Final Frontier

Wait! Don't run away screaming, I'm not about to discuss the horrendous fifth Star Trek film-- maybe another day. Before the Shat appropriated the title, Final Frontier was a perfectly entertaining Pocket Books "Giant Novel" released in 1988. It concerns the first adventure of the very first Constitution-class starship, so new that it hasn't yet even been christened Enterprise.

James T. Kirk only appears in the novel's framing sequence; the main character of the story is Jim's father, George Samuel Kirk. While young Jim is still a boy of 10 on his Iowa farm, George is light years away, serving as the security chief on Starbase Two. He and his friend Drake Reed are shanghaied by mysterious strangers and he is pressed into service as the first officer aboard the Federation's crown jewel: a new starship larger and more powerful than any ever before designed. Considering the ship's captain is a benevolent cardigan-wearing Brit named Robert April, it seems Kirk could have been asked politely, but possibly Diane Carey was desperate to hook readers with some action right away.

The kidnapping makes little sense, but the book improves considerably after that. A group of Federation colonists are stranded on the wrong side of a deadly ion storm with only days to live, and the newly-minted starship is the only vessel that has powerful enough shields to make it through in time to save them. So desperate is the situation that the untested vessel is launched unfinished with just a skeleton crew of just 57 souls.

The fates not only of the Enterprise and the colonists, but of the Federation itself are threatened by a single act of sabotage which strands the would-be rescuers deep in Romulan space-- practically on the doorstep of Romulus-- with most of their systems offline. Through no fault of their own, April and Kirk have broken the peace treaty and brought two enemies to the brink of a second galactic war. The Romulans can tell that the invading ship is immensely powerful and assumes the Federation is preparing to roll right over them. The only thing that prevents them from blowing the (as-yet unnamed) Enterprise out of the sky is the possibility that they can seize her and unlock the secrets of her advanced technology.

Central to this story is the clash of wills between the pacifistic captain and his more aggressive-minded first officer. They represent the dual nature of Starfleet vessels: primarily built for exploration and making peaceful contact with the greater galactic community, but also packing the firepower to defend against species that don't want to play nice. The idealistic April is so concerned about the principles of the Federation that he seriously considers surrender, while the more pragmatic Kirk argues that force is necessary to prevent the greater danger of the Enterprise's secrets falling into Romulan hands. This personality conflict leads April towards the end of the book to theorize that "it'll take someone wiser than the two of us to command this starship. An amalgam of us, probably, if such a person can be found," an obvious foreshadowing to Jim Kirk's future captaincy.

Beyond the two main characters, the rest of the Starfleet crew rather pale in comparison to their more entertaining Romulan counterparts. While it's interesting to know who the original Enterprise crew was, many (including Kirk's friend Drake) are basically namechecked and given little opportunity to shine beyond that. The only other crewmembers to have much impact are the cantankerous chief engineer Dr. Brownell, who provides comic relief with his cranky biting remarks and the extremely high-strung medical officer Sarah Poole, whom we know from the animated series episode "The Counter-clock Incident" is fated to become April's wife. Meanwhile, over on the Romulan vessel Raze, all sorts of cloak and dagger intrigue and chain of command struggles are afoot. The even-handed T'Cael, a reflective non-militaristic captain, has been basically exiled to a dishonorable interior patrol for being out of favor with the Praetor of the Empire. On board to keep tabs on him is Ry'iak, who initially seems like a cowardly and ineffective toady of the Praetor, but once the crisis begins it soon becomes apparent just how dangerous he can be to have around.

One needn't be a hardcore Trekkie to enjoy Final Frontier, just a fan of exciting, unpredictable space opera action adventure. There's planetary bombardment, attacks from indigenous carnivores, perilous rescues, and exciting chases through unfinished sections of the Enterprise. There is an act of murder so disturbing in its cruelty it borders on belonging in a horror story. And the starship battles... personally I love starship battles on screen-- they're usually my favorite parts of the films or shows they appear in-- but ship battles in prose are often dull to me. I've actually been known to skim the dogfight scenes in X-Wing books, ostensibly the most appealing part to other readers. Maybe it's her nautical experience, but Carey manages to string together several exciting set pieces in the inevitable battle. Also, there is a clever final stratagem at the close that will show why the Romulans decided to prioritize the development of cloaking technology.

There are are a few missteps, too. One pretty significant villain from the first half is significantly downplayed in the second half to the point where he/she is practically a non-factor. Also, the April/Poole romance is a misfire because the doctor is such a irrational, shrieking headcase you feel sorry for the poor captain to be saddled with her. The most unfortunate disappointment of the book, though, is through no fault of Carey's, and that's that subsequent Trek series and films, especially Enterprise, have rendered a lot of the "historical" aspects of this book moot. The dates are way off, for one thing, and it turns out that the NCC-1701 Enterprise was far from the first starship of significance. Also by the time of TOS, transporters were old hat, and the Romulans already had cloaking technology.

