New Doctor Who

[j***@bright.net]

Wrong newsgroup?

I mean the new STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION/DOCTOR WHO comic, as
publisher IDW has the license for both, and made a deal.
(I suppose the needs of the indicia keep them from flipping the order
of the titles alternate months or on the variant covers, maybe the
sequel.)


I picked up three of the first four issues this weekend; alas, the
store had sold out of #2, where the two first meet, so I don't know if
it's the meet-fight of comics superhero tradition. The Doctor is a
bit subdued in #3 and 4, not showing full-on whimsy mode that likely
would annoy Picard, if bemuse Riker. (He can also, as one companion
says, explain technical details at 90 miles an hour, and then look at
you like you'd dribbled on your shirt; an obvious setup for Data to be
lapping it up, only to be thrown by a side comment like, "This is
probably Wednesday, that's a sort of anything-can-happen day.")


Non-spoilery tech details on what I have read...
There are a few Runabouts in the first issue, one named Mattingly, is
there such a river? And several ships that are reminiscent of the
design of the Planck from this years calendar, comparing the two, they
are actually different classes, which is good, as the comic takes
place during the TV show, I would guess about sixth or seventh season.

The big question is: How is it that the Doctor meets Picard? Not
whether they fought, but why they never met before. Comic have gone
both ways: when Superman met Batman, they inhabited the same world;
when the Flash met the "Golden Age" Flash, it was travel to a
different universe. Could the Doctor Who and Star Trek universes be
the same, at least for this comic? Just somehow the Doctor never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Klingons and Starfleet has never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Daleks? The very title, _Dalek
Invasion of Earth: 2160 A.D._ would seem to be an insurmountable
obstacle, coming on the eve of the foundation of the Federation, but
then look at the Xindi.

[Joseph Nebus]

Post by j***@bright.net
Wrong newsgroup?

Oh, er, gosh. Fair enough newsgroup although I imagine the
Whovians are more active in general, especially with their having a
bright shiny new series that keeps screwing things up.

Post by j***@bright.net
I picked up three of the first four issues this weekend; alas, the
store had sold out of #2, where the two first meet, so I don't know if
it's the meet-fight of comics superhero tradition.

I haven't had the chance to read them, but did see them at
various Who viewing parties, in glimpses taken from a guy clutching
them as if they were lifelines. I'm really awestruck by how lavish
the production is, especially with highlights and shading and panels
that just don't fit to any general rectangular template; it makes me
feel a little sheepish about actually reading them, somehow.

Post by j***@bright.net
Non-spoilery tech details on what I have read...
There are a few Runabouts in the first issue, one named Mattingly, is
there such a river?

I don't know of any such river, but that doesn't mean there'll
not be one in the future. The name Mattingly makes me think of the
Apollo 13/16 astronaut, whic is probably what was in the writer's
mind, and Apollo astronauts are probably good sources for names of
features in the colonies.

Post by j***@bright.net
The big question is: How is it that the Doctor meets Picard? Not
whether they fought, but why they never met before. Comic have gone
both ways: when Superman met Batman, they inhabited the same world;
when the Flash met the "Golden Age" Flash, it was travel to a
different universe. Could the Doctor Who and Star Trek universes be
the same, at least for this comic? Just somehow the Doctor never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Klingons and Starfleet has never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Daleks? The very title, _Dalek
Invasion of Earth: 2160 A.D._ would seem to be an insurmountable
obstacle, coming on the eve of the foundation of the Federation, but
then look at the Xindi.

I don't think there's any way to make the Trek and Who
universes logically consistent. The film _Daleks: Invasion Earth
2150 AD_ actually isn't the logic-breaker in this one --- that's
considered noncanonical in the Who universe and for pretty good
reasons (among others the Doctor in it isn't even an alien, because
... I don't know. It's like making a Trek movie in the 1960s and
recasting Spock's character so he's half-Catalan) but the series
proper has Earth pretty well invaded and conquered many times over
in the 22nd and 23rd centuries. And that's only counting invasions
that the public doesn't forget about, unlike all the ones happening
under Ten and Eleven.

