Star Trek: Lower Decks vol. 2 — Mixed Signals

When Mariner drags Boimler through another wild time in the lower decks, it’s down to Captain Freeman to bust her chops for it.  Yet was Carol really any different from her daughter when she was her age, and why does this cause her to think of an encounter with Romulans involving former U.S.S. Enterprise-D medical officer Dr. Pulaski?  None of that involves money, though, as the Federation has moved beyond base capitalistic concerns.  Do you know who hasn’t?  The Ferengi and one of theirs has come to collect on a debt owed to them by Tendi.  Then it’s time for some time travel as the crew of the Cerritos gets hijacked into solving a hundred-year-old problem James Kirk created when he and his crew brought whales back to his “present” day.

“Mixed Signals” is the first “Lower Decks” comic not to be written by Ryan North, who did pretty great work on everything up to this point.  Tim Sheridan is the new writer, and he comes off here as a really good successor.  He may not have North’s nerdy science brain, but he’s clearly nerdy about “Star Trek” and the cast he’s inherited.  That’s not a problem as Carol and Tendi’s stories fit the established (wacky) tone for this series while also filling in interesting bits of their backstories.  The final story in this collection may be a bit too specific for some as it zeroes in on a geeky bit of continuity from “The Voyage Home” which is neat even as it offers more censored whale dong than you’re likely to see in any comic this year – or even the rest of your life.

Vol. 2 does have four different artists tackling this volume and that’s less of a problem than you’d think.  While there are some mild stylistic differences, Robby Cook, Vernon Smith, Philip Murphy and Jack Lawrence, all understand the series remit of Making it Look Like the Animated Series It’s Based On.  That’s a plus, but the real find here is Sheridan who gets me to think that more “Lower Decks” in comic form will be a good thing.  Which bodes well for his next volume, as it promises the longest serialized story in this title to date.