I wonder if this book will be titled Doctor Who and Star Trek The Next Generation in the U.K.? A little Godzilla vs. King Kong action I’m thinking? Anyways that has nothing to do with this book that took an entire issue to set up the meeting of our characters only to not have them meet. I appreciated the fact that they didn’t just mush them together and play that tired ass angle of “no you’re the bad guy” that basically every Marvel/DC crossover has done. The problem is, we could still run into that for the next issue. The story begins with the Borg pulling a sneak attack on Delta IV. The problem is, the Borg don’t do sneak attacks! In fact that’s what makes them so awesome is because they show up and announce themselves and then every shits their pants. This time they’re rolling with some android baddies from Doctor Who’s universe and so they’re going sneaky. But again, that ruins the fear that’s associated with the Borg. After the Borg and forgive me whatever villain from Doctor Who decimate Delta IV we move on to The Doctor and company in Egypt. It’s a fast little jaunt with our bowtie Doctor and the married couple that he has tagging along as they save the Pharaoh. I don’t know if I’m reading into this too much, but I’m pretty sure the Doctor wants to bang the red-head and I don’t think she’d mind. The simple fact is that the Doc referred to her husband more than she did which came across as a reminder to both parties.

Spoiler Alert: Everything ends on the holodeck in one of Picard’s mystery date programs.

Ah, three people wrote this book and I’m sure that CBS and the BBC had a lot of input that bogged down doing anything really exciting, but it was just too many hands in the cookie jar. That is in fact why I hate crossovers; no one wants their property to look bad or play second fiddle to the other properties. Even still, the book was tolerable. I know jack all about Doctor Who since I’ve only begun watching the new episodes here and there, but I know Next Generation really well. Guess what’s not in this book? Next Generation. Also I’m aware of the basic character mannerisms of the Doctor, but he was pretty damn annoying in this and seriously he wants to bang the red-head.

The art was magnificent and I would probably read the book again ignoring all of the captions and just look at the pictures. The entire book is painted and the likenesses are spot on. Spoiler Alert: You’ll shit your pants when you see Data and Ryker at the end, they look dead on to their TV counterparts. I did have one panel that I had to call out. There is a scene with the Doctor grabbing a pole from a market place stand while galloping on a chariot at full speed… He would have broken his damn hand trying to grab this massive pole, but he snags it and throws it like it’s nothing. I’m sorry, but it was ridiculous and both story and art have to share the blame.

This was better than I expected, but I still had to wonder how matching up old Star Trek (obviously not the oldest) and new Doctor Who is really going to work. Additionally if the second issue takes the usual stance of “you’re the bad guy, no you’re the bad guy” I will call it good instantly with this series. Hopefully The Next Generation crew gets some shine in the next issue, but this first issue wasn’t a disappointment in the least.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Scott & David Tipton with Tony Lee

Artist: J.K. Woodward

Editor: Denton J. Tipton (Hmm, I wonder why there are so many Tipton’s on this book?)

Publisher: IDW Publishing

Price: $3.99

Release Date: 5/30/12