Days of DC Comics’ “Star Trek” hit end of the road

"...and that concludes the final installment of DC's STAR TREK. Having had the knowledge of closing out these final issues' lettercols. I can't help feeling a twinge upon reading your mail, noting your enthusiasm, humor, and interest. "Amazing Grace" would be pretty appropriate now. I am heartened, though by the knowledge that Star Trek, now more than a force of nature than a saga, will continue in its various incarnations from generation to the next...and to the next...

The final words, as always, are best left to you readers and fans..."

- The editors of DC Comics' Star Trek

Feb. 1984 - Feb. 1996

Vol. 1 - 56 Issues - 3 Annuals

An era has ended.

Earlier this month, I stopped by the local comic bookstore to pick up the latest issue of “Star Trek” that features the original cast. I will always be a fan of the original series, but for the past year, I have not had time to read the monthly comics because of school and work.

I always knew at the beginning of every month there would be a new issue of Star Trek waiting for me at the store. The series would never end. It could not.

My usual routine was to first read the back page entitled “Hailing Frequencies Open” of each issue to see what the writers at DC Comics had in store next month for Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy. Even after reading the editorial note on the back page twice of Issue 80, it still did not register I was reading the final issue of the Star Trek series.

The note said “... and that concludes the final installment of DC’s “Star Trek.”

“What?!!” I exclaimed. “Great!! This is what I get for paying more attention to such important things like studying and working for a living.”

The news was as sudden as learning a relative or friend just died.

Vol. 2 - 80 Issues - 6 Annuals

The only question I could produce was why? My question was answered when I got home.

Rummaging through a pile of still un-filed comics I accumulated, I came across issue 79 which offered an explanation, however, vague.

The reason for the cancellation was not due to low revenues as I suspected; a major factor that contributed to Marvel Comics’ cancellation of “Star Wars” in 1986 after a nine-year run. The reason was because Margaret Clark, DC editor for both “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” comics, was leaving to edit the franchise’s paperbacks and calendars at Pocket Books.

Along with that was the news The Next Generation comic would also be suspended.

Issue 80 of that series arrived in stores last week.

And so, it is officially over. Captains Kirk, Picard, and their respective crews are boldly going to an area they have explored once before in their television series. Cancellation.

I shed no tears, however, for The Next Generation. Their adventures will continue in motion pictures. As far as the original cast was concerned, I knew it was over for them in movies with “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” in 1991.

At least I still had the monthly comic book to look forward to. Until now.

In the Beginning

1995 Miniseries
6 Issues

It was a lengthy and enjoyable run while it lasted.

“The human adventure is only beginning,” was the sentence at the end of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” when it premiered in 1979. Since the original TV series ended its run in 1969, there was always talk of bringing the cast back in a new television series. The comic book adventures began in 1980 when Marvel Comics adapted the original series. There was, however, some uncertainty about it. The publication had no idea where they wanted to go with the characters and as a result, the series lasted only 18 issues. It was not until “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) was released that the popularity of the franchise exploded. All Trekkies ever talked about was how Spock would be brought back to life in the third film.

DC Comics was not going to wait for the answer and began publishing a comic book series of their own in February 1984; three months before the premiere of “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” DC’s writers not only produced several new creative storylines, but they retained all the action, drama and humor of the original series and brought a few guest characters back. Spock and McCoy never failed to have their philosophical arguments.

Oct. 1989 - Feb. 1996
Vol. 2 - 80 Issues - 6 Annuals

I am astounded at how Trekkies are today by The Next Generation. I remember a friend of mine could not believe it when he saw the new Enterprise’s saucer section in Generation’s 1987 pilot, “Encounter at Farpoint”, separate from the stardrive. DC first pulled that stunt off three years before “The Next Generation” came to TV with the Mirror Universe storyline from the original series.

It did not take long, however, for the series’ studio, Paramount Pictures, to realize it had a hit on its hands. The first series went on a brief hiatus in 1988 while DC’s writers and Paramount’s executives negotiated their future.

Just as “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” was released in theaters in the summer of 1989, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” comic was born.

