This reimagining of Prince Valiant just isn’t working for me.
Star Trek: Voyager–Avalon Rising
Wildstorm (September, 2000)
WRITERS: Janine Ellen Young and Doselle Young
ARTIST: David Roach
COLORIST: Dan Brown
COVER ARTIST: David Wenzel
LETTERER: Maghmeh Zand
DESIGN: Alex Sinclair
EDITOR: Jeff Mariotte
A knight tells a story of the time he was still a squire. He grew up with dreams of brave knights doing noble deeds…and the truth was nothing like it. When his master turned out to be a coward the squire had to be saved by the Doctor, No, not that one but he will be seen as a wizard, too. He tells the squire, Weylin, about his mission from the great sailing craft Voyager to breach the “Blind Tower”, a repository of great weapons left behind by a well-intended but kind of misguided group of ali…I mean travelers to keep them safe. With his emitter damaged, the Doctor and Weylin make their way to the tower, getting past and eventually befriending the knights guarding it, and shutting the tower’s defenses down so the crew can get the tech off without further damaging their culture. However, the Doctor’s altered tales of their adventures have a positive effect on Weylin, who leads the tower’s former guardians on a quest around the planet to make new allies on the high seas.
What they got right: Seeing some of the shows stories recontextualized in a medieval lens is actually kind of neat, and ultimately may be the reason for this story. It does on occasion show us the actual event, namely the recording that led Voyager here and why the holographic Doctor was the only one who can go, but redoing that in the style of the other tellings might have been kind of weird so I’m not upset that it broke the pattern, interesting as it might have been to see it through the same lens.
What they got wrong: Of course this does require the overused Trek conceit of another world developing a culture way too similar to one of Earth’s cultures (every planet shares a culture but ours, apparently). I know they wanted some stakes involved but maybe as an “Elseworlds” style re-imagining (yes, I’m actually bringing up a positive use for the otherwise BS re-imagining trope) or just an adventure on the holodeck that for once DOESN’T involve a stupid malfunction (good luck with that) would have made more sense.
What I think overall: For the last Star Trek comic I have to review as of this writing this was an odd one to end off on. On the other hand it’s also a fun one. I rather liked it.
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