Cosmic Comics: Klingons: Blood Will Tell
Written by Randy Hall on July 14, 2009 – 6:19 pm -
Comics: the last Star Trek frontier. These are the ongoing voyages of the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Enterprise D. Their mission: to explore strange new formats; to seek out colorful new adventures of both crews, to boldly go where no trade paperback has gone before!
Welcome to Cosmic Comics, a weekly column that will follow captains Kirk and Picard and other inhabitants of the Trek universe as they roam the galaxy seeking bizarre-looking aliens, ethical and moral dilemmas, and flying leg kicks.
I was introduced to the joys of reading comics by my mother, who read to me and my twin brother before we went to bed from such literary classics as Baby Huey and Richie Rich. As Wayne and I got older, we began enjoying comics on our own featuring Superman, Batman and Spider-Man.
When we became Trekkies in college during the 1970s, we started looking for comics that featured the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. That hunt led us to Gold Key, Marvel, DC, back to Marvel, on to WildStorm (a subsidiary of DC) and most recently, IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works that was launched 10 years ago.
Two years ago, I heard that IDW had secured the rights to Classic Trek and The Next Generation, I was actually hopeful that we’d get cool new stories since the company had put out good material on other franchises, including 24 and CSI.
Ever since then, I’ve spent my hard-earned quatloos buying (and usually enjoying) each mini-series they’ve produced with the intent of collecting those stories into a trade paperback that could be sold in Borders and Barnes & Noble as well as comic book shops.
Let’s start by discussing my favorite IDW series: Klingons: Blood Will Tell, which was published in 2007 and looked at Classic Trek from the Klingon point of view. When I first heard that description, I groaned inside since I figured it would show the same material as before but from a different angle.
I was wrong.
Written by Scott and David Tipton and penciled by David Messina, the tale had a framing sequence set during the time of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. The Tiptons used the opportunity to flesh out several aspects of some of our favorite Classic Trek episodes, along with some characters we knew little or nothing about before the mini-series, by cleverly drawing on continuity from throughout the Trek “generations.”
As Kahnrah, a member of the Klingon High Council, struggled with his tie-breaking vote regarding war or peace with the Federation, he explained to his granddaughter, K’ahlynn, the various encounters between the two galactic powers.
The first issue dealt with the episode “Errand of Mercy” and tried to reconcile the “mean” Klingons of Classic Trek with their “honorable” descendants in Next Gen by having Kor’s first officer express doubts about killing the “defenseless” Organians as a means of population control.
And just to show that the folks at IDW are big fans of Trek, the first part also had a variant edition in which all the text was printed in Klingonese, as translated by Marc Okrand and the Klingon Language Institute!
One of the best issues of the series was #2, in which the Klingons—now unable to confront Starfleet directly due to the Organians’ involvement—turned to stealth as a way of defeating the UFP in “The Trouble With Tribbles.”
A highlight of the story was our chance to see Gralmeth, a Klingon whose small stature kept him out of the military, undergo surgery to pass as Arne Darvin at Deep Space Station K-7 only to be betrayed by those cute little Tribbles.
There was cool continuity all around, as a bald black lieutenant with a goatee (Benjamin Sisko from “Trials and Tribble-ations” on Deep Space Nine) strolled through a corridor and we learned why Gralmeth was rejected by his people after “Trouble.”
Issue #3 leaped from Tribbles to the Mugato as Klingon Commander Krell introduced Kirk’s friends on the primitive planet Neural—including Tyree and his witchy woman, Nona—to flintlock “fire-sticks” as part of “A Private Little War.”
“Day of the Dove” was the center of events in the fourth part, as Kang (and by extension, other Klingons) learned that cooperation with the crew of the Enterprise is not always a bad thing after they joined forces to expel a creature that fed on violence and hatred.
The final issue, entitled “Losses,” showed Councilman Kahnrah coming to a decision about his vote. He then had to fight his way past several assassins—including a surprising one—to cast the deciding ballot regarding Gorkon’s proposal of peace with the Federation.
Artwise, Messina’s work was consistently good throughout, and there were some nifty alternative covers featuring photos of the episodes related to each story.
By the way, Klingons: Blood Will Tell is available as a trade paperback, like most of the Trek comics I’ll be reviewing. I know what it’s like to run from comics shop to comics shop and still not being able to get all the issues.
Live long and prosper, and we’ll discuss another Trek comic next Tuesday.
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Tags: Comic Review, IDW, Klingons, Star Trek
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