The idea “Star Trek” has explored is unity. That was creator Gene Roddenberry’s reasoning for having an African American (Uhura), a Russian (Chekov), an Asian American (Sulu), an Englishman (Scotty), a Vulcan (Spock), and two Americans (Kirk and McCoy) serving on the Enterprise.

And now

Today, Paramount Pictures is interested more in making money marketing the Star Trek franchise than producing better storylines.

Perhaps it was best DC Comics quit while they were ahead. Better to go out knowing you had high sales than to go out knowing you had none.

I just wish the publication could have given the original cast a first-class sendoff. I would rather remember them seeking out “new life and new civilizations” than to be retired.

Although their adventures will continue in a variety of hard and soft cover books, this is the end for the comics.

However, with 79 original episodes (80 if you consider “The Menagerie” was a two part episode), six feature films, 150 plus comic books, annuals, specials, movie adaptations, and 50 plus hard and soft cover novels and counting, there’s more than enough adventures for me to look back upon.

Farewell Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A.

Live long and prosper.

©2/7/96

My Personal Worst Films: Showgirls (1995)

Showgirls ½«
NC-17, 131m. 1995

Cast & Credits: Elizabeth Berkley (Nomi Malone), Gina Gershon (Crystal Connors), Kyle MacLachlan (Zack Carey), Glenn Plummer (James Smith), Alan Rachins (Tony Moss), Robert Davi (Al Torres), Gina Rivera (Molly Abrams), Al Ruscio (Mr. Karlman). Screenplay by Joe Eszterhas. Directed by Paul Verhoeven.

"Showgirls" is a film that delivers plenty of breasts and skin with enough overtones of bisexuality, lesbianism, and sadomasochism equivalent to a pornographic movie, hence the NC-17 rating it’s been given (no one under 17 admitted). It is not, however, sexually stimulating like some hardcore X-rated movies are and is completely devoid of a compelling storyline, which is exactly what all hardcore X-rated movies exhibit.

Not only is this $40 million production filled with some horrendous performances and laughably, unbelievable dialogue, it is a cheap slap-in-the-face to more gifted directors like John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy" - 1969), Philip Kaufman ("Henry & June" - 1990), and Bernardo Bertolucci ("Last Tango nn Paris" - 1972) whose critically acclaimed films over the past two decades were stigmatized by the Motion Picture Association of America and theatrical owners for their adult content.

"Showgirls," with its huge mass market distribution in over 1,300 movie screens nationwide in September 1995 and NC-17 ads appearing on network television, was enough to make presidential Republican Candidate Bob Dole cringe. The irony was the film arrived quietly on video store shelves a mere three months after its box office run.

Video Store magazine revealed the movie’s distributor, MGM/United Artists, went solo on the film’s promotional video tour because its sister company, Warner Home Video, wouldn’t back NC-17 films. And the nation’s top video retailer, Blockbuster Video, was also not going to carry the NC-17 or unrated versions of the film.

"Showgirls" is the latest collaboration from director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas who gave audiences the confusing but erotic "Basic Instinct" (1992). If their names weren’t on the credits, one might think this film was put together by amateurs.

The word which best describes the picture is “half-assed.” Seems neither Verhoeven or Eszterhas gave a damn about what it was they were making. Their only goal here was to stir up some controversy.

The story revolves around Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley); a young loner with a sordid past who hitchhikes to Las Vegas with big dreams of becoming a stripper.

Excuse me while I correct myself. Nomi isn’t a stripper.

“I’m a dancer,” she vehemently tells her boss (Robert Davi) early on in the film.

The movie traces her rise as a stripper doing nude lap dances in a sleazy nightclub known as the Stardust who graduates to the flashy, high class dance theater in downtown Vegas called the Chateau.

There is not a single line of dialogue said in the film that can be taken seriously. In fact, a majority of what is seen on screen can be played for laughs. The most pathetic character is Alan Rachins as the Chateau manager who is a combination of Anthony Perkins’ psychotic looks from his days playing Norman Bates in the Psycho movies with the voice of Saturday Night Live’s Phil Hartman.

