The Seeds of Light Are Sown

Star Trek/Green Lantern: Stranger Worlds tpb
DC/IDW
Creators: Mike Johnson, Angel Hernandez, Mark Roberts, Andworld Design, Chris Cerasi, Sarah Gaydos, Jim Chadwick and Michael McCalister
Release date: September 2017

This book is a sequel to Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War which brings these two franchises together.

Permanently.

You see, it begins with the end of the DC Universe. (Spoilers if you didn't read that first volume.)

The first series takes place an unspecified amount of time after the events depicted in "The Blackest Night" crossover event from DC Comics. Nekron arises once again, and having learned from his past mistakes, the first thing he does this time is take out Kyle "Ion" Rayner, the person able to harness the energies of all the rings of the emotional spectrum at once. With Rayner out of the way, everyone else seems pretty helpless to stop the embodiment of entropy from claiming much of the DCU.

In a last-ditch effort to salvage what he can, the last remaining Guardian of the Universe, Ganthet, takes six power rings — blue, violet, yellow, orange, indigo and red — and uses them to open a rift into a parallel universe. All surviving ring-bearers are also shunted into this parallel reality — Sinestro, Carol Ferris, Larfleeze, Atrocitus, Saint Walker, Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Killowog.

The new reality they find themselves in is the 23rd century that contains the United Federation of Planets, the Klingon and Romulan empires and the U.S.S. Enterprise — the contemporary versions from the J.J. Abrams film reboot, if that matters to you. All of the ring bearers are now stuck in this new reality.

Oh, and Nekron is there, too.

But that's the first volume of this tale, which I certainly encourage you to read. There isn't a lot of material in volume two to catch new readers up to speed. But the first volume is worth the time if you have any interest in either franchise.

This second volume picks up some time after the events in the first book, and there have been some changes in the meantime. Scotty is able to help Starfleet reverse engineer the various power rings — up to a point. Starfleet security personal now have white rings as standard issue gear — rings capable of generating personal force fields and firing phaser-like power beams. As for the original ring-slingers? They have some problems to deal with in this new reality. All of their rings were supercharged during Ganthet's shunting them off to their new reality, but even a supercharged ring eventually can run out of juice. Since no power batteries were brought with them from the DCU, none of them have a way to recharge, no matter what color of the spectrum they represent. That's where this story begins.

The various surviving DCU refugees are finding their places in this new reality. Hal and Carol now serve alongside the crew of the Enterprise. Saint Walker, Guy, John and Killowog are also working with Starfleet. Sinestro has become emperor of the Klingon empire. Larfleeze had a short alliance with the Romulans — all of Larfleeze's alliances seem to be short-lived — but in this new series, he is seeking other things to claim as his own. And Atrocitus had a brief alliance with the Gorn, but he abandons them when they prove less than useful helping him find a new way to charge his red ring.

The inclusion of all the other related Lantern characters adds to the drama of both stories, but Sinestro and Hal take center stage in this second volume. Sinestro's use of fear plays nicely against the dynamics of the Klingon empire for a time, but he's not content to simply sit and rule a portion of the universe. Meanwhile, Hal craves the importance of being out in space with the Federation's flagship crew, but he and Kirk — especially the Chris Pine version of Kirk — are so similar that they can't help but like each other any more than they can help butting heads over who's giving the orders.

I confess, the ultimate solution to the power needs of the various Lanterns' rings seems a bit of a stretch to a longtime Trek fan. A previously unknown race is discovered, one that Starfleet might have run across before if they truly existed in this reality. The introduction of another individual familiar to Trek fans also seems like a bit of a stretch here. But having pointed out both of those plot contrivances, this is still a solid, enjoyable read if you're looking for a fun adventure and are willing to simply accept a few twists at face value.

You want to talk dark? Now this is dark!

Dark Knights one-shots
DC Comics
Release dates: October 2017 onward

Short post today, but I had a couple thoughts to share about the Dark Knights: Metal one-shots I've read to date. As of this writing, I have read Dark Knights: Metal No. 3 and the various crossovers and one-shots through Flash No. 33 and The Drowning.

Overall, I'm liking the series and looking forward to how it is all going to play out. Of the various tie-in crossover titles, they've been decent; the more you care about the characters involved, the better they read, but that's usually the case with tie-in titles. I'm sad to say that The Drowning has been the weakest of the one-shots so far. It was the first one I pre-ordered because the title indicated that it would be Aqua-centric. And it was an OK story, just not quite as good as some of the others.

But dark story lines seem to be all the buzz these days, how dark is too dark, is dark good or bad, etc. I'm not here to say that just because something is dark it's automatically either good or bad. Depends on the story, and whether or not it works for me as a reader. Let me tell you, this series earns the label "dark," to be sure.

The Red Death and The Devastator were the two most strong. Want to know just how dark these books are? I read a number of them in one sitting. I came away entertained and satisfied that I had gotten my money's worth. But after reading about six of these Dark Knights titles one after another in one evening, I came away feeling a little depressed. That's how dark these books are. And I have not yet received my copy of The Batman Who Laughs, which I fully expect to be the darkest yet.

