Star Trek The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2 #3 Review
The Cybermen have joined forces with the Borg and they are hot on the trail of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation² #3!
Star Trek TNG/Doctor Who: Assimilation² #3
A massive fleet of Borg and Cybermen ships have the Enterprise surrounded. The ship is able to get away from the fleet and find refuge in a nebula. While they hide from the fleet, they learn that the Enterprise commanded by Captain Kirk had a brief encounter with the Cybermen with the Fourth Doctor. The Doctor suddenly realizes that he remembers this encounter. With things that are suddenly being remembered or recorded, the Doctor realizes there’s a much bigger threat than these two evil beings joining forces. Picard then takes the Doctor and his companions to talk to Guinan to see if they can figure out what might have happened to the time line.
This whole crossover has been well handled with a lot of care toward both franchises. This issue even takes the time to crossover the original Star Trek series with the favorite Doctor from the older generation, Tom Baker. As the two universes merge, we’re taken back to a short adventure from the original crew as they investigate strange goings on at a remote relay-station. After realizing things aren’t quite regular with the personnel, they run into the Fourth Doctor and a small unit of Cybermen which is later found in the records on the Enterprise-D. The art even shifts from the more realistic, painted style of J.K. Woodward to that of a more classic comic book style of the Sharp Brothers. It’s a nice nod by writers Scott and David Tipton and Tony Lee to eras of both franchises that are dearly loved.
With this being an eight issue crossover, it has me now wondering if we’ll see other versions of the Doctor and other eras of the Star Trek universe interacting. It would be kinda cool to see the Cybermen of the Fifth through Seventh Doctors era mixing it up with the Enterprise-B or C crew or to see the very first Cybermen design pop up in the time of Enterprise (though I’ll still stand by the idea that Enterprise is not in canon with the Star Trek franchise because Rick Berman is a history-altering jerk).
Since I’m flying my nerd banner pretty high, I should point out that I think it is interesting to have the Fourth Doctor appear in a Cybermen story. For those who aren’t as well versed in the total history of Doctor Who, or a little more in the Star Trek camp, I’ll explain… The Cybermen first appeared in the final story that featured William Hartnell, the first Doctor. After that, they became a primary villain for the Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. They were extremely popular, but when Jon Pertwee (my favorite Doctor) came along, they didn’t appear once. In the first season of Tom Baker’s seven year run, the Cybermen returned only to not come back again until the Fifth Doctor’s (Peter Davidson) run. They were used relatively sparingly until more recently when they were given a brand new angle when David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor visited a parallel Earth. All that nerdery now explained, I would have thought the better Doctor to have in the flashback would have been the Second Doctor since he had more dealings with the Cybermen than any other. However, it’s also completely understandable that they would want Tom Baker interacting with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty considering he’s undeniably the face of the entire 49-year run of Doctor Who. (Also, since Troughton has passed on, it might have been a bigger headache to feature his likeness, but I can’t speak on those laws with any kind of certainty.)
While we slow down the pace quite a bit to take the time for these two universes to get used to each other, this book is still done very well. I mentioned before that a lot of care is being put into this from the story to the art, so really the only thing that I would like to see more of is something for Rory and Amy to do. They seem to just kinda be there. Their contributions haven’t been much more than asking questions or giving a one liner to try to say the Doctor is a little different than the Enterprise crew thinks.
A COMIC BOOK BLOG RATING
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great art in both time lines shown. The story takes a great deal of care in presenting both franchises well. Great to see the Fourth Doctor and Captain Kirk together. | Not a great deal of forward movement in the story and not a great deal for Amy or Rory to do. |
| Rating |
1 Comment
Once again another great review!