Heck, look at 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship', set in 2367, and
with the threatened giant spaceship the problem of the Indian Space
Agency, when by all Trek rights it'd be Star Fleet.

I know there's a philosophy that since Doctor Who is all
about time travel the timelines can be rejiggered around at will,
so any inconsistencies can be wibbly-wobbly handwaved around, but
that's *such* a drainer of drama that I don't like it.

[j***@gmail.com]

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by j***@bright.net
I picked up three of the first four issues this weekend; alas, the
store had sold out of #2, where the two first meet, so I don't know if
it's the meet-fight of comics superhero tradition.

I haven't had the chance to read them, but did see them at
various Who viewing parties, in glimpses taken from a guy clutching
them as if they were lifelines. I'm really awestruck by how lavish
the production is, especially with highlights and shading and panels
that just don't fit to any general rectangular template; it makes me
feel a little sheepish about actually reading them, somehow.

I can understand being sheepish about asking to borrow them!

Despite the work that went into making it, there's not _that_ much
difference to , say, a four-panel newspaper strip.

Post by Joseph Nebus

Post by j***@bright.net
Non-spoilery tech details on what I have read...
The big question is: How is it that the Doctor meets Picard? Not
whether they fought, but why they never met before. Comic have gone
both ways: when Superman met Batman, they inhabited the same world;
when the Flash met the "Golden Age" Flash, it was travel to a
different universe. Could the Doctor Who and Star Trek universes be
the same, at least for this comic? Just somehow the Doctor never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Klingons and Starfleet has never
mentioned Humanity's war with the Daleks? The very title, _Dalek
Invasion of Earth: 2160 A.D._ would seem to be an insurmountable
obstacle, coming on the eve of the foundation of the Federation, but
then look at the Xindi.

I don't think there's any way to make the Trek and Who
universes logically consistent. The film _Daleks: Invasion Earth
2150 AD_ actually isn't the logic-breaker in this one --- that's
considered noncanonical in the Who universe and for pretty good
reasons

The TV serial on which it was based had, I think, hints that it took
place around those years. I chose the movie as the number being in
the title made it easy for me to [almost!] remember.

Post by Joseph Nebus
proper has Earth pretty well invaded and conquered many times over
in the 22nd and 23rd centuries. And that's only counting invasions
that the public doesn't forget about, unlike all the ones happening
under Ten and Eleven.

Yeah, I suppose Trek has only room for a few more wars and invasions
unknown until mentioned now. Maybe they could have tried something
more along the lines of the first time Marvel crossed their X-Men over
with DC's Teen Titans; this was the early '80s, when both universes
had been pretty well explored, yet the story had the two teams in the
same New York and not having met yet, and hoped to keep the reader too
busy to come up with embarrassing questions until the book was over.

Nah, I suppose the Borg would have been compared to the Cybermen [in
universe] long before now.

Post by Joseph Nebus
Heck, look at 'Dinosaurs On A Spaceship', set in 2367, and
with the threatened giant spaceship the problem of the Indian Space
Agency, when by all Trek rights it'd be Star Fleet.

I must admit (as hinted above) I remember no dates from Doctor Who.
Somehow I've never expected even the illusion of a consistent future
history from the show.

(Well, there was a time when a station was doing weekday showings of
the Pertwee adventures, one spacey serial lead directly into the next,
and these were bookended by adventures on the planet Peladon fifty
years apart. I did wonder about a futuristic "home" for the Doctor to
mirror UNIT. But I already knew the fourth, fifth, and a lot of the
sixth Doctors didn't go there.)

Post by Joseph Nebus
I know there's a philosophy that since Doctor Who is all
about time travel the timelines can be rejiggered around at will,
so any inconsistencies can be wibbly-wobbly handwaved around, but
that's *such* a drainer of drama that I don't like it.

And a bit of a cheat if only applied to the timeline of the future.