Star Trek: Mirror Broken Review

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So without any further ado, it's time to talk

about the comics we are reading right now here

inside the pull bag. Hello and welcome to the

pull bag. This is episode 374. I'm of course

TFJL and Mike. Joining me is Ryan the Uninformed

Merkley. Hello, sir. Yeah As you can tell folks

he doesn't like comic books Yeah, it must be

it It must be what it is also joining us is Steve

comic Tron Phillips. Hello, sir Jello Jello Yeah,

I like the comic Tron. That's kind of funny.

Hey You don't want to be you want to grow out

of your other one well We got to come up with

other things for you, and I know no no no no

no not bad things No, no, no what I put my own

stuff. Well too bad. I'm the altered geeks Yeah,

yeah, yeah, well I altered your geek so that

sounds nasty and please know Well, this is an

explicit show, so it doesn't matter That's what's

going in the show notes. That's the new nickname,

Steve Comic -Tron Phillips. Yeah, when I'm on

the pole bag. Well, yeah, hello. Moving on. That's

the point. Or, moving on. No, no, no. Don't you

have like a Q or a Evil Jordy or Evil Scotty

or something in you? You can't use Joker in a

Star Trek show. So this week we're doing a Star

Trek mirror broken sets in the next generation

mirror universe As you can tell folks Ryan doesn't

really want to be here. Why is it my job to keep

us on track? You know, we're in trouble when

well, you know Don't have the three of us actually

recorded anything together recently. Yes, we

did Yeah, I haven't been on anything in a while.

Not the three. Well, the last one was the Transformers

show. Hey All right, so the Star Trek Mirror

Broken from IDW Publishing. Creative on this,

written by David and Scott Tipton, art by J .K.

Woodward, colors done by J .K. Woodward on issue

one, and Charlie Kirchhoff on issues two through

five, letters done by And World Design, so not

a person, a company, I guess. Series edits done

by Sarah Gaydos. Publisher on this one. Greg

Goldstein once again IDW having consistent issues

over the years because this came out when I don't

even know at least a year or two ago 2017 okay

there you go two years ago yeah interesting that

this exists partially because of course famously

Star Trek in the next generation the only one

of the series to not have any mirror universe

episodes, and the novels have explored it a few

times, and then most notably IDW, and I say notably

because the character designs from the mirror

universe, I've actually made it into other things.

Star Trek timelines, for example, uses the Star

Trek Next Generation character. Models whatever

you want to say artwork, etc. Etc from this series,

which is kind of interesting And yeah, like I

say the books have explored TNG's mirror universe

a couple times But yeah, the comics first time

has been represented visually. Anyway, I think

Shatner was the first one to touch on TNG in

the mirror universe With his novels, yeah I believe

so, yes. Although, like Honorable mentioned,

so basically a Mirror Universe TNG episode got

pitched pretty much every year in the writers'

room. They just never ended up making any of

them. Well, the episode parallels with... It's

the closest, yeah. It's the closest because you

get to see Worf having to... deal with that you

know and then you see the the Ryker that's like

no I can't go back blah blah blah and like like

he blows himself up rather than except that one

has to do with the board that's not necessarily

mirror but no it could have been there yeah they

could have had a shift there there's Yeah, but

yeah, they didn't touch on it somewhat Controversially,

although they mentioned this in the DS 9 documentary

Which by the way, you can find my name in I'm

going to mention that every single time we do

a Star Trek show but They hint at the fact that

and I tend to agree with this that DS 9 kind

of Overused the mirror universe a little might

have done too many episodes set there. But anyway

Just like as a casual Star Trek fan. I just like

this kind of stuff It's it's a different look

at characters. We already know it's different

motivations and different styles of them and

I mean it reminds me a lot of what we did just

recently in the Green Lantern one too though

in that they get to use some of the same characters

and See them in different ways or different representations.

So probably the most notable For me anyway was

seeing Walker Keele who lasts way longer than

his appearances on Star Trek TNG ever did Since

he takes him about five minutes before he gets

blown up And we see a little bit more of Jellicoe

who at least lasted two episodes in TNG So and

got referenced three separate times and he was

a jerk He was a jerk. So he was a stickler and

Riker didn't like him Yeah, exactly. So he gets

a bad rap because he's probably more like an

actual Starfleet captain would be like rather

than we kind of have Well, there's her card.

