Comics Corner: Star Trek #1, Star Trek: Holo-ween II #1, Universal Monsters: Blood of the Wolf Man concludes and we preview The X-Files #1

This week's Comics Corner reviews Star Trek #1, Star Trek: Holo-ween II #1, Universal Monsters: Blood of the Wolf Man, and previews the highly anticipated The X-Files #1.

Spoiler warning for some plot details in each of the titles we cover.

We're going to try to get back to Comics Corner on Cereal Creatures blog being a regular thing. To be honest, there are so many comics to choose from, we find it hard to pick what to share. Our goal is to pass on what we like and while there are many good ones out there, many are just average. More than we'd like to admit, we pick up a title because of its cover and are disappointed by the story and inside artwork. We will try to highlight Star Trek comics, the Universal Monsters titles and the upcoming X-Files series from Dynamite.

Star Trek No. 1

Star Trek #1 from IDW, the second volume now, starts off with Captain Seven of Nine and the crew of the Enterprise-G about five years after we last saw them in Star Trek: Picard Season Three. After rescuing former Romulan refugees, who are again homeless, Starfleet is sending the ship to another realm to relocate them. The premise is a little strange and the art is too stylized for Star Trek, but it's not a horrible start. It doesn't feel like fan fiction as the previous Star Trek-with-no-subtitle comic did. I could see this being a reasonable interpretation of the Star Trek: Legacy concept should it have graced our screens. Sadly, the powers that be at Paramount at that time were clueless.

Our Creature Countdown for "Star Trek #1"

• The crew is not the same one from Picard. Seven, Raffi (who is getting her own comic Star Trek: Zero Point), Jack Crusher and Sidney Laforge, plus Alexander Rozhenko are the only returning characters. The others are interesting, but the art is so stylized (not bad, just different), that it's hard to tell what species they are. There's an attempt to introduce the crew, but I'd prefer something like the old DC Who's Who style pages to really show who they are. And the one-panel appearances of Geordi and Worf had continuity errors: Geordi hadn't worn the VISOR for decades at that point and Worf never wore a gold DS9-style uniform. Yes, it's nitpicky, but even when Worf came to DS9 he donned his TNG-style uniform.

• The only character, who seems to be heading for this series' Mary Sue status is Lily Sato, the Andorian from the first Star Trek volume. Why IDW opted to carry the fan fiction that was the first volume over to this one and not just continuing from Star Trek: Picard is beyond me.

• Janeway guest stars! I love they went with the All Good Things…/Endgame uniform. It's too bad the regular crew uniforms are horrible. Yes, it's five years later, but why couldn't we just continue with the excellent new duds worn by the TNG crew in Picard season three? These look like they're right out of Star Trek fan fiction I would've written thirty years ago. I wish the combadges were a little more distinct, too.

• The Admiral Picard being in a coma plot point doesn't quite land in the issue. It's a great angle, but the meat of that story was in the preview or ashcan and it's not clear in the actual #1 what had happened.

• The Seven/Raffi-as-a-couple storyline also rears its ugly head. Now, the worst coupling since Worf and Troi is back and they are supposedly married. Good god, I wish the people making these comics actually watched Star Trek. Did you miss the one where Worf picked his wife's life over a major asset during the Dominion War and nearly got shown the door? In what galaxy is it acceptable to marry your first officer and then have that person report to you as the ship's captain? And no, Picard and Lt. Commander Neela Darren doesn't count--she reported to Riker. I'm glad Picard Season Three jettisoned the relationship and perplexed (not really) why it was brought back here. IDW cannot help themselves from throwing in Kurtzman era wokeness.

Overall, we'll beam this issue down with 4/5 stars.

Star Trek: Holo-ween II No. 1

Star Trek: Hollo-ween II #1 continues the title from last year's TNG-set mini-series of the same name featuring RedJac or Jack the Ripper from the original Trek's "Wolf in the Fold." This year, it's set on Deep Space Nine during the show's fourth season. Not a lot happens in the first issue. DS9 is hosting one of the Federation's largest peace conferences ever and Starfleet got reports (somehow) of a possible weapon on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. Also, Chief O'Brien disappears into a holosuite and another Federation starship unexpectedly arrives damaged and saying their captain has been murdered. Is Redjac back?

Our Creature Countdown for "Star Trek: Hollo-ween II #1"

• The continuity police strike: In Dax's opening personal log, she mentions DS9 or Terok Nor being a war machine. No, DS9 was never a military outpost per se. It was a mining station as built by the Cardassians.

• Ugh! Why didn't we get to see the Defiant? Also, the USS Varela looks strange.

• The contrivances to fit clearly fit the writer's preferred characters is obvious. If this were TV DS9, Sisko would not go off on a mission aboard the Defiant when such an important diplomatic conference was happening on the station. Nor would he leave it to Worf--who's species at the point in Trek history had just turned on their longtime allies--i.e. most of the people at the Federation conference. If he had, he would have left Kira, as the senior Bajoran officer on the station, in command. Worf, as XO of the Defiant, and Dax would've been assigned the Gamma Quadrant mission, while Sisko and Kira dealt with the conference on the station.

• It's not really clear how long Chief O'Brien has been gone, but it's apparently been overnight. A senior officer is missing and no one seems that concerned.

• Some of the dialogue is clunky and not accurate for that point in DS9. Worf and Quark were not on a first name basis. And the final page with the commander of the Valera calling out Jadzia Dax by name on an open channel is cringeworthy.

An interesting start to this weekly series. Three out of Five stars.

Universal Monsters Blood of the Wolf Man wraps

The sixth Universal Monster mini-series from Image and Skybound "Blood of the Wolf Man" concluded with its fourth issue. The comic, like most of its predecessors does with perfection what Universal Studios has struggled to do for nearly a century--tell stories in the universe of the monsters that made them. The "Blood" series appears to be set in the 70s and continues the legacy of the 1941 classics Wolf Man. It has the sensibility of the original -- a disbelieving father and a son who transforms into the titular hound -- but adds a modern and gory take. The connection to Larry Talbot is not exactly clear as they imply the connection is with Evelyn Ankers' Gwen Conliffe being an ancestor to the Jaeger family in this series. That aside, this series gets five out of five stars and now we await The Bride of Frankenstein up next!

The X-Files returns soon

This December, Dynamite will release a new, ongoing X-Files comic. While little is known, the information shared about it is confusing. The preview description indicates Mulder and Scully have been reinstated at the FBI. This implies it will be set after the season 11 and continue the long-running series. However, the artwork shows Mulder and Scully looking very young (i.e. around season three). To make it more confusing the description talks about social media being part of the storyline. While that in itself is groan-worthy, the fact that this is leaning towards a reboot and not part of any continuity is even worse.

The artwork for the original Topps series complemented the tone of the Fox series perfectly as did the modern take in the IDW series a few years ago. This, however, looks like Saturday morning cartoon fare or something I'd see in an Archie comic. The covers are generally bad. Does Dynamite not have the rights to David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson's likenesses? The main cover to issue #1 doesn't even have the agents on it but has some Roswell alien bullshit. Cover B is more X-Files in style, but along with the other variants doesn't do the characters any favors. In fact, the only good cover is the "Icon" cover featuring the exceptional artwork from Miran Kim that appeared on the first issue of the Topps comic. Yes, back in 1994 when we got one good cover and not 12 mid ones.

The story, which features teens with powers (yawn), will have to win us over. It's great to have The X-Files back, but this seems like its headed for a rough start. The truth may be out there, but is anyone going to care?