Gordon Purcell

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

This volume from Titan collects three different DC Comics stories where there's interaction-- convergence, if you will-- between the original and Next Generation crews. One of those stories is the adaptation of Star Trek Generations, so I read it after finished Star Trek: Movie Classics Omnibus from IDW, which contains the first six movies. (The only Star Trek film adaptation to never be collected is Marvel's Star Trek: First Contact, though there weren't adaptations of Insurrection, Nemesis, or Beyond.)

The Generations adaptation is competent but uninspired; mostly it's nice to see some deleted scenes that didn't make it into the film, like retired Captain Kirk going orbital skydiving, or Soran's torture of Geordi La Forge. On the other hand, some of the film's little bits of business become so shrunk down you wonder why Michael Jan Friedman even bothered to keep them; I don't see how anyone could follow the "Mr. Tricorder" bit. Gordon Purcell is a great artist, so I was pleased to see him doing his thing here. I was also amused that he faithfully renders how the Enterprise-D crew are constantly changing uniforms, even down to how Riker rolls up his sleeves to disguise the fact that Jonathan Frakes was given Avery Brooks's uniform from Deep Space Nine, and Frakes has longer arms. Surely a comics adaptation is a place to smooth out visual production exigencies and just make everything look as nice as possible!

The storyline "Convergence" is reprinted here, but since I'd just read that in IDW's The Gary Seven Collection, I did not reread it. It looks like the quality of reproduction is higher here, though.

Finally, there's a short little story about how Captain Morgan Bateson is struggling to adapt to twenty-fourth-century life (following the events of "Cause and Effect") and Scotty comes along to help him out (following the events of "Relics"). Which is a little weird now that I think about it, because Bateson actually jumped forward in time first! I referenced this story in my first published piece of Star Trek fiction but don't tell anyone, I'd never actually read it before now.… (mehr)

This TPB was more of the same as the first volume. It picked up right where the previous volume left off. The Cybermen and Borg were still thorns in the Enterprise and the Doctor's sides. And before any fighting and saving day can happen the Doctor has to convince Picard to parlay with the Borg. They want the Enterprise and the Doctor's help because their former allies turned on them, and then turned towards the Delta Quadrant to destroy the rest of the Borg as well.

This TPB also had the Enterprise Crew getting a look inside the TARDIS (and a couple of rides on it too) and a really cool scene between Amy Pond and Jean-Luc (it must be a red head thing).

All in all both TPBs made a good eight issue story line. Lots of both the Doctor and Star Trek goodness crammed into the same book. What could be better.… (mehr)

This should be great. This is not great. This is eight issues of people talking about things, thinking about things. Imagine all of the awesome things that could happen in a crossover between Doctor Who and Star Trek. Well, none of them happen here. The variant covers are way more interesting than any of the actions in this weirdly aimless, meandering, suspence-less comics. Some plot threads are just abandoned, while others are tied up in the most trite and obvious ways possible. Characters' facial expression vary from inappropriate to nonexistent. I bought the deluxe hardcover of this book, anticipating it despite the negative reviews. I should have listened, and I should not have wasted my money.… (mehr)