I can still remember my first Star Trek comic. It was a strange tale of the Enterprise saving an alien planet from a deadly interstellar cloud, only to find out it was an act of prophecy, as evidenced by statues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy dating back thousands of years. So, that was my introduction to a predestination paradox, a reoccurring theme in science fiction, including Star Trek.
Marvel Comics would produce an eight-teen issue run of these comics, from 1979 to 1981. Along the way, I would purchase an issue here and there, soaking up the adventures of the Enterprise and her crew, from the Motion Picture era. One of those issues would be my inspiration for naming ships in video games, when that option was available, albeit misspelled on purpose, to make it my own.
DC Comics would be the next series of comics to hit the shelves and a few of these would land in my hands. Starting from the Wrath of Khan era, this series would run from 1984 to 1988, producing fifty six issues, three annuals and three movie adaptations.
While I had a few, the first annual was the one I read the most, over and over. It would tell the tale of how Captain Christopher Pike would turn over command to the newly Captained James T. Kirk and accompany them on their first, fateful mission. Too bad it wasn't considered cannon, the story was very well written and could have easily been an episode or movie.
Since there was a new Star Trek show on television, The Next Generation, of course there would be a comic tie-in. I picked up a few issues of these as well, to be paper companions to the new show I just happened to be watching. Launched as a six part mini-series from 1988 and ending another eighty issues, six annuals and three more four part mini-series in 1996.
Coinciding with the release of Star Trek V The Final Frontier in theaters, DC Comics carried on with a second volume of stories involving the Original Series crew, now set in this era. From 1989 to 1996 with eighty issues, six annuals, two Who's Who issues, two Graphic Novels and three Specials.
My waning interest with Star Trek comics came to a conclusion with Marvel getting back the license to produce them through one of the new titles, Early Voyages. I bought the first and the second issues and walked away. It wasn't because the were badly written or required serious interpretive skills to decipher the images drawn, as happened with some previous incarnations of the graphical franchise, I felt I had outgrown them.
Early Voyages was of the same tone as the first DC Comics Star Trek annual that I over-read in my youth. This series ran for seventeen issues, from 1997 to 1998. However, real life events were going on and finding time to stay on top of the continuing storyline just wasn't there. Plus, comic books were not nearly as portable as similar stories in a much different format....
DC comics did a run of Trek as well during the 80's. I can't remember off the top of my head which company did my favorite story. It was a "Mouse that Roared" type story where the Enterprise was attacked by two different alien races, who were at war with each other, in the same day. Both alien ships were clearly inferior to the Enterprise with no chance of defeating it. So Kirk surrendered to each of them to find out what was going on. It was a very funny story, equal to The Trouble with Tribbles for humor.
ReplyDeleteI recall that, however, I only read the first part. At the end of that issue, the second race had just arrived, after the first race was given a tour of the ship and I never picked up the second, continuing part of the story line.
ReplyDeleteThe second race was given the same tour of the Enterprise as the first (favorite part of that montage, "Don't drop that, it's antimatter" "Eek" "Clang"). Kirk works out that both races had hyped up how dangerous they were to scare off any potential attackers. Having then run into this other "dangerous" race, both started fighting to defend themselves. Their reputations had made it so no one else wanted to deal with them, so they had no outside trade. Kirk straightened the whole thing out, of course, and got them to realize where they went wrong. Of course after that he had the really hard job. Explaining to Star Fleet why he had surrendered his ship. Twice. On the same day. To obviously inferior opponents.
DeleteWell, you have piqued my interest with this. Perhaps, I will hunt down an e-copy of this story arc, since paper copies might be much harder to find.
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