By Peter David, James Fry, Gordon Purcell, Arne Starr & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-571-5
The stellar Star Trek brand is one of probably the biggest franchise engines on Earth, permeating every merchandisable sector imaginable. You can find daily live-action and animated screen appearances constantly screening somewhere on the planet, toys, games, conventions, merchandise, various comics iterations generated in a host of nations and languages and a reboot of the movie division proceeding apace even as I type this. There’s even a new rebooted TV series beginning in 2017…
Many companies have published comicbook adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s immortal brainchild. Currently IDW have the treasured funnybook license and are combining great new tales with a choice selection of older examples from other publishers.
A particularly fine extended exploit can be found in this epic sequence taken from a splendid run produced under the DC badge during the 1980s and early 1990s. Never flashy or sensational, those tales assiduously and scrupulously referenced the TV and movie canon whilst embracing the same storytelling values and concentrating on stories simultaneously character-led and plot-driven.
Here Federation history blends seamlessly with suspenseful drama and spectacular action, subtle character interplay, boisterous humour and good old fashioned thrills as scripter Peter David and his artistic allies concoct a tense, politically-tinged saga first seen in issues #7-12 of DC’s monthly Star Trek comicbook (spanning April to September 1990).
Previously: a number of hostile alien races – the Klingons – just prior to their grand rapprochement with the Federation – and a now-uncomfortably un-PC fundamentalist species called Nasguls (based on then-contemporary bugbear Iran under the Ayatollahs) have recently fallen foul of James T. Kirk’s unconventional problem-solving methods.
Having had enough of the human’s impious interference, the holy Salla of the Nasguls placed a planet-sized bounty on the Enterprise’s Captain.
Kirk doesn’t care: he has bigger problems. Finally fed up with his interstellar shenanigans, Starfleet has appointed civilian protocol officer R. J. Blaise to the Enterprise to make sure Kirk behaves properly, but somehow this beautiful woman is completely immune to our hero’s amatory charms…
The astral action opens on Earth where Starfleet Vice-Admiral Tomlinson and the Federation President are enduring a fractious and tiresome meeting with the Klingon ambassador and the august Salla himself.
The tyrannical aliens have temporarily suspended their disdain for each other and are now (relatively) united in pursuing quasi-legal avenues; seeking to have Kirk cashiered from the service, tried in a Federation court and then – naturally – executed…
Events take a most unwelcome turn in ‘Not… Sweeney!’ (by David, James W. Fry & Arne Starr) as news comes that the most dreaded bounty hunter in the universe has decided to collect the price on Kirk’s head.
Caring little for the death-sentence dogging him, the starship captain is utterly incensed when it adversely affects his job. Despatched to Tau Gamma II to rescue a human colony before the geologically unstable planet shakes itself to bits, Kirk is flabbergasted to find the survivors demanding another ship or to be left to the world’s erratic mercies, rather than endure certain doom when Sweeney comes for the Enterprise’s captain…
Their anxiety proves well-founded when hours later the infallible stalker arrives with a fleet of ships and attacks…
After a tremendous struggle in ‘Going, Going…’, Kirk – with Spock and Blaise as collateral captives – is confined aboard the disturbingly effete bounty hunter’s flagship and made the star of an impromptu auction.
Kirk has made many enemies in his career and a ferocious bidding war begins, but Sweeney’s attentions are soon diverted by Spock. The scrupulously polite and terrifyingly brilliant manhunter has never met a captive like the Vulcan, and his distracting new fascination eventually leads to Sweeney’s first defeat as Kirk and Blaise break out of the Brig just as competing Klingon and Nasgul forces warp in to claim the prize lot in Sweeney’s auction…
Things come to a head when the situation deteriorates into a petulant shooting war in ‘…Gone!’, leaving Kirk to pull off yet another hairsbreadth escape and even save the colonists on Tau Gamma II…
However, no longer willing to tolerate the political machinations, he then forces the issue to a head by surrendering himself to Federation authorities on Earth and demanding his day in court to clear his name once and for all…
Given the chance for a show trial, the Salla and his Klingons antagonists revel in the chance to destroy the greatest hindrance to their plans as ‘The Trial of James T. Kirk’ opens with ‘The First Thing We Do…’
This story-within-a-story is stuffed with hilarious cameos and vignettes from many old TV episodes (but in an easily accessible manner for newcomers unfamiliar with lore) and sees Kirk’s attorneys Samuel T. Cogsley and Areel Shaw (look them up if you need to) deftly manoeuvre to remove most of the charges whilst rolling out many fan-favourites from old episodes to act as “character witnessesâ€â€¦
Despite making some telling points, an Enterprise crewman turning to the Dark Side and the frank sworn testimony of R. J. Blaise, the is case is clearly going against the Klingons and Nasgul. Thus they individually and clandestinely resort to their respective “Plan Bs†in ‘…Lets Kill All the Lawyers!’
The bellicose warrior race fly in their Emperor to give personal testimony and demand Kirk’s destruction whilst the fundamentalist tyrant of the Nasgul opts for a far more hands-on and devastatingly final solution…
Pencilled by Gordon Purcell, the saga explosively concludes in ‘Trial and Error!’ as deft work by Spock and the Bridge Crew uncover a plot to eradicate the courtroom and everyone in it, leading to a cessation of hostilities between the Federation and the Klingons and Kirk’s full exoneration.
Sadly, those efforts completely failed to expose the treacherous mole high in Star Fleet Command who was crucial to instigating the entire affair…
This tale is pure classic Trek. The fans loved it then and you will now. It’s also a very good example of how to do a licensed property in comic form, and readers and wannabe creators should buy and take note. Balancing the action and drama are captivating moments of interpersonal byplay filling out the roles of beloved characters such as Uhura and Sulu and – as you’d expect from Peter David – the story is packed with outrageously hilarious quotable moments…
These yarns are magical romps of fun and thrills that fully embrace and enhance the canonical Star Trek for the dedicated fan, provide memorable comicbook adventure for followers of our art-form and, most importantly, provide an important bridge between the insular world of fans and the wider mainstream. Stories like these about such famous characters can only bring more people into comics and isn’t that what we all want?
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