Graphic Novels - Star Wars: Heir to the Empire

So, the Expanded Universe… I never got into it. Outside the movies and The Clone Wars, the books and comics never really interested me. I’ve only read a couple of Star Wars comics and I did try to read the Star Wars: Shadow of the Empire novel a long time ago. I do own the first tpb to Star Wars Legacy. I was originally going to talk about that today, but I really had no inclination of recapping that story. It’s not that it’s a bad story. I thought was okay but I didn’t feel like recapping something so far removed from the movies. I wanted to do something simpler and my mind started to gravitate towards this trilogy.

I’ve heard that the Thrawn Trilogy gets a lot of love from fans. The novels were written by Timothy Zhan. I’ve thought about checking it out for myself but never gave the time to do so until now. When I found out that the story was adapted to comic book form, I thought I’d check it out.  Star Wars: Heir to the Empire was the first part of the trilogy. Mike Baron is the writer who adapted the novel to comic form. Oliver Vantine provides the pencils, Fred Blanchard provides the inks, and the coloring is provided by Isabelle Rabarot. For the heck of it, I actually read this while the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back playing on my computer. Some of the music actually fit.

Star Wars: Heir of the Empire

Writers: Timothy Zhan (novel) and Mike Baron (comic)

Pencils: Oliver Vantine

Inks: Fred Blanchard

Colors: Isabelle Rabarot

TV Talk - Star Wars Clone Wars Series

Wow, Anakin’s rockin’ that hair. That entire scene needed some epic rock music.

Well, I’ve finally gotten to the Clone Wars. As you can probably tell, I’m looking at both series. Since they both have the same title, I’ll be mentioning them by the year they came out. It was actually the release of the 2008 series on Netflix that made this most of this month possible. As you can tell by the titles, the shows revolved around the Clone Wars. Since the prequels only touched on the beginning and the ending of the war, this was a chance to fill in the blanks on certain stuff.  I don’t have too much to say, so let me remember how I got into this.

I first saw the 2003 series when Cartoon Network (when they actually had good stuff on) would air the small mini-episodes. For those who don’t know, the first season of Clone Wars was split into 20 three-minute episodes that would usually air in the evening. The second season of the show came in 2004, but I didn’t get to see those until Revenge of the Sith was about to be released in 2005. That season was split into five 12-minute episodes. The whole entirety of the series is a little over two hours. Since I hadn’t seen those episodes (except for the awesome Mace Windu episodes) in a long time, I was able to find a video on YouTube that had it all.

As for the newer series, I first heard about it when Star Wars: The Clone Wars was going to be released in theatres. I didn’t know what to think of it at first. I mean, it was computer-animated and Anakin had a Padawan? I only saw the movie when MTSU had it airing on their movie channel. The movie was okay and was basically a pilot for the series. As for the series, I would try to tune in for the first three seasons. That all changed when I started to work nights. I did try to keep up with what was going on, but I kind of lost interest in it since I didn’t see it regularly. When I found out that they were releasing it and its 6^th season on Netflix, I waited in anticipation for it. I went through that whole series during that month.

Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Return

They couldn’t leave it alone, could they? I guess I can’t blame them. Kirk’s death scene in Star Trek: Generations was pretty sub-par if a little ironic. He died under a bridge instead of on one. That sucks if you really think about it. You’d think that comic books and soap operas are the only places where one can come back from the dead. Well, Star Trek did with one iconic character, so it might as well do it with the other iconic character.  In 1996, James Tiberius Kirk was resurrected in the pages of Star Trek: The Return.

 So, if anyone is going to bring this iconic character back from the dead, it might as well be some Canadian actor named William Shatner. Yes, Shatner has actually written some scifi novels and some of them are related to Star Trek. I’ve read some of the other Trek books he’s written on. He teamed up with known Trek authors Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens to write this tale. I vaguely remember seeing this book in stores when it was out. I believe I got my copy at a Waldenbooks in the 2000’s. So, this is a book that involves Romulans, the Borg, Picard, and Kirk pulling off a Spock-like resurrection. Should be fun!!!

Star Trek: The Return

Authors: William Shatner assisted by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens

BRIEF BLURB: The Borg and a group of Romulans form an alliance in order to take down the Federation. They plan to kill Captain Picard by sending a resurrected James Kirk to kill him.

Weird Star Trek Eps. - Day of the Dove aka "We Must Beat This Hate Alien with Love and Peace!"

Well, I've come back to the 3rd season of The Original Series. Man, that's a pretty sub-par season. Still, I don't know if can say that about this episode. It has Klingons, swords, a bit of racism, and a hate monster. I think should just start at the beginning...

You know, this ending would have been even more over-the-top if Spock laughed along.

In "Day of the Dove," an energy being that feeds on hate lures the Enterprise and a Klingon cruiser to a planet. It has the ability to manipulate the minds of the crew and their technology. The Klingons are teleported onto the Enterprise since their ship is badly damaged. Then, the being is able to transform their weapons into swords... insert random Highlander joke here. It also tries to make the crew hate Klingons and vice-versa. Luckily, Kirk and Spock figure out that they are being manipulated into hate and violence. They along with Kang's first officer are able to convince Kang that the violence needs to stop. The episode ends with everyone having a big laugh as the love-hating alien leaves the ship.

The episode is okay. I don't necessarily like it, but it's not horrible either. We get a memorable Klingon commander in Kang and we even have the first appearance of a female Klingon. The episode is also action-packed with some sword fighting. It's not great sword fighting, but I'll take it. We also get some over-the-top acting from Shatner and even Keoing who turns into a ravenous maniac.

"Captain! I think I'm on the wrong set again!"

The message of the episode is simple: hate and violence suck. Unfortunately, it kind of beats you over the head with that message. The episode even has an  "Let's all laugh" ending. It kind of makes you want to laugh at the screen and wonder what you just watched. Overall, the episode is okay and that's a good thing since the 3rd season has some truly sub-par episodes. I end the post with  the words of a man known as Vash the Stampede:

"This world is made of love and peace!!!"

Trek Novels - Star Trek: New Frontier - House of Cards

Now this is something I haven’t done in a while. One reason I haven’t reviewed any novels here lately is because I’ve been reading some novels instead of talking about them. There is one series of books that I’ve recently gotten into and I think it’s time to talk about it. I was going to hold this off until the end of the month, but I might as well get this first book out of the way. Star Trek: New Frontier is a series of novels that was started in 1997 by Pocket Books. From what I’ve read, the series takes place in Trek canon and uses its own created characters and other lesser known characters from Trek lore.

The concepts were put together by writers Peter David and John Ordover. Peter David is the author of the first book and  he pretty much writes the whole series. Not only is he an accomplished author, he’s also an accomplished comic book writer who’s worked on books like The Incredible Hulk, X-Factor, Spider-Man, and Star Trek. I got into his well-received Incredible Hulk run through a podcast called PADSmash: an Incredible Hulk Podcast. I also heard New Frontier get a good word on another podcast, so I looked for the series at McKay’s. The books were really cheap, so I bought the first 8-10 books. So, let me see how this first book fares.

Star Trek: New Frontier – House of Cards

Author: Peter David

QUICK BLURB: The Federation must put a new crew together when the Thallonian Empire falls. We also get flashbacks on some of the main characters.