“Yesterday’s” Comic> Star Trek – Assignment: Earth #5

“Quick, have them race to see who the real Nixon is!” (Little joke for my fellow Transformers fans.)

Star Trek: Assignment Earth #5

FINAL ISSUE

IDW (September, 2008)

Gary and Roberta follow the President on his famous trip to China. However, Chinese and Russians have gotten together to have a fake Nixon replace the original, which Isis (who has been disguised as Chinese aid Hei Mao–really, John?) happens to see the kidnapping. Our heroes take the fake Nixon along to rescue the real one, but during the course of events one of them was shot. Not sure which one it is, Gary uses the Servo to turn him into the real Nixon one way or the other. Later, Nixon resigns as the Watergate scandal breaks.

The back-up story is just Roberta playing a trick on Isis. It was better suited as a way to start a story, although this story wouldn’t have worked with it.

What they got right: I like the idea of commies using traditional surgery (so it’s not the alien interference we’ve seen thus far but something a bit more “normal”) to put a fake Nixon, and the whole “was he the right one” angle since Gary’s cube is destroyed in the conflict. Byrne is having a little fun with this piece and I like it for that. Apparently Roberta gets dragged into a offworld story we sadly don’t get to see. Now I’m sad there was never an Assignment: Earth/Doctor Who crossover, since there was one between the good Doctor and the Next Generation crew. I also give Byrne credit for not using the issue to either defend or take shots (except for that gun shot, of course) at Richard Nixon during the story. Roberta doesn’t like him much but still respects the office. (I’d like to think I’d do the same with Obama.) And we have the part where Nixon resigns but otherwise his controversies have no part in the story.

What they got wrong: We know in the earlier issues that eventually Roberta will learn that Isis can become a human. So why not make this the story that she finds out? And why IS she kept in the dark? If Roddenberry had intended to play it up for laughs Byrne seems to only do it because that’s how the pilot ended. And did they know about the replacement plot, and if not why where they there?

Recommendation: I wish this had been given a full comic or TV series. Assignment: Earth looks like it would have been a good show for its time, and maybe even gather a cult following today. However, NBC ended up renewing Star Trek for its third and final season and the show never came to pass. There is a trade collection available (and going through that Amazon link helps support the Spotlight) that I recommend getting if you don’t want to track down the individual issues. It’s a shame we won’t get more stories.