TrekInk: Review of Star Trek Ongoing #36: The Q Gambit Part 2 + 7-Page Preview

QGambit1 HeaderImage

Trek worlds collide as Q sends nu-Kirk and crew into the 24th century to meet the fearsome Dominion in the latest issue of IDW’s Star Trek: Ongoing series, which hits stores this Wednesday. Grab a glass of Kanar and check out a spoiler-filled review and 7-page preview of The Q Gambit #2 after the jump!

Star Trek #36: The Q Gambit, Part 2
(available Wednesday, August 13)
Written by Mike Johnson, story consultant Roberto Orci, art by Tony Shasteen, letters by Neil Uyetake, edits by Sarah Gaydos.

Cover: Art by Tony Shasteen Subscription Cover: Photo

Cover: Art by Tony Shasteen – Subscription Cover: Photo

Story:

Thrust into the alternate 24th century by Q, the Enterprise finds itself handily outgunned in battle by Dominion warships. Q pops in just long enough to tell Kirk he’s on his own before Jem’Hadar soldiers storm the bridge and claim the Enterprise for the Dominion.

Aboard Terek Nor, Kirk comes face-to-face with the station’s commander, a weathered Gul Dukat, who quickly brings Kirk up to speed: in this timeline the Enterprise mysteriously disappeared over a century ago, and the Federation has long since surrendered to the Dominion. Kirk soon has a new ally, though, as he’s tossed into a cell with Uhura, Scotty, and none other than the Emissary himself, Benjamin Sisko.

Sisko Kirk

Benjamin Sisko and James T. Kirk – a promising introduction

While the Jem’Hadar round up the Enterprise science and medical officers for unknown purposes, Sisko effects Kirk and Co.’s escape from Terek Nor with a little help from a shape-shifting friend, and a battle-scarred Defiant. Q delivers Kirk a final reminder that the lives of his crew are at stake before the Defiant arrives at an Earth that’s much less friendly than the one he remembers….

Review:

I love Deep Space Nine, and, for all my many, many gripes about them, I love the new Star Trek movies, too. Having the worlds of two of my favorite takes on Trek collide is enough in itself to send me into a geek-out pleasure coma, but Star Trek has more than enough crossover opportunities that didn’t work out (see: “These Are the Voyages“) to remind us that two great Treks sharing the same space does not a great story make.

Fortunately, in Q Gambit #2, writer Mike Johnson moves this series along in a positive direction, quickly and drastically increasing the stakes for our characters, and revealing just enough information about the nu-verse 24th century to keep me sated for now, and hungry for more next issue. Q’s presence is much less heavy this go-round, but the story has the traits of one of Q’s classic morality plays along the lines of Q Who or QPid (without the bows and arrows). The danger level is high, the consequences real, and we’re only just getting started.

Of course, much of the fun here is in seeing beloved characters of yore interact with the nu-Trek crew, which makes Johnson’s dialogue, and artist Tony Shasteen’s fine work in rendering these characters extra important. Only a few primary DS9 characters really take the stage (though keep your eyes peeled for more familiar faces hanging out on the promenade on page 11), but each looks and feels authentic. Trust Sisko, ever the man of action, to be solving problems with his fists just three pages into his appearance, and Gul Dukat is just as nasty and over-confident as we remember him (here’s hoping he gets some page time with Kira before the series is over!).

Dukat_Cover

Dig the scars – nu-universe Gul Dukat

Beyond the again excellent likenesses, Shasteen delivers the visual goods throughout the book. The Enterprise has a cinematic sense of scale in the battle scene on pages 4 and 5, and there’s consistently impressive detail to feast your eyes on, whether it’s the molten Jem’Hadar phaser beams, the lively promenade, or the poor, dinged-up Defiant. Bonus points, though, if you can figure out why the door on Kirk’s Terek Nor holding cell looks like something out of a submarine – I can’t remember anything on DS9 looking like that to save my life.

Issue 1 didn’t fully grab me, but issue 2 of The Q Gambit officially has me excited for what’s to come in this series. Johnson and Shasteen have picked up the pace, increased the stakes, and mixed in some classic Trek faces in style. Bring on issue 3.

Cover Preview:

Cadence Comic Art has cool black and white versions of Tony Shasteen’s art for 5 issues of the Q Gambit series up for sale – check out a sample below, and see all the covers here.

B&W Cover

7 Page Preview:

ST_35-pr_Part1ST_35-pr_Part2ST_35-pr_Part3 ST_35-pr_Part4ST_35-pr_Part5ST_35-pr_Part6 ST_35-pr_Part7

Coming Next:

There’s lots of comics goodness to come from IDW – next up are City on the Edge of Forever #3, Q Gambit #3 in September, and in October, New Visions: Cry Vengeance. 

Cover: Art by Tony Shasteen Subscription Cover: Photo

Cry Vengeance

AVAILABLE AT THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD   All the Star Trek comics can be pre-ordered at Thing From Another World. Click the banner below.

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Fritz Kessler is a writer, musician, marketer, graduate student, and editor at FliptheMedia.com. Quiz him on his absurd knowledge of Star Trek guest stars anytime by finding @hellofritzcom on Twitter.

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sweet again looking forward to the full lot,i just hope new the photonoval is better than the last time the first two were brilliant

The artwork for the Q Gambit comics is sublime.

