Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Captain's Table - Dujonian's Hoard

Well, it’s the end… or the beginning of the year and I’ve decided to finally talk about this novel. I don’t know exactly why I took so long with reading this one. I guess it’s because there’s so much out there to do… or it could be I’m lazy. It could also be the book itself but I’ll get to that down below.  For those who don’t remember, I started a look at this small anthology series called The Captain’s Table. It revolves around a weird bar that captains can only enter. Last time, it was Captain Kirk and Captain Sulu. Today, it’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s turn to spin a tale.

Dujonian’s Hoard is written by Michael Jan Friedman. Friedman is no stranger to Trek. Not only had he written some Trek novels, he also wrote comics for the franchise with DC back in the 90’s. I’ve talked about some of the stuff he’s written here. As for when Picard’s visit and story takes place, I can’t tell. No stardates are given. Since events about Season Seven are mentioned, it has to take place after the show and before Star Trek Generations. Either way, it really doesn’t matter too much since the Enterprise actually doesn’t play a role here.

Star Trek: The Captain’s Table – Dujonian’s Hoard

Author: Michael Jan Friedman

BRIEF BLURB: During a conference on Madigoor IV, Captain Picard and a friend visit The Captain’s Table. At the bar, Picard tells some of the patrons a story about a recent undercover mission he took to find a former officer who was looking for a treasure.

Trade Tales! - Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 13: Hobgoblin

Since it’s the end of the year, I thought I’d try to end with some more Ultimate Spider-Man. I didn’t talk about the newest trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming last time, so I’ll give a couple of thoughts here. It looked fine. We’re back to high school with an even younger Peter Parker. He’s even got Tony Stark as his mentor. It also looks like we’re getting a new villain in the form of the Vulture played by Michael Keaton of all people.  I don’t know if I’ll see this in theaters or not yet. I’ll just have to see when July comes. As for this trade, this is Hobgoblin. It contains Ultimate Spider-Man #72-78. The team is pretty much the same. Bendis is writing, Bagley is penciling, Hanna is inking, and J.D. Smith is the sole colorist on this one. So, let’s see what happens when Harry Osborn returns.

Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 13: Hobgoblin

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Mark Bagley

Inks: Scott Hanna

Letters: Chris Eliopoulos

Colors:  J.D. Smith

Trade Tales! - Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 12: Superstars

You know, if there’s one thing that literally gets away from me here, it’s talking about some Ultimate Spider-Man. Luckily, I think I know where I’m going to end it here with that series. I think after the last volume, I needed a break. It’s not that it was bad, but Bendis did do away with a character I liked. For now, let’s get back on the show. We’ll finally get an idea of what the new Spider-Man movie will be soon, so this feels like a good time to get back on the horse.

The next volume is titled Superstars. I don’t know if Bendis was a fan of Molly Shannon’s character from Saturday Night Live, but there you go. Instead of some weird woman, we get some heroes in this new batch. Think of it as “Ultimate Marvel Team-Up” or something. The creative team is pretty much the same as it has been for the last couple of volumes. Bendis is writing and Bagley is drawing. The inking is handled by Scott Hanna, the colors are done by J.D. Smith with Chris Satomayor, and the lettering is done by Chris Eliopoulos. So, let’s see Spider-Man go through some “hilarious” hi-jinks, make a friend, and suffer through a demonic nightmare.

Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 12: Superstars

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Mark Bagley

Inks: Scott Hanna

Letters: Chris Eliopoulos

Colors:  J.D. Smith and Chris Satomayor

Random Thoughts On... Geoff Johns' Run on Justice League

For the last few months, I’ve been trying to go through my collection and see if some of it is worth keeping. One series that I think needed a full read-through was Geoff Johns' run on Justice League. I think I started on it back in the summer. It took me a while to finish it all since there were a couple of issues missing. Heck, I even re-read Forever Evil which is something I will talk about soon. Just recently, I finished it off with #50. I wonder why he cut his run short since he didn’t even make it to #52. Maybe he was working on making DC Rebirth #1 an awesome read which it was.

For those who don’t know, John’s run on Justice League basically kicked of DC’s “New 52” phase in August of 2011. The plan was to basically reboot the DC universe (again) and get the heroes looking fresh, new, hip, or something like that. When I heard that Johns was going to be on Justice League, I was more or less sold since he is one of my favorite modern writers. What made it even more interesting was that he would have Jim Lee doing the art. So, all was well in the land of DC, right? Well… sort of, but I’ll get to that later.

Johns would remain on the book until #50 which was released during May of 2016. I guess his departure kind of made the New 52 officially come to an end. Artists came and went with this book, though. Jim Lee was really only around for ten of the 12 issues in the first year. Afterwards, it became a bit of a hodgepodge of cool artists. We had guys like Gene Ha, Carlo’s D’Anna, Tony Daniel, Ivan Reis, Jesus Merino, Doug Mahnke, Francis Manapual, and Jason Fabok doing art chores. There was also a back-up strip in the early issues that showcased a revamped version of Shazam formerly known as Captain Marvel. Gary Frank handled the art duties to all of that. The inkers and colorists were a plenty for the series.

Hey, J'onn! What's... Oh. Crap.