In one scene, Rachins puts some ice on Nomi’s breasts in order to make them firm. After a few seconds, he lets out an exhaustive almost sexually fulfilling sigh and says, “I’m erect. Why aren’t you?” It sounds like something Perkins’ demented street preacher character from director Ken Russell’s "Crimes of Passion" (1984) would say.

Other inane sequences offer a phony dose of sentimentality. When Nomi tells her co-workers she is quitting the Stardust, a heavy-set dancer; whose entertainment gift to the male audience is when she raises her arms, her brassiere drops with a honking sound revealing her large breasts, tells Nomi, “You're the only one who can get my tits poppin' right!”

Believe it or not, there are a couple decent performances that deserve better had Eszterhas turned in a note-worthy script. Glenn Plummer does a credible turn as an exotic dancer who is addicted to sex. Unfortunately, Gina Ravera as Nomi’s friend and confidante is wasted. Ravera’s part is only set up for the brutal and unnecessary rape scene near the film’s climax that seems to have been written in for shock value.

The best scene in the entire movie is a clever dance audition in which a lot of the half clothed female dancers attempt to prove they are talented. The sequence bears some resemblance to Broadway’s A Chorus Line but the scene is wrecked once the characters speak.

Gina Gershon, however, as the star dancer of the Chateau looks as though she is having fun with her role. Throughout the film, Gershon plays sort of a competitive cat-and-mouse love game with Nomi using the same flirtatious attractions Sharon Stone used on Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct.

Now there is where the movie could have worked had Berkley’s Nomi been someone the audience could have gotten to know and care about. The problem is her character, armed with a switchblade, three layers of make-up, and a no-nonsense attitude, is so standoffish towards the other people in the film I couldn’t decide if I should be for or against her.

Berkley, whose only other acting stint was as the valedictorian on NBC’s "Saved by the Bell" (1989-1993), plays her role here in such an awkward uneven manner that the only thing Nomi is really good at is painting her fingernails.

"Showgirls" may be the year’s worst publicity stunt, but the film is unique in the fact it’s not the critics who have the last word. It is the director himself.

When asked to comment by the Associated Press on Berkley’s dismal performance, the damning reviews, and the film’s box office take of $21 million, Verhoeven said, “I simply made a bad movie.”

Well, for that I have to give Verhoeven credit. At least he is being honest.

©9/22/95

Appreciation: Howard McGinnis

A couple friends of mine and I had an idea for a half-hour sitcom. The comedy would take place at a retail outlet and the characters would be less than a handful of employees and customers.

Unfortunately, we never got any farther than deciding who the characters would be.

If we could not agree on anything else, the idea of having a few customers as characters in the show came from “Cheers” (1982-1993). In that show, audiences came to know and love Norm Peterson, Cliff Clavin, and Frazier Crane.

At the Blockbuster Video I have been working at for almost four years now, one person reminded me of Norm Peterson only in the sense he frequented the place the most. His name was Howard McGinnis.

In “Cheers”, audiences knew Norm Peterson as the lazy do nothing lug who would rather be nursing a beer than be at home with his wife, Vera.

Howard was just the opposite. He was married 33 years, had two daughters and a son who ran an automotive shop in Mesquite and had his own personal business on the side.

Norm’s routine for eleven seasons was he would walk in the bar and everyone would say, “Norm!!!” Woody (Woody Harrelson) or someone would ask him what is up, and Norm would respond, “My ideal height if I were ten feet tall.”

Whenever Howard or “Big H” as one coworker called him, came in the usual response was the same. You would ask him what is up, and he would say, “Nothing until you’ve rented me something (a movie) I haven’t seen yet.”

The response was justified. Howard had accumulated close to 3,000 movie rentals since he became a member in 1991.

I assist at least twenty-five customers a day at Blockbuster Video. The regular ones I do see come in once every two or three weeks or so. I always knew, however, when Howard would make an appearance.

He would come in at least three times a week, mostly Tuesdays and Wednesdays because they were new release days. Howard would go directly to the new releases, put on his reading glasses, and look over the dozen films which had just come out on video that week.

