My 10 Favorite Star Trek Comic Books

You may remember a few weeks ago I talked about Star Trek novels. The next logical discussion would have to comic books. However, that’s a major area to cover. Star Trek comics have been published almost continuously since 1967! It’s also bounced around companies including Gold Key, Marvel, IDW, and of course DC. So how in the world do I cover such a topic?


The only way I could think was to discuss my favorite ten Star Trek comic books. Yes they’re from DC, but I just don’t have the time or interest to read every single Star Trek comic book ever made.

 Here are my ten favorites:


Mirror Universe Saga

Ok this one needs some explaining. When the series began it was set after Wrath of Khan. Which was fine, until Star Trek III came along. DC tied it’s contuniy to that of the movie and this story arc is basically all about how the crew went on after the events of Star Trek III. So we have Spock being healed, Kirk getting the Excelsior, and other things that had to be retconned when the next movies came around. Of course this is a return of the mirror universe characters and isn’t half bad. These stories were written by Mike W.Barr who is one of my favorite writers out there. I love his stuff in Batman, Camelot 3000 and yes his Star Trek run. In order to tell new stories this run had new characters, which makes sense it’s hard to do anything new with characters we’ve known for 25 years! You could argue the pro’s and con’s of this, but these new characters were a nice way to keep things fresh.

My 15 Favorite Star Trek Action Scenes

We’ve talked a lot about Star Trek this year. We’ve discussed characters, stories, media, and other things related to this 50 year old franchise. But let’s be honest, the coolest thing about Star Trek are the awesome action scenes! Space battles, fist fights, and moments of suspense that leave you sitting on the edge of your seat again and again.


Here are my favorite action scenes from Star Trek, anything from space battles to actual fights between two characters. I did two per series, and we’ll get to the movies when we get to them.




TOS–

Amok Time

To be fair to the old series, we’re not going to find space battles that intense here. They tried but it was the 60’s and there was only so much they could do. And no, the remastered versions do not count in this case. So, we start with an old fashioned fist fight. It’s really kind of amazing, the best fight scene in the history of the original series is between Kirk and Spock! But they did a fantastic job with this scene, and it makes for a fantastic episode.

The Doomsday Machine

This episode has one of the most gut wrenching suspenseful moments of them all. And it isn’t really an action scene. Well, not in the conventional sense. Kirk is on the Constellation while he drive sit into the Doomsday Machine. He just needs to be beamed off before he’s killed. Great idea, if the transporter worked! A perfect blend of music and suspense that will have you at the edge pf your seat every time.

Ten Batman Comic Team-Up’s with Non-DC characters

Batman is an awesome character. He is a normal guy but is smart as a whip with all kinds of cool gadgets and special skills. He can team up with pretty much anyone in the DC Universe from Superman to The Joker. And very rarely does a match up seem to far fetched to make sense, when the hero is magical, supernatural, or even a villain.

In fact he can also team up with pretty much any non-DC characters. almost easier than Superman because Superman’s god like powers and abilities make it harder for some to work with him. Batman doesn’t have such limitations, and if they can’t match wits physically or intellectually you can marvel at their different personalities as they clash.







Here are ten Batman team-up’s with characters from companies other than DC.




Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I mentioned this one in passing last time and since it’s still coming out I won’t offer an opinion on it. Though from I see they did take it seriously, and maybe it wasn’t as stupid as it sounds.

Five Things I Liked and Hated in “Batman Forever”

Usually when I do these kind of articles, I either list things I “hate” in a good movie or things I “like” in less popular movies. It’s always good remember that just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s perfect and just because it’s bad doesn’t mean it doesn’t have something good in it. But this one made me pause, is this a good movie or a bad movie? It’s not Batman & Robin bad, it’s not Batman Returns dark,  and it’s also not Batman good either. And it doesn’t even compare to the Nolan films! I finally decided the heck with it, and do both. This is movie a major guilty pleasure for me, but as I have grown older and wiser I do acknowledge it isn’t perfect.

Batman Forever came along in 1993, directed by Joel Schumacher after the confusing mess that was Batman Returns. It was family friendly and was a big hit. Even if critics didn’t like it so much. And of course Schumacher went even more family friendly with the follow up…but we’ve discussed that elsewhere. And while it has it’s problems there are some things I really like in it.

First, five things I hated…..


Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face

I’ve mentioned this before but to put it briefly..I didn’t get the problem with Two-Face when I first saw this movie. It seemed like perfect casting! To bad Jones decided not to care, at all. But it wasn’t all his fault it was clear Schumacher didn’t get the character either. It wasn’t until The Dark Knight when I saw Two-Face done right I realize how bad this really was. It’s a shame too because could have worked. Carrey and Jones had decent chemistry together. But man, the way they took one of Batman’s most interesting villains and turned him into a cartoon character!