Yeah, there's Kirk who runs a country club and

Picard is yeah more diplomatic and kind of palsy

with most but Anywho Yeah What is so good Steve?

Oh, I was just going to say, so it's just differences

in the captain sees. Yep. Steve, what did you

think of the art in this? I really liked it.

I liked the new looks and designs to some of

the characters and how they kind of touched on

all that. I also enjoyed the fact that they were

very close to the actual actors faces and build.

Of how they they actually would have looked for

instance if they were in the show Except why

does Wesley Crusher look like Bud Bundy? Because

the only one that kind of got me He's supposed

to be like whacked out like he's got that crazy

like spiked in 80s hair like yeah He looks like

he looks like Grandmaster be era Bud Bundy from

married those children He does he does but then

I don't care because they know it's still good

Yeah. You want to synopsize this story for us,

Ryan? Kevin Picard gets the enterprise at the

end. Pretty much. That's pretty much what I thought.

I'm reading these five issues, and the sad thing

is, and this has happened twice this year. It

has not happened since I used to read print comics.

I have actually, and it's weird, the two that

this happened on. It happened on Unicron's trade

paperback, and it happened on this. I fell asleep

with my finger on the right arrow key, reading

this on my computer. I fell asleep by issue five.

I was like, wait a minute, why am I in the cover

gallery? I'm like startling myself awake. And

I don't know why it wasn't that I was bored with

this. Once I realized what the whole thing was,

I'm like, oh, OK, it's basically just Captain

Picard getting the Enterprise. That's the whole

of the story. It's pretty much a heist, which

is not something Trek does an awful lot. The

obvious kind of parallel to it is Search for

Spock, the stealing the Enterprise sequence,

although it's played. It's played a lot more

fun a lot more sort of character driven Whereas

we don't necessarily know these characters or

their versions of yeah ones we know that's what

I liked about this was that where the different

versions of the of the regular universe like

You know where Geordi's gonna come in where Riker

is gonna come in Where was war all right name

he's a Klingon I know, they're at war with the

Federation. Or with the Empire, sorry. He's in

the Klingon Cardassian Alliance. And every time

I see that name, I'm like, when is Kim and everybody

gonna show up? That's so sad, I know. You're

off the show. You can't kick me off my own show.

We can try. You can try, but it won't work. We

can rebrand it and then just erase your voice

from the episode. I don't think so. I can just

not appear and you'd be talking to yourself.

Well, I'd do that anyway, but that's beside the

point. Any answers, too. Oh yeah, I have a penchant

for intelligent conversation, don't you know?

No. Considering your Cardassian joke just a second

ago, I'm going to dispute that. But no, I mean

it basically is Picard it and he's on the stargazer

much longer than what he would have been in TNG

obviously and He gets the the galaxy class dreadnought

Which we've only ever seen in all good things

Yep with the third warp nacelle. Yep, and the

laser laser cannon thingy up front whatever you

want to call it. Yeah, anyway Yeah, the bulk

of the story is them arranging the heist and

then the subsequent stealing of the enterprise

followed by an all -out sort of battle where

he kind of proves his command and Then it just

kind of ends which was a little odd ie so the

end to this I thought was a little weird. It's

just as if they kind of said all right stop With

Barkley considering the potential future asking

the question How long can this last dot dot dot

the end seven years? To the sovereign class dread

not Yeah, that was the one thing I that's the

one thing I did not really care for was just

the the sharp and abrupt ending it's like When

it's it's definitely leading up to something

new though It must be, because even though this

book is a few years old at this point, they must

be doing something else with these characters

at some point in IDW. I read something that they're

supposed to cross over with the Prime timeline

and actually encounter their regular selves.