OMG, I cannot wait for all these. Q is being used well, and the City on the Edge of Forever teleplay adaptation looks fantastic.

So, after the Enterprise returns to their own time in this comic, will we see them in the same universe they left in the next movie, or will it be a different universe they created by going first forward and then back in time in the comic (perhaps one where Pike’s still alive)?

And what fantastical 24th Century technology will they bring back with them (referenced as the “Q incident”) to get them out of a dire predicament in the next film?

Sounds good, but this is essentially a remake of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” only this time featuring the nuTrek and DS9 characters.

Something, (very deep inside) tells me, we re gonna see a Crossover for Star Trek 3!

Maaaan I wish I could see those preview pages in clear resolution at a size I could read …

But it looks really good, and YAY for Trek comixx giving a story more than two issues to unfold. ]Though with some of the shallow storylines it’s possibly just as well.]

The art and story look DEEE-licious!!! Hope they do justice to the overweening ego of Gul Dukat. That SOB was one of the fascinating characters of DS9.

Going to Amazon right now!

The last time Kirk and Sisko met face to face, there were tribbles involved…

can’t wait for this new issue to come I do wonder much more advanced they are compared to the prime universe self’s.

@7, Marja, You can get full resolution when you copy and paste the small pics, hope that helps a bit, im loving the new comics there great.

But I still want ‘Enterprise’ comics or a ‘voyager homecoming’ series.

@11, as long as it’s not based after the godawful Voyager novels, and done logically and free of embellishment, I’m all for Voyager-at-home comics also.

RE: on topic; been waiting for Q Gambit 2 for over a month now… it started epically and it looks like it will continue to be epic. Wish release date would get here quick…

So, how come the TOS crew all looks different in the new timeline, but the DS9 crew all looks the same. Issue 1 was pretty awesome though, and it looks like issue 2 will be even better.

12-I generally enjoy the Pocket Books novels, but those Voyager novels sucked. I think there was just too much going on with B’Elanna’s Klingon journey, the holo-rebellion, and the Borg invasion.

All the lensflares in this issue, haha. I never noticed that before.

still haven’t read this one, I have to say that I love this arc in the comics but I feel like it’s still too much about Kirk ‘earning his captaincy’ and getting a lesson and because of that it feels like I already read them all…

@17.

It’s worth checking out! I hear you, though, on feeling like the Kirk “earning his captaincy” thing is played out. It feels like they’re taking this story in a direction more like classic Q eps, so here’s hoping we’re all done with Kirk learning to act like a big boy.

@13, yeah that is a good question, but notice that Picard and Q looked the same in the previous issue. I want to know why the Defiant looked the exact same, shouldn’t whatever caused the Enterprise-JJ to become that giant monster that looks nothing like the design of a Prime Universe starship have also affected (effected?) the look and feel of the Defiant?

I enjoyed the issue though. Any chance to see the DS9 crew (DS9: the best Trek spin-off) is a good thing.

Why wasn’t this expanded to see alt-TNG and VOY characters as well? It seems odd to pair these two alone.

Sisko:

The Picard in the previous issue is from the “old” universe anyway.

There are two universes in Trek now. One is the classic universe, where Romulus blew up and Vulcan is intact. It continued on after Spock disappeared. The other is the new universe where Vulcan was blown up and Romulus is intact.

As for why the DS9 people look the same? Two things. First of all, because nobody has recast them yet. Second, the J.J.-verse characters don’t “look different” than their Prime Universe counterparts, anymore than DaiMon Bok looked different. When Spock Prime met the J.J.-verse crew, they looked just like his old crewmates to him, maybe barring hair and a few pound. (I think Orci and Kurtzman have said Scotty lost his hair due to stress and Kirk’s eye color was changed by exposure to Nero’s ship. So, in theory, the J.J.-verse crew look the same as the originals minus maybe exercise, grooming, and diet differences. Oh. And in theory, Chekov is a totally different child because he was conceived on a different date. Everyone else was born at the same time as their Prime counterpart aside from Kirk who was born late due to pregnancy slowing drugs in the Prime universe.)

The JJ-verse claims Romulus blew up in the classic universe – but that was just something allegedly similar to the classic universe. If the real classic universe Spock somehow ended up in the JJ-verse he’d be very confused about how all of the fictional laws of physics he was used to no longer exist.

Hopefully once the reboot gets rebooted people will stop applying JJ-verse events to classic trek.

I’ve quite enjoyed the first two issues and eagerly await the third. A highly entertaining story, thus far.

you know when you realize this is someone trying to justify destroying your favorite fictional universe for their movie just to bring spock into the movie and then saying hey, wait it still exists, see?! see?! they are interacting and thus both are still alive and happy.

you really start to get pissed off at this comic.

Kev-
Personally I find it far more irritating when a writer adopts a more intelligent time travel approach of a multiverse, says in the movie that it’s a multiverse, and says in all the interviews that it’s a multiverse… and then I still have to read endless complaining about how the prime timeline was really “destroyed.” This isn’t a retcon, it’s straight up continuity, and the very existence of the mirror universe means that this has to have been how the Star Trek universe always worked – branching time lines were always a thing. So calm down and stop getting yourself worked up about it!

Well….

I’d go see that movie! *LOL*

5. Red Dead Ryan – August 12, 2014
Sounds good, but this is essentially a remake of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” only this time featuring the nuTrek and DS9 characters.

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Which is awesome!