Top 10 Favorite Star Trek Movie Villains

A great movie needs many things, including a kick ass and memorable villain that people will love! They need to be cunning, they need to pose a serious threat, and there should be some sort of psychological connection between our hero and villain to raise the stakes and the drama. That is how you make a badass villain,


Why do Star Trek movies have such a hard time with this?


I’ve talked about villains from the old TV show before but have never gotten into the movies. So here are the ten movie villains, in order from lame to badass. And since Star Trek IV had no villain, unless you count a flying Tootsie Roll a villain, that movie will be kept off.




#10.V’Ger (Star Trek-TMP)

So why include V’Ger if I excluded the probe in Star Trek IV? Well, the movies tries to give V’Ger a face and personality. Tries. As with the rest of the boring movie the villain is not only boring, but has been done before. Just called him Nomad and you basically have the TOS episode Changeling. I kind of thought the name was clever. Sort of. I guess the one thing going for it is V’Ger poses a literal threat.




#9.Ahdar Ru’afo (Star Trek Insurrection)

F.Murray Abraham is a fine actor, but he gets stuck in a stupid movie. He could have been a good villain if they had given him a motivation that was, you know, evil! And what was up with that skin stretching nonsense? This villain is so bland I had to look his name up, I didn’t have a clue. So we have a villain who is not evil, has no interaction with out heroes until the final act, and does almost pretty much nothing in the movie. Yay.

My 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W-Reconsidered

A month or so ago I did a tribute to Nostalgia Critic and AT4W. While doing that I looked back at the previous stuff I had written, and I realized it was time to update an older article. Back in 2012 I did a sort list of my favorite episodes of AT4W. That was almost four years ago, the list only had five episodes listed! Well there have been a few episodes since then. So today I am revising and expanding my list in honor of AT4W’s 400th episode at the end of the mont.

This was originally a top 5 which I expanded into 10, but had to make 15. Hey, it’s been 400 episodes! Give me a break  



 I tried to include at least one for every year, but last year just wasn’t that great. I blame that on the AT4W movie which I think occupied his time, and to much patreon stuff. I get why he does those but those reviews are so boring (I don’t care about video games and Japanese Power Rangers!) that I usually don’t even watch them. I just couldn’t pick one from last year that I thought was excellent. And yes I saw the AT4W movie maybe if/when I get the DVD I will write a full review of it.


For now, here are my fifteen favorite episodes of Atop the Fourth Wall…..




#15.Action Comics #592 (2010)

This is one here for a special reason, I read this comic when it was first published back in 1987. And since I knew it, it was the first episode I checked. I wasn’t very familiar with Linkara yet but the episode was really good. Why John Byrne wrote the thing I will never know. Superman doing porn. Not much else to say, it’s a simple review but it was the one that made me a fan.

Five Less Than Great Spock Moments from Star Trek

I love Spock, who doesn’t? Leonard Nimoy was just about perfect playing this character and what he gave us will live forever. Spock is awesome, in every single scene he is in and every single line of dialogue he says.


Or, is he? I mean I love Spock as much as everyone else but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when his smug attitude doesn’t get annoying, or he does something that’s, well, illogical!  Now some things seem silly but we get what’s going on so we forgive it. For instance, we have no idea what Spock is exactly doing to save the ship at the end of TWOK, but it works so we let it go. In “Galileo Seven” jettisoning the fuel seems so out of character that it would ruin the episode..except the episode goes out of its way to give Spock an “out” at the end so that it makes “logical” sense. In “That Side of Paradise” he is waayyy out of character, but we blame that on those darn spores. His whining when he mind melds with the Horta in “Devil in the Dark” is goofy out of context but it makes sense from the Horta’s point of view. He acts silly in “I, Mudd” but that is just following orders. And in “Plato’s Stepchildre” he does some truly crazy things, but he’s under mind control and it’s dealt with in the episode.




Here are five Spock moments that are not explained away, they’re just silly or annoying.




Spock explains what amusement parks are to Kirk

Ok this is a small one I suppose and maybe it’s just me. The point of having Spock explain something is so that either audience or the characters will understand what is going on. Ok, fine. But in the episode “Shore Leave” he does it at a stupid moment. At the end the caretaker is trying to explain that the planet provides experiences (see the episode long story) that were intended to amuse them all by giving their fantasies reality. But it’s all fake. Spock then sums it up by saying the term is “amusement park”. He then turns to Kirk and explains that amusement park is an old Earth term for a place humans would got to see and do fascinating things. Uh, you know Kirk is human right? I really can’t believe Kirk has never heard of amusement parks. Sure in the 23rd century they would be different, but if Kirk knows what trick or treating is I’m sure he’s heard of an amusement park! It’s a small one but that still bugs me. Why even have Spock say that at all? Did they really think the audience were going to be confused by that term? It would have worked better to have given Kirk the line and Spock be confused by it. It’s like in TNG when Data would be confused by things he should understand for a cheap gag. This isn’t even that! And finally, the word amusement park doesn’t even make sense here really. Why not a carnival? Or a circus? All in all, that line was just stupid.