I read it somewhere. I don't know if this is

a solicitation I found or what it was, but yeah,

it's definitely interesting. Yeah, like I've

said before when we did the other Star Trek stuff

Well, you know was Star Trek Green Lantern and

even when we did the Star Trek 2020 story for

IDW What I love about this is how the the photo

realism art of it all like this isn't like Batman

coming off a page at somebody this isn't like

somebody trying to get the likeness to Michael

Keaton or or you know the animated version of

of like Terry McGinnis or something this is basically

ripping the characters out of like data looks

like data looks like there is no real artist

interpretation here I mean yeah the the the mirror

part is is interpreted but the rest of it isn't

yeah the artwork in general at least to me kind

of held a lot of this together it's If the artwork

wasn't good, it would have been a lot more difficult

to pull this off because as synopsized pretty

quickly, the story is pretty simple and these

characters are versions of ones that are familiar

to us. So kind of because of that, you almost

need to have good artwork at that point because

they are not the exact version we've come to

know and love and watched for seven years. But

if they don't look anything like that It would

take you out of it pretty quickly I think and

the fact that the artwork is really good. Everybody

looks like their counterparts Definitely helps

a lot Yep, absolutely, which I think is why why

I really enjoyed it I mean, of course they all

have like physical defects like Picard has a

beard which is the mirror universe thing and

then Riker's got a gouged out eye and then Data

is experimenting with Borg technology on himself

and and Jordy's got a totally different design

for a visor. Yep. Which is actually more plausible

than the the visor that he actually wears in

the regular series, and so therefore it's funnier.

Although so these type of. Enhancement like the

type of visor he's got in this is similar to

some of the stuff that was pitched originally

and they have designs of for Star Trek the next

generation, but of course they ended up, you

know finding a beret and turning it sideways

and doing that The end well, I mean that's what

exactly what happened so yeah Yeah, I thought

this was a really interesting story Love the

whole I Love how per card is like How do we get

it? I want it now. Well, it's like it's like

an oceans 11 episode except instead of stealing

money They're stealing the enterprise. Yep He's

got to build up his bridge crew and get everybody

on board and then he's like who can we trust

and then they Then he gets his team and he's

like, okay, let's go I do find it interesting

too that so in the novels they tend to have data

replaced with lore In the unit mirror universe

for whatever reason lore is the one that's active

data is not and Yeah, and this they chose to

use data. I'm perfectly fine with it It was just

interesting to me that they made that decision

whereas previous authors decided to do the other

way around It's probably because Data actually

has a loyalty complex and Lore is just unhinged.

Yeah, he would have been more difficult to have

Lore follow Picard at all because Lore even in

the normal universe is a disloyal all -out -for

-himself shitbag. Well, they make it sound like

too that when Picard rescued Data in this that

there was like a mining facility with a bunch

of Soong type robots. They're androids. And so

it's almost like what they did with Voyager where

they had all the EMHs that were failed experiments

on all the different starships doing the exact

same menial job. I always wonder what happened

to all of the soon augments in the mirror universe.

It is rarely talked about and only hinted at

in the books and it's never been done anywhere

else. There's my rampant speculation for the

show there you go So there yeah, yeah, but yeah

much like Star Trek Green Lantern, I just enjoyed

this it was fun. It was a quick very character

driven story, that's fairly easily to Explain

and it's also an easy, quick read. And fans,

again, like Star Trek and Green Lantern, fans

of the properties involved, although in this

case it's one, are definitely going to get more

out of it than non -fans, but it's nice they

have those nods there and it doesn't require

in -and -out knowledge of every single character

in the Star Trek universe. And that's what makes

it work. Like, you have all of this going on,

and you can have, like we said, like you mentioned

with the last two episodes we've done, you can

have a single story that doesn't need to connect

to X number of years of continuity or whatever.

It's the perfect thing for the mirror universe.

You can tell, you can start to tell a story,

you can tell a story and end the story, even

though, as we said, this kind of ended fairly

quickly. It's still not a bad book. I mean, for

five issues, this read really fast. Yeah, that's

another thing I found a little odd. This is another

one of those weird IDW five issue trades versus

the vast majority of trades are six issues. Yeah.

Yeah, I really enjoyed it. And I think that it

was very well done. Totally would have loved

to have seen an episode in that capacity during

the the shows run but yeah, I I was thankful

and in some regards that They didn't because

like you said DS 9 kind of took it and just kept

doing it milking it and it was kind of getting

old hat Yeah, they overused it and it was nice

that so it didn't appear in Voyager. It was it

was technically in it, but it was like an order.

Yeah, but in any case, yeah, it was. Not used

there or it's pretty much retired and then of

course enterprise had the fantastic two episodes

with it so where it kind of gave us that background

of what happened to the defiant from the prime

timeline. Yeah, which is really well done and

then we kind of saw. The defiant and co or at

least the after effects of it and a brief outline

of it on discovery again All right, I'm gonna

stop I'm just gonna keep summing up Star Trek

Yeah, cuz again this read so quickly it's a fairly

straightforward story basically like Ryan said

heist Their card wants to you know hoist the

Steal the enterprise. Yeah, I see the enterprise.

