Q Meets NuTrek Crew
2 min read
Look out Kirk, Spock, and McCoy; the mischievous Q is coming your way next year!
IDW Publishing has announced The Q Gambit, a six-part adventure featuring Q and the crew of the Abrams-verse USS Enterprise.
In The Q Gambit, “…Q sends James T. Kirk on a quest that will witness the Enterprise joining forces with familiar faces from Trek lore, beginning with the crew of a very familiar space station.”
“Part of the fun of the new Star Trek movie franchise is seeing how beloved characters are different in the new timeline,” said Mike Johnson, who is penning the series. “But one iconic adversary remains unchanged: Q. His fascination with humanity and his penchant for mischief remain the same across the multiverse, and now he’s come to take the Enterprise crew on an adventure that will bring new meaning to the phrase ‘no-win scenario.'”
According to Johnson, “a beloved Trek character from the original timeline makes a cameo appearance at the beginning of the story (issue #35) and tries to convince Q to leave the new timeline alone. But Q can’t resist a new sandbox to play in and cool new toys to play with: toys like Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew. Ultimately we’ll learn that there is something unique to the new timeline that affects Q directly, although he would rather the humans not know what it is.”
How will Q react to Kirk and his crew? “Q is intrigued by Kirk’s refusal to accept no-win scenarios. It drives him a little crazy, actually. Spock is more of a puzzle for Q given that he is only half-human. For Kirk and Spock, Q presents a challenge on an order of magnitude beyond what they’ve encountered in their still-young careers. Nero and Khan were dangerous, but neither had control over space and time the way Q does.”
The first of six issues, written by Johnson and illustrated by Tony Shasteen, will debut July 2, 2015.
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Again with the retreads. It is a cheap and simplistic way to write, and smacks of the very worst fan-fiction.
How is this a retread? It’s an original story, not a remake of an existing storyline.
This sounds like it would be great for the next movie but only if they got John Delancie. I just dont know what they will do for another movie. Anyone got any suggestions for an original story?
Well, I could always submit my P2 episode script and have the IDW staff adapt it into the new timeline.
Nevertheless….this Q subplot does look interesting.
He’s aged too much now to reprise his role as Q. He has even said that himself.
It is a retread in the sense that instead of coming up with new characters the writers are simply re-using already established characters. Original story or no, It is a cheap and derivative “fannish” way of writing a story. Of course it is a lot easier than coming up with one’s own characters!
So I’m guessing they’ve already had a Borg appearance, Feringi guest issue, Nausiicans, Iconians, Bolians, been to the Delta quadrant and back, likely all after exhausting the original series cameos, and had Guinan dropping in just to roll her eyes and walk out?
So how do you feel about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Or any episodes that are sequels to other episodes? Calling this fannish writing just because Q is in it–before you’ve even read the thing–is beyond stupid.
No, none of those. What was the point you were making?
Those trashing this story just because Q is in it clearly have an agenda and are not to be taken seriously. This sounds like a solid story.
But will he turn up with Ensign Lefler from TNG and Lieutenant Ayala from Voyager?
Eugh. It just feels horrid.
Also let the writer do his own quote… if he is into Trek, let him show it. Rather than this marketing-created press release quote of “Iconic character…” blah blah blah.
It’s obviously NOT a retread since this is a new story. Those saying it is don’t understand what the term means.
But what about an aging Q being part of the story? Q needs help trying to find out why he’s aging? Then in the end CGI can make him look young if they succed?
It has the potential to be good. It also has the potential to be very bad.
This series started off with redoing several of the first-season episodes, and I could’ve sworn they had a Borg issue in there somewhere. It gave me much the same sinking feeling as Enterprise’s can’t-call-them-Feringi etc. episodes did.
Hopefully it’s just the marketing copy that makes me cringe so, but every time they release an issue with the new timeline and old characters, situations, re-doing of episodes, the blurbs are always like, “Hey guys! We dropped a name! Look! Look!”. This is how a lot of STiD came off, and I found it to be painfully repulsive.
