Chapter By Chapter> Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders chapter 20

Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

Last time the power was out but now we’ve got fires. Whether that was intentional on the hacker’s part or some side benefit of shutting down the Academy computer we can’t currently say. It’s not like the murderer cares who else gets killed.

Thus far this has been a good Star Trek story but it has taken awhile for the mystery to finally take center stage. It’s not like we have a huge list of suspects and we can eliminate (pardon the expression) anyone from the show. We set up some potential motivations but we’re about to see how they come into play, or at least we will if all the new distractions don’t slow the mystery down. The story itself has been fine and doesn’t feel slowed down, but the murder mystery promised hasn’t really had a chance to be at the forefront. Now with the murderer slowing the investigation I have to wonder how much of the murder story the author came up with before starting this story. Her various Star Trek novels are all I’m aware.

I am enjoying the story. It’s a good story. It’s just for a murder story there’s more character than murder. Then again, I’m not much of a murder detective novel reader and only picked this up because I enjoyed the sequel book, so maybe this is how things usually go. Maybe some of the novelists or detective novel readers in the readership can tell me where I’m being a moron to fill out the homepage. That’s accomplished and I think the fire’s out, so let’s see what our heroes come up with next.

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“Yesterday’s” Comic> Prototype #3

I will not be covering the Rune preview story chapter because I care that little about Rune. Sorry.

“Hey, I just had this washed!”

Prototype #3

Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (October, 1993)

“Hero And The Terror”

WRITERS: Tom Mason & Len Strazewski

ARTISTS: David Ammerman & James Pascoe

COLORIST: Rob Alvord

LETTERER: Dave Lanphear

EDITOR: Chris Ulm

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BW’s Daily Video> Modern Gaming Vs Femininity

The Critical Drinker now has a gaming channel on YouTube

 

Jake & Leon #595> Legacy Of Darkness

It really is like he never left…though I really wish he would.

I have nothing against Dan DiDio personally, but I don’t like what he did with DC Comics or Transformers. As I wrote about recently, DiDio may be gone but his changes and many of the writers he brought in are continuing to follow in his mistakes. At least now he’s working on an original continuity with Frank Miller. Miller lost his connection to proper Batman storytelling when he made All-Star Batman & Robin and he never got Superman right. I just wish the legacy of DiDio’s Darker DC wasn’t still in effect.

Over at The Clutter Reports this week I just messed with my back-up files hard drive so I told the tale of three projects my dad did this week. May it still inspire declutterers who stumble upon it.

I’ve got more medical tests this week because apparently I’m not allowed to stop being sick from something. So I’m not sure at this time what disruption that’s going to cause. We should get the next chapter of Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders for Chapter By Chapter, and the last Aliens: Space Marines minicomic that doesn’t actually feature any space marines but does have Predators. Beyond that we’ll see what I’m able to get out on time. Have a great week, everyone!

Saturday Night Showcase> Here Come The Littles

Based on the book series by John Peterson, The Littles aired for three seasons on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup. Young Henry Bigg has a secret living in his walls, tiny humanoids with rodent features called Littles. Similar to something like The Borrowers, the Littles have made things based on stuff they find. The youngest Littles, siblings Tom and Lucy, make friends with Henry as the three have various adventures, dragging in the siblings’ pilot cousin Dinky and their grandfather. In later seasons Henry’s family go on a worldwide tour and the quartet of Littles end up going with them for international adventures.

Tonight we see how Henry and the Littles first met in the movie Here Come The Littles, produced by DIC Entertainment, who also made the TV series. The same art and animation style and voice cast from the series also appear in this movie. When Henry’s parents are missing, Henry is sent to stay with his evil uncle. However, Tom and Lucy fell into his suitcase, and when they learn their mutual home is threatened, our heroes band together to save Tom and Lucy’s parents and Henry’s home. Enjoy.

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BW’s Saturday Article Link> Tracing The Dying Of US Comics

 

I’m not ready to call the Big Two of comics dead because I still see an opening if someone is clever enough to utilise it and is in position to do so. We just need to find those people, which is looking less and less likely. However, charting the path of DC and Marvel’s slow decay is more than modern politics and can actually be tracked to a change in focus for an industry that has never had the guts to stand up for itself among the other media of storytelling. Author Brian Niemier has collected the data about how DC Comics and Marvel Comics got to this point, and it’s been a decades long decent.

Free Comic Inside> The Rest Of Aliens: Space Marines finale

It’s the second half of the final story in the Aliens: Space Marines minicomic saga. And yet it’s only the second of three articles.

For those of you who came in late, Aliens was a toyline based on the first two movies. Being a boys line, they opted to shift the “main character” to Hicks, a soldier from the second film, but Ripley, the actual main character for most of the franchise, was still an important part, and they remembered the power loader exosuit from the second movie because they gave that to her since it would make a way cool toy. Like with the Super Powers Collection based on DC Comics characters and Superfriends incarnations, each figure was given their own minicomic, but instead of standalone stories we got a series of arcs that went through numerous figures. Get the human, get the alien, rinse, repeat, until you had the full story. It’s a surprising amount of continuity for a toyline pack-in minicomic; not the only toyline or promo comic set to do this (Drake’s snack cakes did a similar bit with their two Marvel sets, both of which I’ve reviewed in the past), but it was quite rare. The comics are really short, so you’re not quite getting a long story, but thus far it’s been a decent tale each time.

Last time we started looking at the longest and final arc in the line. Our heroes, including characters who died in the movies because that toyline needed filling, tried to go for some R&R on a human colony, only to have the xenomorphs drop in on a nearby farm to start a new hive. We left our crew in the largest stable I’ve ever seen staring down a bunch of xenos whose facehugger parents got a hold of bulls, creating bull/xeno hybrids the toyline called “bull aliens”. Can our heroes make it through alive?

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