targetting and excluding the female characters because they are female but they are being bumped in favour of male characters time and again. They could just flip the coin and make all new characters female unless they have a reason to be male but we would get a lot of security guards in mini skirts.