Before his visit was over, Howard would leave with at least half. Hardly was there ever a time where he would walk out with nothing; something management hates seeing with any customer.

Howard was more than just a good customer. He would spend about twenty or thirty minutes in the store. He would not be just browsing around. Howard would chat with a couple of employees and managers.

I remember talking to him about my ‘82 Oldsmobile that had seen its better days. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I knew Howard was always the first to help.

When my car’s automatic window on the passenger side would not close, Howard took out a business card to his son’s automotive shop and said, “Tell my son that Howard sent you and you’ll be taken care of.”

The trip saved me the $250 the dealer was going to charge to dismantle the door and replace the part.

It is and was people like Howard and a couple of other customers I have come to know well who have made my job not as tedious as it often can be.

I still see those familiar faces today except Howard. He died Aug. 25 after a brief but courageous battle with cancer.

The job is still routine but life at the video store is not the same.

Then again, if I know Howard chances are he is doing exactly what the priest at the funeral said he would do.

“When Howard walks into those pearly gates, he is going to ask St. Peter, ‘Where is the nearest Blockbuster?’”

Chances are Howard is in a much better place doing just that. This time, he is watching movies free of charge.

©9/13/95

Gone Too Soon: Craig Karlen (1970-1995)

Looking at the obits of former students listed in an alumni publication my alma mater distributes every few months who have passed away over the years, I’ve always seen my 1988 graduating class at Bishop Lynch High School as the healthiest. Or perhaps the luckiest since no one from my four years (84-88) there made the list.

Though I knew without mention that, sooner or later, I’d see some former classmate from 1988 on that list. I hoped the grim news, however, would not come until decades down the road and not within the first ten years since graduation.

That changed on June 28, 1995, when Craig Karlen, a former BL Class of ’88 graduate, passed away in a freak accident while vacationing with his family in Cancun, Mexico.

During his senior year, Craig was a member of the Juggling and Astronomy Clubs and worked a part-time job at Wendy’s restaurant.

“The money is the best incentive,” Craig was quoted saying about his job in the 1987-88 high school yearbook.

Upon graduating, Craig attended Richland College prior to enrolling at the University of Texas in Dallas. He served in the Naval Reserves for six years and had siblings. His favorite football team was the Dallas Cowboys.

At the funeral, such memorabilia as a ticket stub from an Orange Bowl football game and a golf club used to score a hole-in-one were mentioned at the mass. Craig attended the football game in January this year to see his favorite college team, the University of Miami, play against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. Despite the fact Miami lost, Craig was happy he went anyway.

Craig scored the hole-in-one in May this year. Several attempts were made to have the event published in the suburban paper. Sadly, it was finally published on the day of the funeral.

One might get the impression Craig, and I were friends. Truth of the matter is I hardly knew him at all. I learned more about him going through my senior high school yearbook and at the funeral than I did while in high school. Upon hearing the untimely tragic news of his death, however, I did feel a sense of loss. I had a couple of classes with him, but only once in those four years did we speak.

It was on a Monday junior year, a couple days after Craig and another friend of mine, Tom Kelley, were pulled over by a motorcycle cop on Gross Road for speeding Friday after school. Actually, from my standpoint and probably the officer’s as well, I’d term what they did as racing.

Looking at my rearview mirror as I passed them by in my rusted out ‘76 Ford Pinto, I saw a look of horror on Craig’s face. He realized this would be his second speeding ticket that year.

I died laughing as I drove by, but I was not laughing at Craig’s expense. I was laughing because Tom, who always boasted about how fast his Chevrolet Monza went, got caught. Of course, Tom had the last laugh senior year when the same police officer ticketed me for going fifty-seven in a thirty mile-an-hour zone.

Craig did not get upset at me for laughing at his misfortune. In fact, he even joked about it and took the matter in stride, which is exactly what I remember most about him. Whenever I saw him, he was always smiling. Nothing ever bothered him

“Looks like Tom and I will be taking defensive driving classes together,” he told me shortly before Theology class.

