Star Trek: The Next Generation #1

History

Editor Robert Greenberger noted in the issue's afterword that Paramount had approached DC Comics to produce the miniseries sometime in early 1987, meaning writer Mike Carlin was scripting from the show's series bible — helpfully provided by writer David Gerrold — before 'Encounter at Farpoint' had even finished production; Greenberger later acknowledged in the letters page of issue #2 that as he was writing, the television series had not yet debuted anywhere in America. Because the creative team lacked access to finished episodes, Carlin worked from pre-production materials and was even allowed to tour the studio while sets were still under construction, which accounts for some visual discrepancies between the comic's depiction of the ship's interiors and what eventually appeared on screen. Bill Sienkiewicz provided the painted cover art for this first issue (subsequent issues used interior art by penciller Pablo Marcos for their covers), giving the debut an elevated visual profile unusual for a licensed tie-in of the era.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First comic book appearance of the entire main TNG cast: Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander William Riker, Lt. Commander Data, Lt. Commander Deanna Troi, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Lt. Geordi La Forge, Lt. Natasha Yar, Worf, and Wesley Crusher.
• Cover date: February 1988; published by DC Comics as issue #1 of a six-issue limited series running through July 1988.
• Story title: '...Where No One Has Gone Before!' — written by Mike Carlin, with interior pencils by Pablo Marcos and inks by Carlos Garzon and Arne Starr.
• Cover art by Bill Sienkiewicz; the issue exists in both a Direct Edition and a Newsstand Edition, both distributed to US and Canadian markets.
• The comic was scripted using the show's pre-production series bible before 'Encounter at Farpoint' aired; editor Robert Greenberger confirmed in the issue's afterword that Paramount approached DC 'sometime early' in 1987 to produce the series.
• The narrative is set at stardate 41187.5 during the first year of Picard's command of the USS Enterprise-D, directly following the events of 'Encounter at Farpoint.'
• The miniseries was collected in the 1995 trade paperback Star Trek: The Next Generation: Beginnings (with an introduction by technical advisor Michael Okuda), and again as volume 27 of the Eaglemoss Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection in January 2018.
• The commercial success of this six-issue miniseries led directly to DC launching a full ongoing monthly TNG title in October 1989, which ran for 80 issues through 1996.

Cast · 9 characters

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Variants (2)