Star Trek 950: A Little Man-to-Man Talk

950. A Little Man-to-Man Talk

PUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #45, DC Comics, April 1993

CREATORS: Steven H. Wilson (writer), Rob Davis and Arne Starr (artists)

STARDATE: 8620.3 (follows the last issue)

PLOT: Trelaine shows up and wants Kirk to show him how to have his way with women, teleporting him to various locations for just such conquest. Targets include a triple-breasted barfly, the former Yyeoman Teresa Ross, and Carol Marcus. Kirk bucks the trend throughout, but he's still in love with Carol. Upon returning to the Enterprise, a female Trelaine-like entity appears, a girl in love with the adolescent Trelaine, and now we get it. They leave together, and Kirk puts in a call to finish his conversation with Carol.

CONTINUITY: Both Trelaine and Yeoman Teresa Ross were last seen in The Squire of Gothos, an incident that made her leave Starfleet. She became a judge. Carol Marcus is now doing some lower profile research after her son's death (ST III).

DIVERGENCES: Teresa is mispelled Theresa. The 2004 novel Ex Machina claims Teresa Ross is the same character as Chief Ross in The Motion Picture (despite the different actress), contradicting the idea that dancing with Trelane made her leave the service.

PANEL OF THE DAY - That's not his armpit.
REVIEW: Steven Wilson's one-shot makes use of past continuity in a fun enough way (something missing from Weinstein's scripts), and while Trelaine stories never really get above any of the average Q stories on TNG, it was a nice surprise to see forgotten character Teresa Ross. The high point of the story, however, is Kirk's meeting with Carol, which has a certain poignancy and seems to actually matter. What's unfortunate in what is meant to be a sexy romp is that Rob Davis' art doesn't do justice to any of the women. Most range from mannish to total hags, and even the better looking (like Trelaine's girlfriend) have strange male pattern baldness. And I'm not going to go into details about the turd-asteroid field.

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