©8/16/95

My Personal Best Films: And the Band Played On (1993)

And the Band Played On ««««

 PG-13, 141m. 1993

Cast & Credits: Matthew Modine (Dr. Don Francis), Saul Rubinek (Dr. Jim Curran), Lily Tomlin (Dr. Selma Dritz), Glenne Headley (Dr. Mary Guinan), Charles Martin Smith (Dr. Harold Jaffe), Alan Alda (Dr. Bob Gallo). Teleplay by Arnold Schlman based on the book by Randy Shilts. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode.

The young man, his face covered with lesions brought on by Kaposi’s Sarcoma, plays with a Rubik’s Cube as he discusses his sexual lifestyle with two baffled scientists from the Centers for Disease Control.

The doctors can come up with no reasonable explanation why this once vibrant man in his early 20s is now suddenly dying. As he toys with his Rubik’s Cube, the patient asks, “Why do they make things like this nobody can solve?”

The scene is one of a few tragic ironies in the film, “And the Band Played On”, offers in reference to the early years of the AIDS virus. The HBO made-for-cable movie is based on the 1987 bestseller by San Francisco Chronicle reporter Randy Shilts who died of AIDS in February 1993.

Shilts’ book was an engrossing and epic chronicle of how the disease began and how it eventually spun out of control. Detailed stories were covered on hundreds of people from then President Ronald Reagan’s administration and government agencies to the straight press, who at first wouldn’t take the risk of running many stories about AIDS until the virus struck one of Hollywood’s own, Rock Hudson, in 1984. The book was also filled with personal and often sad accounts of people coming down with the disease and how their dilemma affected others.

“And the Band Played On” does not just center on the ignorant, stubborn bureaucracy Dr. Don Francis (Matthew Modine) and gay activist Bill Kraus (Ian McKellen) encounter in their attempts to warn city officials and the public in San Francisco about the virus. Like the book, the film is told through the eyes of numerous people from CDC officials and doctors to victims of the disease.

The movie falls into the same category as other controversial movies like “JFK” (1991) and “Philadelphia” (1993) that portrayed their main character’s oppositions as the villains. In “JFK”, director Oliver Stone wanted audiences to think the government, among others, carried out the Kennedy assassination. By comparison, audiences loathed the executives of a prestigious law firm for firing Tom Hanks’ successful AIDS stricken lawyer in “Philadelphia.”

Like those two movies, “And the Band Played On” displays a sordid cast of villains as the sole causes of AIDS from hospital administrators who refuse to scan blood donors who may have HIV to Dr. Bob Gallo (Alan Alda); an egomaniacal retrovirologist who wrongfully takes credit for the supposed host French scientists discover that causes the virus.

CDC officials are depicted as nothing more than “company men” who won’t write proposals asking for more funding because the government says AIDS is only a gay disease. In an early scene, Dr. Jim Curran (Saul Rubinek) crosses out the word homosexual in a report before submitting it to the Reagan Administration.

“We’ve got a new administration coming in. Do you want to see this published, or do you want to see it killed,” Curran tells a fellow doctor.

As the number of people infected with the disease rises, President Reagan delivers speeches on inflation, unemployment, and defense without once mentioning the deadly epidemic until the end of his first term.

The movie features numerous cameos from Steve Martin, Anjelica Huston, Swoosie Kurtz and Genesis singer Phil Collins. The most outstanding cameo performance is from Richard Gere as a gay choreographer; loosely based on A Chorus Line’s late theatrical creator Michael Bennett, who tries to put up a brave front about his illness.

I have heard “Philadelphia” was the first mainstream Hollywood film about AIDS. What made that film controversial was the fact many people in today’s job market are fired either because they have AIDS; they are of some ethnic origin; or are too obese or too sick to do the job. “Philadelphia”, however, was the story about one person afflicted with the disease.

“And the Band Played On” goes a step further. The movie proves it doesn’t matter who or you are. Whether you are an adolescent, black, white, gay, straight, movie star, athlete or a musician, AIDS doesn’t affect just one group of people or one person. It affects everybody.