Regardless of these discrepancies, Final Frontier is a very fun book worth a read. In fact, I would go far as to say that Pocket Books should hire Diane Carey to revisit the book and rewrite it so that its finer details are more in line with current Star Trek canon. This is too successful a book to stay out-of-print due to petty details like whether the dates add up. This book didn't deal all that much with Jim Kirk's early years, but the sequel Best Destiny apparently does. The screenwriters of the upcoming JJ Abrams film cite Best Destiny as a book they looked at while developing their version of Kirk; after reading Final Frontier I'm very much looking forward to tackling the sequel next.

Rating: 8/10

Frank Frazetta's Creatures

I might as well confess right up front that I have a soft spot for anything that has to do with Teddy Roosevelt, who is a local hero in my hometown of Oyster Bay, New York. Roosevelt resided there during his presidency, raised his family there, and is buried there as well. Growing up there, you can’t escape his influence: I attended Theodore Roosevelt Elementary school, the local park and bird sanctuary are named after him as well, one of our fire departments adopted the name Rough Riders, and a handsome bust of TR adorns the front of our Town Hall. While there are other famous citizens with ties to the area, not even Billy Joel, Jackie “the Jokeman” Martling, or even Weiner Dog inspire a greater sense of local pride.

Yet even if I can put aside my obvious bias in the matter, I would still say that Frank Frazetta’s Creatures is an entertaining and amusing little one-shot. Rick Remender and Peter Bergting have concocted a wonderfully gonzo alternate universe where Roosevelt was not only a big game hunter, cavalry soldier, and respected statesman, but also an accomplished ghostbuster, valiantly engaging supernatural menaces with his secret team of “Dark Riders” (which includes among its membership SF author Edgar Rice Burroughs). Through 25 pages of nearly non-stop action, Teddy keeps a stiff upper lip as he plows through disgruntled demigods, giant snakes, savage apes, and even a legion of ornery pint-sized Martian invaders.

If this brew of action, humor and the supernatural puts you in mind of the Hellboy universe as concocted by Mike Mignola, I’m not sure that’s a comparison that Remender and Bergting would shy away from. Bergting’s shadowy and simplified pencils even remind me of the style employed by Mignola and other artists who draw in his books. In addition to Roosevelt’s natural talents, Remender has also armed the Prez with a mystic gem that grants him superpowers, as well as a funky powerpack and monster blasters. As is often the case with Hellboy, TR meets each outrageous challenge with fisticuffs and gunplay. Unfortunately, because the tone of the story is so light, there’s a distinct lack of jeopardy to the combat; there’s no creature our hero encounters that he can’t blast apart.

By the way, exactly what Frank Frazetta has to do with any of this is not at all clear to me. My guess is that he simply okayed the use of his name and the reprinting of his painting for the cover and otherwise his involvement extends to cashing the check. I assume that Remender’s assignment was to extrapolate a story out of what was depicted in the painting, but if so he has a hell of an imagination. Studying that painting, I never would’ve guessed that the hunter with his back to the viewer was Theodore Roosevelt! Actually, Bergting’s great variant cover has a more accurate depiction of the prez-on-martian wackiness to be found within.

Frank Frazetta’s Creatures is light and fun and earns a 7/10 from this appreciative reader. A one-shot is the perfect format for this concept, as I suspect turning this premise into a series would kill the joke pretty quick. However, if Remender and Mignola were ever to join forces to have Teddy Roosevelt fight alongside the Amazing Screw-On Head, count me in!

Contract #1

This is exactly the kind of book I want to like and get behind: a futuristic action-adventure series published in full color by an independent company. When the vast majority of comics on the shelves are superheroes (and don't get me wrong, I love my Men in Tights), who wouldn't want to see an upstart SF title come out of the woodwork and catch on with readers eager for something different? Unfortunately, I don't think that Contract has enough originality or pizzazz to survive in a pretty cutthroat marketplace.

Contract takes place in a fictional star system that boasts no fewer than five inhabited worlds. Life is cheap and mega-corporations have free reign to commit any despicable act in order to turn a profit. In this hostile environment, there is an entire mercenary industry making a living doing dirty work and troubleshooting for clients with deep pockets. The word "mercenary" usually has a negative connotation, but protagonists of his title, the trio of mercs working as the Stellar Rangers, are well-meaning mercenaries, you see, with hearts of gold. When a low-ranking corporate exec's daughter is kidnapped and not returned even after the ransom is paid, they agree to take the case despite the fact that the father has almost no money to pay them.

The field leader of the trio (and CEO of the Rangers) is Jessie Garrett, a leather-clad cowgirl. Muscle-bound Panzer is a one-man wrecking crew with a love of women, violence and hamburgers. Tsumi is a quiet and sardonic modern-day samurai. Of the three, the ribald and roughhouse Panzer, with his hedonistic lifestyle and heavy German accent, is the one who really stands out and captures the reader's attention. The other two engage in some banter, but otherwise aren't given much time to shine. Presumably they will be fleshed out more in future issues- assuming that anyone is still buying the title by that point.

