90's Star Trek Comics

So last year we went to an awesome sale at my favorite comic book shop: Jim Hanley's Universe. And we bought a huge box of cheap back issues. 6 of these issues were of Star Trek Comics published by Marvel/Paramount, spanning three titles, originally printed between 1996 and 1998

Here's a survey of these scattered issues:

Star Trek Unlimited #1 (Nov '96)
Writers: Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton; Pencilers: Ron Randall, Carlos Garzon, Jerome Moore, Mark Buckingham; Inkers: Al Williamson, Derek Fisher, Kev F. Sutherland

Two stories in this double size issue, both nicely written, true to their source material and with pretty decent art. The first story is based on Next Gen, and concerns a conflict about first contact between the crew of the Enterprise-D and representatives of a race with a much more hands on version of the Prime Directive. The second story is Original Series: the Enterprise follows a distress call and ends up in a shooting match with Gorn warships. Both stories wrap up satisfactorily, although there is a bit too much luck involved in reaching the seemingly impossible solution in each case. A really fun issue, though.


Star Trek: Early Voyages #5 (Jun '97)
Writers: Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton; Penciler: Patrick Zircher, Inker: Greg Adams, Colorist: Marie Javins

I love the idea of this series. The stories revolve around the original Enterprise crew, Captain Pike and his female second, etc. In this issue we get a lot of nice teases, character moments, and an okay plot about crazy splinter Vulcans, although I don't get enough here to figure why a story would need these guys when we have Romulans. I don't know what happens, since I only have the one issue, but I do like this issue.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy #6, #7, #18 (May '97, Jun '97, May '98)
Writer: Chris Cooper, Penciler Chris Renaud
Inker: Andy Lanning, Colors: Kevin Somers

The rest of the issues I have are all from Starfleet Academy. This series takes place simultaneously with Deep Space Nine, and follows a group of cadets. It seems pretty solid for a book of this type (i.e. teen team of heroes). Issues 6 and 7 are a little plot for the departure of one character, killed in issue 5, and the arrival of a new Betazoid teammate, and using him to flush out a changeling.

Issue 18 I have two copies of: the English edition and the Klingon edition! It follows a group of Klingon cadets who had clashes with the Starfleet kids in earlier issues, and is a pretty darn good issue.

Apparently there was just one more issue after 18, so while they're only decent comics it's pretty neat to have a few.