©3/24/94

My Personal Best Films: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Glengarry Glen Ross ««««

R, 100m. 1992

Cast & Credits: Al Pacino (Ricky Roma), Jack Lemmon (Shelly Levine), Ed Harris (Dave Moss), Alan Arkin (George Arronow), Kevin Spacey (John Williamson), Jonathan Pryce (James Lingk), Alec Baldwin (Blake). Screenplay by David Mamet. Directed by James Foley.

The key to being a successful real estate agent in “Glengarry Glen Ross” depends on “The Leads” the boss hands out daily to his sales agents. “The Leads” the characters often refer to throughout the film are lists of potential clients who may be interested in purchasing some land. Not everyone, we find out, is a legitimate buyer. Some of them just “like talking to salesmen.”

Working in real estate is much like playing a round of poker or blackjack. You handle the cards you have been dealt. If you cannot coerce someone to buy some cheap land by day’s end, you may as well grab your belongings, clear out your desk and never show your face around the workplace again.

The sales contests held in “Glengarry Glen Ross” are no more different from the monotonous and sometimes upsetting world of retail and suggestive selling.

When I started years ago in what used to be the fun, exciting world of video rentals and sales, the company held contests to see which store could sell the most copies of a certain title.

The store’s employees were given almost the same pep talk the chief corporate executive (Alec Baldwin) of Premiere Realtors gives to his staff in the film.

Baldwin’s scene stealing performance as the threatening corporate big wig comes off sounding like a drill sergeant addressing his new recruits on the first day of boot camp.

The difference with us is the talk was not as brutal and degrading. The message from the store manager was plain and simple. “If you do not suggestively sell something, you will be written up. Do it again and you’re fired.”

For the salesmen of Premiere Realtors, management’s saying is “Always be closing.”

“If you want to work here, close,” Baldwin warns.

What makes “Glengarry Glen Ross” so engrossing to watch is the characters exhibit the same traits either I, or others, may have encountered while working for a major retailer. The salesmen suffer a wide range of job-related ailments from excessive burnout and doubts about the industry to becoming greedy and just plain desperate.

Every character has a weak spot. Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) is a fast-talking, foul-mouthed, businessman who conducts most of his deals in a Chinese restaurant across the street from where he and his fellow sales agents work. Roma is good at getting people he just met, like the timid, soft-spoken Jonathan Pryce, drunk enough to write out a $6,000 check for an impressive piece of resort land in Florida.

Roma likes to hear how his co-workers closed a major deal and dispels negative feelings they have about themselves but isn’t a company man. Roma does only what he has to do to eat and pay the bills; even though he is the first in line to win the new Cadillac in the company sales contest.

Roma’s success are what make old-timers like Dave Moss (Ed Harris) mad enough to turn traitor and work for a rival realtor. Moss will not quit, however, until he has filled his co-workers like weak-minded George (Alan Arkin) with thoughts of criminal activity.

Finally, there is Shelly Levine (Jack Lemmon in an Oscar nominated performance), a pathetic excuse of a realtor whose middle age and paunch suggest this guy should have gotten out of the real estate business a long time ago.

“Glengarry Glen Ross” first appeared as a play in England in 1983 and made its debut in the United States the following year. I never saw the play, but I’ve read the script, which is almost identical to the film. The movie version works as an exploration into all these individual’s personalities, especially Lemmon’s and Pacino’s characters.

Both Roma and Levine are portrayed almost as equals. They are eager to get their clients interested in buying land. Both must contend with their callous, by-the-book, by-the-numbers boss (Kevin Spacey), who it seems has never gone out to sell a piece of real estate a day in his life.

Levine reminisces about the old days and makes most of his calls on a pay phone, barking orders in mid-conversation to his imaginary secretary like a rich successful businessman. I had no doubt his sales pitches worked on perspective clients years ago when he first started out. Those tactics, however, don’t work in today’s real estate business of the 1990s. Levine is a member of the old school.

The script, written by writer and film director David Mamet, is an intelligent and thought-provoking screenplay. Although most of the action takes place in a sales office, the crisp, inventive dialogue the characters spoke made me imagine certain situations they had been in before.

Watching “Glengarry Glen Ross” is like being glued to a good book in which the clever writing allows one to visualize the action unfolding.

That’s what this movie is.

©10/3/92