I have to say that I agree with you that overall the authors are doing a really good job of respecting both franchises so far, which is awesome. However I also agree with you that the pacing of this story so far is leaving a lot to be desired. Here we are three issues into an eight part story and yet we still haven’t gotten to the REAL story. I understand that the first two issues were mostly for the purpose introduction—perhaps a necessary evil when writing a crossover series like this—to introduce those who are fans of one franchise but may not be as familiar with the other to the other franchise. Still one would tend to think that the vast majority of people who would buy this particular comic book series (or indeed ANY crossover series) would be those who are already fans of both franchises and intimately familiar with all the who’s, what’s, when’s and where’s. Therefore, it seems to me that devoting two whole issues to introduction was a bit excessive and that the authors should have instead devoted more of that space to telling their actual story.
Also, like you, I am somewhat disappointed that Amy and Rory haven’t played much of a role the past couple of issues, aside from the occasional one-liner. The same could be said for several of the TNG characters as well. But in all fairness, it is notoriously hard writing for a large ensemble cast to ensure that all characters get equal time in the spotlight, particularly in a comic book where narrative space is so limited. I am, however, hopeful that as we get deeper into the main story that there will be better opportunities for more of the characters to be utilized.
As to this current issue, for the most part I really enjoyed it; but that said, the flashback to the ST:TOS era, while fun and nostalgic, felt a bit pointless and disconnected from the rest of the story. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you could get away with doing a Star Trek / Doctor Who crossover without somehow including both Kirk and the original series crew and at least one of the past Doctors (Tom Baker’s Doctor being a great choice IMO as he has always been a personal favorite of mine); but the way the authors choose to handle the flashback just didn’t work for me. It lacked purpose and substance. Personally I think that if you are going to have a flashback scene like this and include major heroes from the past it MUST be more then just a cameo for the sake of having a cameo; it MUST serve a vital purpose in the overall story—such as to reveal a clue from the past necessary to solve a critical problem in the present. Let’s just hope that the authors will find a more significant way to tie in this flashback later on in the story. Also, I really did not like the switch from J.K. Woodward’s paintings to the more classic comic book style drawings. Its not that the Sharp Brothers’ art was bad (actually quite the opposite) but rather that the two styles simply didn’t go together, as though pages from a completely different comic book got stuck in there by accident. I’m sure this switch in art styles was intended to set that section apart and to emphasize that it was a flashback—ok I get that—but I just didn’t like it even on an aesthetic level and ultimately it just made the whole scene feel even more disconnected and out of place with the rest of the comic book both artistically and narratively.
The one other slight criticism I would make (and now it’s time for me to fly my own nerd banner) is that unfortunately it seems that J.K. Woodward, as brilliant and as talented of an artist as he is, has no sense of scaling whatsoever when it comes to his ship scenes. Having grown up as a sci-fi geek fascinated by things like starship size-comparison charts and building scale models, one of my biggest pet-peeves with almost any sci-fi medium is when they can’t manage to get their spaceships scaled correctly. In this specific case I know that part of the problem is that, unlike the Enterprise-D and the Borg Cubes which have fairly well established sizes, there is (at least as far as I know) no official statement for the length of the Cyberships; and since we have only seen them briefly in two episodes its hard to even accurately estimate their lengths (though I would guess them to be somewhere between 500m and 700m based on their relative size to the Dalek, Sontàran and Judoon ships as seen in “The Pandorica Opens, part 1”). As a result of this and simply the nature of the comic book medium I wouldn’t expect absolute accuracy from Mr. Woodward in regard to the ship scaling in his pictures. Still it would be nice if they were at least half way consistent from one frame to the next; but instead the scaling is all over the place. For instance, in the last frame of issue #2 we see several Cyberships passing in front of several Borg Cubes. The Cyberships are clearly significantly smaller than the Borg Cubes, exactly as they should be. However on the first page of issue #3 Woodward suddenly has the Borg Cubes moving in front of the Cyberships, with the Cyberships now many times larger then the Borg Cubes, which is absolutely ridiculous. You simply can’t have it both ways, and besides it looks just plain silly when you put the two pictures side-by-side. – End of nerd rant. –
On a positive note, I am really excited (ok, almost giddy LOL) about the idea of Guinan and the Doctor finally getting to meet! For me, this was one of those absolute “must have’s” for me to consider this crossover a success, and thankfully it appears that the authors felt the same way!