This extra-long premiere boasts an impressive 40 pages of material- three stories plus a short preview of the next issue. It's a great idea to try to pack so much action in to give an introduction to the title, but there are a few missteps which kind of shoot the creators in the foot. For one, it seems counter-intuitive to put the kidnapping story in the leadoff spot, since that continues on to next issue. The other two stories are self-contained, which makes it slightly confusing to have them follow a story that ends on a cliffhanger. Also, the art in the stories varies from "decent" to "mediocre" and, as we learn from reading the letters page, none of these three are the regular series artist, who won't be starting until next issue!

The biggest disappointment for me with the issue is that creator/co-writer Garan Madeiros doesn't really immerse me in some crazy, mind-bending future society; the worlds of Helios are rather generic recycled SF imagery. The cars fly, Panzer has a mechanical arm, and a bunch of futuristic-sounding prefixes like "neuro" and "cyber' are dropped into the dialogue (Panzer doesn't just take steroids-- he takes nano-steroids!), but it just seems like window dressing. The armored nut that Panzer takes down in the third story could just as easily be a drug addicted weight-lifter on PCP. With only the slightest rewrite on the script the lead story could be about contemporary soldiers of fortune traveling to South America to save a child being held by gangbangers.

The lead characters are likable and it is clear that Madeiros is having a ball, but I just wish Contact showed more creativity and originality in the setting. I also wonder if it wouldn't have been more prudent to tell the entire kidnapping plot in the first issue, and leave the two standalones for sometime when the creators were facing a deadline crunch and needed page filler. I would give this a 6/10, although I feel that the book has the ingredients to work. The blah art and the generic setting leave me on the fence on this one, but with so much product to choose from, I kind of doubt First Salvo will be getting any more of my dough.

Pilot Season: The Core

Top Cow has come up with an ingenious way to test the waters on new book ideas to see if they will fly. Much as the TV networks each year sanction the creation of pilot episodes of prospective new shows to gauge how they might look and whether they will succeed, Top Cow has created a "Pilot Season" of their own, in which they release 6 one-shots that could potentially become an ongoing series if the demand is high enough. In this contest, fans vote in a poll posted on a special MySpace page, and the top two vote getters will be rewarded with a shot at a monthly series. Neat idea, isn't it?

Last year's two winners were both superhero books, but this year there is one straight-up sci-fi nominee, and that's Jonathan Hickman and Kenneth Rocafort's The Core. Packed jammed-tight into 24 slick pages is a little bit of everything I like to see in my space operas: politics, intrigue, combat, and groovy alien races. A lot happens in this issue, but let's face it: it's the creators' big shot at trying to land an ongoing gig, and they lay out their scenario at a breakneck pace. Too bad that, as I post this, voting is 24 hours away from closing, and this book is only in fourth place!

The Core of the title refers, quite literally, to the center of the universe, where populated worlds are more closely packed together and the home of several ancient coalitions which over the millennia have steadily expanded outward. After so much passage of time, the inner worlds of the Core are low on resources, making them more desperate for new member worlds as they branch out. As the story opens, Earth has only recently been accepted into the Dahiba Federation, but the alliance is an uneasy one because humanity is making many demands which the Dahiba resent but grudgingly put up with for access to the Sol system’s resources.

Enter our POV character Asimov Dedeken (great name, huh?), the first human to be accepted into Red Sector, which is the Federation's religion-tinged special ops forces. We are along for the ride for Asimov's baptism of fire, joining four other ops for a rescue mission to recover a captive ambassador taken hostage by separatists, most likely on the orders of the Federation's foes, the Saano Solidarity. Amidst the action, Asimov absorbs more and more about the political makeup of the Core, and what exactly he has gotten himself into. He learns about the world that Hickman and Rocafort have devised even as we do. The book ends with a bit of a twist that ensures our hero is in for a big-time moral dilemma in the days ahead.

Hickman and Rocafort have crafted a universe that seems like a cool place to spend some time. Rocafort is a good imaginative penciller, and the pages are colored to give them a painted look. In terms of design, the alien creatures, ships and interiors are all eye-catching, and it's fun to pore over the pages and really take a look around. Hickman's writing is mostly solid; sure there's a lot of infodump but, again, they have just the one issue to lay out the book's premise. I could gripe about a few punctuation errors and odd sentence structures, but shouldn't an eagle-eyed editor have caught those?

I liked The Core quite a bit, I would rate it a 8/10. I would love to see more of it. Unfortunately, as I said, the book is not a frontrunner, and voting closes at the end of the day. Not sure why the deadline had to be quite this soon, I only got my copy from Westfield about a week ago. If the book sounds at all good to you, you don't need to take my word for it, as the entire issue is posted for free up at Newsarama. If you agree that we need to go back to the Core, head on over to the Pilot Season page and vote. Probably a last minute hail mary is too little too late to disrupt a poll that has been going on for a month, but it's worth a shot!