With the first two issues of this crossover serving mostly as exposition, Issue #3 promised to dive head-first into the epic teaming up of the Eleventh Doctor with the crew of the Enterprise D. And that...sort of happened. The issue picks up right where it left off: with the Doctor, Picard, and the rest of the gang smack dab in the middle of a Borg/Cyberman fleet. Following a brief resistance-is-futile-esque “greeting” from a CyberBorg (Borgman?), the Enterprise heads into a handy nebula to regroup and figure things out. But instead of focusing on the TNG crew’s collaboration with the Doctor and his companions we instead flashback about a hundred years. While it could be mildly annoying that the first three issues haven’t featured much of the actual selling point of this comic (Picard! The Doctor! Date! Amy Pond!), the writers give us a pretty acceptable substitute: Captain Kirk meets Tom Baker. Tom Baker offers Spock Jelly Babies. It’s all pretty cool. And things finish up with the realization that there’s more going on here than just a cybernetic team-up, which leads to a visit to Ten-Forward that will (hopefully) lead to some answers as to what’s really going on here. Art-wise, I had finally warmed up to the Alex Ross-style artwork and then they go and change things up during the TOS/Baker team-up scene. It’s a bit jarring, but not enough to really detract from the quality of the book. Assimilation 2, if nothing else, is a pretty cool comic book. It hits all the right beats to give the (i)fanboys what they want. And the story seems to have some serious promise. It would be nice if we finally got a full book of Picard/Doctor/etc. teamwork, but certainly the substitutes for that have been enjoyable enough. This may not be a great comic book (yet), but it sure is fun.