Igor Kordej

I finally got around to reading this Next Generation graphic novel, published by Wildstorm way back in the day. To say that I'm not a fan of Kevin J. Anderson would be putting it mildly, but I think that this is the first time that I've dipped into his comic book work. The story itself is decent: a little cliche, in that it involves the Enterprise crew convincing a violent race that there are better ways to do things (yay peaceful cooperation!), but it's executed surprisingly well. My show more favorite part, however, was the subplot with Commander Riker and a crew of dishonored Klingons scrabbling to build an outpost and defend against the Gorn. I was a little disappointed to see the Gorn in this section defeated with the old cold-blooded lifeform standby-- turning the heat down-- though. What really makes the story work, however, is Igor Kordey's glorious painted artwork. His likenesses of the crew are good, not necessarily precisely accurate, but they work well. What truly excels is his depiction of the Gorn: they are definitely fearsome, aggressive warriors here, not to be trifled with. It is clear from his artwork and from Kordey's "dossier" on the Gorn in the backmatter that he put a lot of thought and work into the depiction of this then-one-episode Star Trek race, and that the so-so story works as well as it does is a testament to him far more than it is to the writers. show less

Pretty dark stuff, as usual. It's like they're trying to get Jews and Palestinians to get along and work things out, except it's mutants and baseline humans. You've got extremists on both sides and then people in power trying to push their agendas by making the two sides hate each other even more.

This was was some pretty heavy stuff, especially the original comics that they included. The new story has 2 preachers, both with the same prejudice problem, one was anti-mutant and the other anti-non-mutant. I like that Kitty was the main character, but all the bible verses got really boring after a while I just started ignoring them. I really liked Claremont's afterword too. He was really trying to send a message with this story and it may have actually worked for some people.

Not sure what I think of this one. We get a whole bunch of new characters I'm pretty sure we've never seen before, and it's unclear whether we're supposed to know what's going on. The part with Jean/Phoenix is intriguing (and has some awesome art!), but... I'm apprehensive about the whole "oh NOES, she's POWERFUL" trope that seems to consume everything to do with her.