He wants to hoist the enterprise on his own pickle

It's almost I mean Kirk's done that before in

the primetime line. Oh, yeah He does a search

for Spock He stole it to go get Spock and then

blew it up and he did it again and in Shatner's

novel the ashes of Eden with the enterprise a

after it was mothballed and He he commandeered

that and put because they took all the Starfleet

phasers out and everything you put disruptors

in it and everything else and They didn't have

full -time torpedoes. So they had like harping

torpedoes and like Klingon equivalents and it

yeah, then he blew that one up, too Of course

now who's randomly describing Star Trek story.

Yeah Star Trek nerds on here man. That's a comic

book too. I still have it. Oh cool Have the books

I don't have the comics for that one. I have

the comic it for the ashes of Eden I wish they

had them for the rest of them too. But yeah,

that one's pretty neat to look at So, what would

you guys rate mirror broken zero to five Steve

I Don't know I think I'd give it a five because

I just really enjoyed it and all the directions

that it went I know that it probably doesn't

deserve a five and probably deserves more before

point five because it was just basically the

heist and stealing the enterprise and nothing

else happened other than that. But it was kind

of nice seeing how even in that instance, like

history corrects itself and kind of puts the

similar people together, like what it did in

the Kelvin timeline of how just everybody ends

up still working with the same people so long

as they're alive and how they kind of shoved

off Tasha and replaced her with Barclay, given

more of a prominent role. So, yeah, I don't know,

it was really good and I liked the designs and

how they went about it. Ryan? It's a solid four

and a half for me. Like I say, my only sort of

caveat or issue is very abrupt ending. But aside

from that, it's excellent. And then they ejected

Jellico out of the airlock. Mean it's better

than the terrible book scene where he and the

other admirals are betting on how much of the

fleet the Borg destroy Peter David what happened

to you? Every time you guys say Jellicoe all

I can think of is what's Chris Jericho doing

on a Starfleet thing? Well, it's better than

I thought you were gonna bring up cats. So that's

right I thought he was gonna bring up like say

that it sounded like Jello Like, Bill Cosby.

No, you can't have your puddin' pops. Well, he

gets them now, but... I'm right there with Ryan

four and a half simply because of the fact that

it just, like, there is no, like, it wasn't even

a, hmm, what's going to happen next, or, like...

at the end of Star Trek Green Lantern Vol. 2,

it kinda left it off like, Sinestro is still

out there, adventures could still happen. This

was kinda like, this to me, and I know this is

gonna be sacrilege to most people, this to me

is how Star Wars ended, where it just ended with

the trophy ceremony and that was that. It abruptly

just stopped. So, I don't know. Steve, what do

you got going on? as always altered geek and

recording a Podcast series doing voiceover and

producing it. So that's been a lot of fun. Very

cool. Very cool Ryan will be here folks. That's

all he's doing Besides all the reading he does

he lives on the podcast That's pretty much, yeah

he's got it caught right over there. I don't

know, at this rate pretty soon I plan to take

up black tower heroin, so there's that. Well,

okay, sure. It's been a good week. You know,

you could always turn into the next Blue Man

group. No, if I'm going to do anything blue and

drugs it's going to involve meth, so. That's

what I'm talking about. Comes out next month,

baby. Ooh, breaking bad movie. Really? They're

still doing that? Yeah, you didn't know that?

Oh, god. Now I gotta go look it up after the

show. I've got a bunch of stuff going on. This

will be the penultimate episode for October.

We only have, I think, two or three episodes

this month. Kind of taking it slow this month,

and then November will come back. and do other

things. We've got Star Trek versus Transformers,

which Ryan and Steve will be on for next week.

And then in November, Edge of Spider -Verse begins,

and then more Star Wars stuff with Ryan and I,

and hopefully Optimus Solo and I can finish up

Back to the Future Volume 5. So there's that.

Where can the people find you online, Steve?

They can get ahold of me on the Twitters at SCP

-21. What about you, Ryan? That night beat on

Twitter. I'm at TFGOMark on Twitter. You can

follow at the pull bag as well. Be sure to check

us out on Apple and Google Podcasts as well as

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use TuneIn, which I still don't think they do.

People do. I still don't think they do. Not anymore.

It's kind of like Next Radio. It kind of just

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