I’d like to be wrong. There’s precedent; a first-season Voyager episode featuring Q; the commercials played up Jon Frakes’ guest appearance, and the trial aspect, so it all came off as a respin of Q trying humanity combined with a forced fanbait cameo. I eventually saw it in reruns by mistake, I didn’t realize what episode it was until after the prologue. It was a good episode, and not at all the way the commercial made it appear.
Then, a few seasons later, the ads flogged Seven of Catsuit fighting a WWE guest star– aaaand that one was every bit as bad as it looked.
No—that comparison is stupid. Wrath of Khan continued a story. The JJ Trek eliminated the whole old timeline because it said that was necessary to tell new stories. Then here we are with a retread of TNG material. You don’t have to read the specific piece to know that the presence of Q undermines the entire reason the reboot was claimed to be necessary.
The reason it is dumb is a simple one – why would he be interested in this crew and not the original “prime” version? Not saying that he wouldn’t be able to interact as Q can do pretty much anything he wants but until now, Q has been kept to the TNG era and mostly with 2 crews. Why didn’t Q ever show up on Enterprise then? This is another example of them taking the best Trek has to offer and throwning it into JJ’s universe in an attempt to get fans. It is fan-fiction and not very good fan-fiction at that.
Everytime I see the neologism “NuTrek” it looks like it should be most properly and appropriately pronounced “NUT-wreck.”
If it was the original timeline, there would be no issue. But being as the whole point of JJ-Trek was to “start fresh,” they kind of haven’t done a very good job in that department, which then begs the question, what was the point of JJ-Trek again?
This is clearly about $$$ and trying to win over disgruntled fans and not about what is best for the story or characters. Both fans of JJ-Trek and Prime Universe Trek should very outraged for being disrespected like this. Just further shows how broken Star Trek is in the JJ-era.
Those that are saying this need to get a life and get over it; it’s been years since the 2009 movie, and they know that it’s popular, as is the sequel. What more do they want?
They haven’t had any of what you’ve said, just re-tellings of some of the original series episodes (like Mirror, Mirror). Why not just sit back and read the book, or leave is alone and get over your butthurt about how these movies ‘wrecked’ the franchise?
I’ve been reading the Star Trek comic books based on the original crew, and so far, there hasn’t been anything except re-tellings of some of the original stories from the TV show, combined with new stories and biography stories about the crew of the Enterprise (and one story about the bald guy with the computer interface from the recent movie.) Why not just read the books, and give them a chance, or stop reading and complaining altogether?
Those trashing it are whiny babies that need to have their diapers changed.
The Q have aways been in the Star Trek universe, they just didn’t really want to be overly concerned with humanity that much (except in little instances, as shown in that episode of Voyager about the Q who wants to commit suicide and die because he has seen it all. ) Who knows why it took the Enterprise-D for them to start formal contact? And who says you have to read this story?
That’s a good point. I have a hard time telling these new comic series apart; I was thinking that this was the same series that had the gender-swapped crew, etc. I haven’t read them, and I don’t plan to, more for time constraints and lack of interest than anything else. So, best of luck to them.
Unfortunately, that is the current state of mentality in Star Trek fandom. One that is really becoming toxic. It seems that you just can’t satisfy your average hard core Trekkie or Trekker these days.
Star Trek fandom has pretty much become a religion. And like religion, it has plenty of faults and power struggles.
Colloquially expressed, but a very accurate observation.
Star Trek fandom, unfortunately, isn’t in excellent shape, either. If nothing else, it has been polarized into two warring factions. It’s almost like the Coca-Cola Classic vs New Coke dispute of the 1980’s.
Like everything else concerning change, you just can’t please everybody.
It’s possible. But, I have a hunch that TPTB are going to go a different direction concerning the third and final film’s storyline.