So, I found this while I was looking for things to link with my Wesley Crusher post and I figured I'd check Star Trek:The Next Generation: Hive out. I'm glad I did, too, because it was a lot of fun. I mean, I've loved ST:TNG since "Encounter at Farpoint" (Yeah, I know the first couple of seasons were slow. Ten year old me was so excited to see Trek episodes that he and his father hadn't seen that he didn't give a rip.) and it looked like something I might be interested in, too.
And I mean it was totally original too, because Trek had never done anything with time tra...
Errrrr...
There was this new species called the Bor....
Uhh...
Okay, so the story was new but the plot elements were familiar. I'm okay with that though. It's like there's a reason that they use this stuff. It must work or sumfin'.
I mean, who hasn't watched "The Best of Both Worlds" and loved it? If you're a Trek fan, I mean. My daughters don't like Trek (Not my fault. I tried) so they probably haven't seen it, but like, non-Trekkies (Trekkers if you prefer, I guess. I grew up using the older term.) wouldn't even know what I was talking about. And, of course, everybody's favorite Trek movie is ST4: The Voyage Home and that's all about time travel and whales and "nuclear wessels" and the Dark Ages, and...
Look, it's been a minute, okay? Let's just say that with Trek you can pretty much throw in time travel and either the Borg or Klingons and it's all good. And Hive was good. The story is all about Picard, and Data and Seven and how they have to save the galaxy from being overrun by the Borg. And yes, there is some time travel involved because Locutus/Picard has to travel back in time to prevent himself from doing something that ruined the whole freaking timeline. Somebody take his cookie away.
The story is engaging and moves well. It probably comes closer to the TNG movies than the series, but that's true of a lot of the new stuff. It's an action story and it works. I read the whole thing in about ten minutes using a Kindle app on a cell phone. No, that's not my favorite way to read a comic book/graphic novel but I've got KU so I did it that way to save eight bucks. Although, honestly, if you use the clicky feature that they've created for comics, it does work pretty well. The app automatically pops a window describing how to use it if you're not familiar.
The artwork is magnificent. The Borg are wonderfully rendered. We can recognize the familiar faces that we should be able to recognize. But more importantly, there are big space battles and they look really cool. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to use big technical terms and talk about sight-lines and whatever, but I'm an SF/F geek, not an art geek. You'll have to get your technical lessons from someone else. Seriously. I can barely remember which end of the pen goes on the paper. What I do know is what looks good from a layman's perspective and Hive is beautiful.
I could just page through this thing and look at the pictures and be happy. That's weird for me, because I'm more of a story guy, but I really did enjoy the art. It was well drawn but it felt familiar. I could look at the pictures of Locutus/Picard (depending on the point in the story) and hear the words spoke in Sir Patrick Stewart's voice, not just because I was a fan but because it looked so much like him and that's kind of a thing for me.
See, when I was a wee little Jimbo and was first getting into comics, I got confused sometimes reading comics with the same characters but different artists. I get that different artists have a different take and that's one of the things I love about comics. It's a lot easier to recognize a variation on a look at forty-six than it was at six, too. The fact remains that we need to know who we're looking at and Corroney gives us characters that have his take on them but are alike enough in appearance to the actors to make things feel comfortable. And look, I'm not here to debate who drew the definitive Silver Surfer, I'm just saying that familiarity is a good thing, especially when you're dealing with some of Trek's most beloved characters.
And speaking of Trek's most beloved characters...
The plot of Hive makes an immense amount of sense when viewed through the lens of what one would expect of the characters involved. Some harsh actions are taken but they make sense in context of the people we're dealing with. Say what you want about Picard, he never shied away from doing what he had to when it came right down to it. He'd hem. He'd haw. Then he'd do exactly what he was hesitating about. It more or less works that way here. He does what he has to do because he has to do it.
I've always had a fascination with the Seven character as well and she really shines here. Her actions show an empathy and a humanity, mixed with a bit of Borg and their obsession with perfection. Hive gives her a really well written arc, a mission that only she can accomplish and a believable reaction to the way things go. I really liked the fact that Braga seems to have considered her dual nature and done right by her.
There really aren't a lot of appearances by other members of the various shows. I'm okay with that. They wouldn't have added much to the story anyway. I remember reading something by Leonard Nimoy talking about how he didn't do Star Trek: Generations because his character would have served no purpose. Braga was smart in following a similar principle and not throwing characters in just to say he did.
Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Vulcan Artifacts
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hive
Brannon Braga, Joe Corroney
IDW, 2013
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Hive is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.
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