Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989) #31 Comic Book Review

Star Trek: The Next Generation #31 is the first comic I ever got as a kid. Sort of. My dad bought it for me along with Star Trek #31 but I don't remember which one I took out of the brown paper bag first. I'm pretty sure it was this one. I mean it had to have been because Commander Riker is on the front cover and he was, and still is, my favourite TNG character. Either way, this issue is the one that started my lifelong love of comic books in general and DC Comics in particular. Not that I have anything against Marvel, but I haven't been exposed to a lot of Marvel outside of Spider-Man, and so I don't connect to those characters as much as I do DC.

The story, titled "Kingdom of the Damned" is actually part 2 of a two part story that started in issue #30. Riker is onboard a research station, trapped in another dimension where he's slowly starting to lose his corporeal form. Meanwhile the crew of the Enterprise are trying to locate him with the assistance of Captain Thadiun Okona from the season 2 episode, "The Outrageous Okona" (played by William O. Campbell). They locate the research station inside the interdimensional rift and modify the ship's tractor beam to shear off the section of the station where Riker is located, pull it in, and beam him back to the ship. They succeed and after giving Riker a short pep talk, Okona returns to his ship, the Erstwhile.

One of the things that I like about this story is that you don't need to have read the previous issue in order to understand what's going on in this one. Which is nice because oftentimes, especially in 1992, you have to read like three other comic book series in order to get a complete story. Thankfully Star Trek doesn't lend itself to that format very well and stories end up being self-contained to a single series. That's helpful for those of us who started getting the book a little bit later.

While the artwork in this book isn't anywhere near as bad as Rob Liefeld's art in The New Mutants #98, it's pretty bad by Star Trek comic book standards. The regular artist, Peter Krause, was replaced for this issue and the previous one by Carlos Garzon and he likes to do a lot of closeup shots, so that you can't tell what's in the background. Or he likes to put characters in a panel like they're sitting or standing in nothingness. For example there's an entire scene that takes place in Engineering but it's all closeups of Geordi, Data and Okona, so you can't even really tell what Engineering looks like unless you're really paying attention to what little background there is here.

Also, both Carlos Garzon and the cover artist, Jerome Moore enjoy using comic book rendered shots of stills from the TV show. On the front cover is an almost full body shot of Riker that is reminiscent if a shot from the first season episode "The Last Outpost" where he's standing on a cliff looking for the other members of his away team, except on the comic book cover, Riker has a beard and is wearing the TNG season 3 to DS9 season 4 starship uniform, rather than being clean shaven and wearing the original TNG season 1 and season 2 uniform as he is in the still shot. Inside the book there's a shot of Data sitting at the Conn (helm) facing Troi, Picard and Geordi, sitting in the same position he's in from a still shot taken from "Encounter at Farpoint" that wasn't used in the episode, but was meant to be when Worf is arguing with Picard about being left to take command of the saucer section when they separate the ship. So that's interesting.

Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this was a decent comic book story and a great introduction into the world of comics based on Star Trek. I'd recommend it if you're wanting to get into the comics a little bit without trying to track down the 30 issues that came out before it. However the artwork is pretty bad, so only pick it up if you're getting other Star Trek comics or don't mind bad artwork. I'm giving this comic a 6.5/10 stars.