That's my two-cents' worth.

Checking in once again with our Belgian friend

The Adventures of Tintin No. 10: The Shooting Star
Casterman/Little, Brown and Co.
Creator: Herge
Release date: 1946

Obviously, I was still doing some reading during the time when this blog was on hiatus. I had previously discussed the first four Tintin adventures, and during the time we were apart, I have read the next five, bringing me to this 10th volume.

I'm not going to go back and do full reviews of the titles I didn't blog about, but here are some brief thoughts on them. The Blue Lotus, No. 5 in the series, brought Tintin back to Asia to thwart opium smugglers. If memory serves, I believe this tale was a bit of a direct continuation from No. 4, Cigars of the Pharaoh, and I didn't care for it as much. It seemed to move very slowly.

The Broken Ear, No. 6, was a little better but also seemed a bit ponderous. The usually very bright Tintin seemed a little slow to put the pieces of this South American mystery together. The Black Island, No. 7, however, moved at a much more brisk pace and was a much more light-hearted tale in places, one of the hallmarks of Tintin adventures I most enjoy. Despite its faster story pacing, it still takes two-thirds of the story before the titular Black Island on a Scottish loch comes into the story.

Next up was King Ottokar's Sceptre, adventure No. 8. This story is set in a fictional European country and very clearly shows parallels to the real world, being written as it was immediately prior to the outbreak of World War II.

The Adventures of Tintin No. 9, The Crab with the Golden Claws, is actually the first Tintin book I ever read. It was in the school library where I attended junior high, and I checked it out and read it several times during junior high and high school. This is the tale that first introduces Captain Haddock into the Tintin cast of characters along with his unique brand of liquor-laced comic relief. Haddock makes a fun ally/foil to the much more straight-laced Tintin. And this book is very much responsible for my love of the series.

All of which catches us up to The Shooting Star, No. 10 in the series of 24 adventures. A massive meteorite barely misses colliding with the Earth, causing a number of catastrophes and allowing Professor Decimus Phostle to discover a previously unknown mineral within the meteorite's composition. Tintin and Haddock help lead an expedition into the Arctic Ocean to recover a piece of the massive meteorite to verify Phostle's discovery, which makes for an entertaining read, especially when our heroes find they are in a race for the prize with another ship also trying to claim the meteorite.

Speaking of Saturday-morning cartoons

Future Quest 1-12
DC Comics
Creators: Jeff Parker, Evan "Doc" Shaner, Ron Randall, Steve Lieber, Ariel Olivetti, Veronica Gandini, Dave Lanphear, Marie Javins and Brittany Holzherr
Release date: 2016-17

People of a certain age hear the name Hanna-Barbera, and they are taken back to when they were children, sitting in front of the television on a Saturday morning, eagerly absorbing all these two creators had to offer. The same happens at the mention of Filmation Studios and Sid and Marty Krofft. But William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were the most prolific.

I've met a lot of DC Comics' recent reboots of the old Hanna-Barbera properties as modern comic books with some trepidation. My only exposure to "The Flintstones" reboot was that property's pairing with Booster Gold for a recent forgettable annual one-shot. The Space Ghost-Green Lantern pairing in another one-shot annual was much better, while the Suicide Squad-Banana Splits team-up annual one-shot had some funny moments, but that was about it. And I haven't tried the Scooby Apocalypse ongoing title for fear it will permanently ruin my love of the original "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" show.

The stand-out exception to all of that is Future Quest, mixing and combining all of the Hanna-Barbera space, sci-fi and adventure characters into one massive story. That one I was also nervous about, but I simply had to try it. "The Herculoids" and "Jonny Quest" were some of my favorite shows as a kid. I also enjoyed "Space Ghost." I confess I didn't know much about the more cartoony "Impossibles" or "Frankenstein Jr.," although I was aware of those shows. And I had never seen an episode of "The Mighty Mightor" or "Birdman."

I was not disappointed by this 12-issue maxiseries.

The story wasn't perfect. My favorites, the Herculoids, weren't as central to the plot as I might have liked, and half the team was sidelined early on. But this is a massive amount of characters to service, so I can understand that decision. Dr. Zin, a frequent foe of the Quest team, seems to very quickly join forces with the heroes and act a little out of character while doing so, to my mind. And the story has a few slow points along the way, making me think it could have been a tad bit tighter.

But overall, this was a phenomenal story bringing a huge cast of diverse characters together with very little tweaking to make the plot work. Most of the characters with which I was already familiar seemed to be spot-on in this series. The ones I wasn't familiar with before, I now want to know more about.

Whoever had the initial idea for this series: kudos to you and this fantastic team of creators who brought it all to life! Whether or not you are a fan of these characters from television, give this series a try if you enjoy sci-fi adventure. You will not be disappointed.