When I began drawing the original cast movies, I intended to stop after The Undiscovered Country, because the next movie, Generations, is really all about the Next Generation crew. But a reader suggested that it would make a fitting finale for Planet of Hats if I did it from Kirk's point of view. It tells the end of Kirk's story, and nothing more, and that sounded good to me, so here it is.

It's a bittersweet movie, as the endings of many extended stories are. There are some nice things in it, but also some annoying quibbles. The next film, First Contact, where the new crew really gets to shine, is a far better film.

One thing which might have been overlooked by many people, but which bothers me about this film, is the choice of giving Kirk yet another new woman-of-the-week when he retired to his version of paradise in the Nexus. This woud have been the perfect opportunity to show us that his True Love was Edith Keeler. They could even have got Joan Collins to play her again! How perfect would that have been? Even if she was unavailable, just changing the name "Antonia" to "Edith" and the line where Kirk explains to Picard how he met her, and leaving nearly everything else in the film exactly the same would have worked fine, because we only ever get a vague far-off shot of Antonia which is too indistinct to recognise any facial features anyway.

And if not Edith Keeler, how about any of the other women Kirk professed to be truly in love with over the years? Miramanee, who he actually married and almost had a child with? Deela, who he... ahem... provides the gift of his genetic material to so she can repopulate her race? Carol Marcus, the mother of his son? Rayna, who even though an android (or gynoid, if you prefer), Kirk couldn't forget about until Spock adjusted his memory? Elaan, who had magical tears that made Kirk fall irreversibly in love with her? Ruth - who unfortunately didn't make it into my comic version of the episode - the woman who was literally conjured from Kirk's mind as the one he most wanted to see while on the Shore Leave planet?? Or even Gillian, who got unceremoniously dumped in the 23rd century after Kirk brought her back from the 20th century? I only wish I could have fit all these names into the comic panel.

Anyway, we got stuck with Antonia - a woman we know absolutely nothing about. I guess it says something about Kirk and his relationships with women. It might have been nicer in one sense if Edith Keeler was his true love and every woman afterwards was his attempt to move on, but none of them ever lived up to Edith. Or maybe it's better this way. Who knows?

This is indeed the end of Planet of Hats, for now at least. In an ideal world I'd have the time and the energy to continue into The Next Generation and beyond. However, after nearly three years of drawing all of the original cast stories, I am keen to recover some of my time to start work on some new projects. I have two new comic projects which I have begun working on, but which are not yet ready to be announced. Both are very different from anything I've done before and I'm very excited about them. When they're ready to go live in the next few months, rest assured there will be announcements.

I had the idea for Planet of Hats a bit over three years ago, but I might never have worked up the courage to start drawing it if not for the encouragement of Shaenon Garrity (Narbonic, Skin Horse, Monster of the Week) - so a big thank you to Shaenon. Although I've been making webcomics for nearly 15 years now, this was the first one where I drew all of the artwork. The goal was to improve my drawing skills, and looking back on the early strips, I feel comfortable in saying that I believe I have made some significant improvement. There is still a lot further I can go with my drawing (like convincingly showing the same characters at an older age, for one), but for this initial goal ... mission accomplished!

Maybe with another 15 years of practice, I might get as good as some of those webcomic artists who started drawing 15 years ago. I hope we can find out together. Thanks for reading, and for your support.

... And the adventure continues...

Transcript

1a
{Bottle of Dom Perignon vintage 2265 champagne flying through space}
1b
{it crashes on the hull of USS Enterprise NCC 1701-B}
SFX: crash!
2
{bridge of Enterprise-B}
Journalist: Captain Kirk, how do you feel about a new Enterprise, with a new captain for the first time in 30 years?
Kirk: I feel... fine.
3
Chekov: This is Ensign Demora Sulu.
Kirk: Your father is Hikaru Sulu? Well, glad to see one of us had a family.
4
Captain Harriman: Captain Kirk, I'd be honoured if you gave the order.
Kirk: Allons-y!
Scotty: Where's Dr McCoy?
Chekov: He said something about a plague...
5
Communications Officer: Distress call! El-Aurian refugee ship! We're the only ship in range!
Captain Harriman: What are the odds?
Kirk: You have a lot to learn about captaining the Enterprise.
6
Kirk: You're the captain! I'll go re-resonate the deflector dish to disrupt that energy ribbon!
Kirk: Or reverse the polarity! Or something!
7
{Kirk chopping logs in a wilderness setting}
Picard: James Kirk! I'm Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise in the 24th century.
Kirk: Really? How many alien space babes have you seduced?
8
{Kirk and PIcard riding horses}
Kirk: What happened? I was rigging the Enterprise-B deflector...
Picard: History records you died in that incident. But this is a temporal nexus.
Kirk: Don't technobabble me, sonny!
9
{a kitchen}
Kirk: I'm happy here with Edith... er Deela... um Miramanee... no, Carol... I mean, Antonia!
Picard: Who is Antonia?
Kirk: {shrug} Beats me.
10
Picard: This isn't reality. Come back with me to stop a madman destroying a star and millions of lives!
Kirk: What are the odds?
Picard: Astronomical.
Kirk: Yeah, okay. You need me!
11
{the planet Veridian III}
Caption: One last fist fight!
Caption: Soran, the bad guy.
{Kirk punches Soran}
SFX: Punch!
12
Kirk: {half buried under rocks} Did we do it? Did we make a difference?
Picard: Yes. Thank you.
Kirk: It was... fun... oh... my... {dies}