By Peter David, James Fry, Gordon Purcell, Arne Starr & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-60010-571-5 (TPB) 978-1-62302-507-6 (Digital edition)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise probably hasn’t reached any new worlds (strange or otherwise) just yet, but it certainly has permeated every aspect of civilisation here on Earth. Even though Canadians saw it first on Sept 6th 1966,“The Man Trap” went out on September 8th in the USA, which is why today is STAR TREK DAY.
The brand is arguably the biggest franchise engine 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 assorted movie divisions proceeding apace even as I type this. There’s a wealth of new series – live action and animated, all-ages and strictly adult and even as I just hinted, competing blockbuster film franchises. Like the most hallowed of fiction (Dracula, Tarzan, Peter Pan, Sherlock Holmes) the show and its spinoffs have become part of shared human cultural heritage and like Shakespeare & Dickens (and The Simpsons!) the show has added concepts to and enlarged the vocabulary of the language. Happy 60th Birthday Star Trek. Live long and keep on prospering…
Many companies have published comic book adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s immortal brainchild. Currently, IDW have that treasured funnybook license and have combined splendid new tales with a choice selection of older examples from other publishers. A particularly fine extended exploit fills this epic sequence taken from the wonderful run of missions 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, by concentrating on stories simultaneously character-led and plot-driven – and never taking themselves too seriously.
Here Federation history blends seamlessly with suspenseful drama and spectacular action, subtle character interplay, boisterous humour and good old fashioned thrills as much-missed scripter Peter David and his artistic allies concocted a tense, politically-tinged saga first seen; between cover-dates April – September 1990, in issues #7-12 of DC’s monthly Star Trek comic book.
Peter Allen David (23rd September 1956-24th May 2025) wrote thousands of stories: continuity-changing runs on Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk (which he helmed for 12 years), Aquaman, Supergirl, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Scarlet Spider, The Phantom, Young Justice, Dreadstar, X-Factor and Wolverine, as well as notable runs on countless more. In an industry heavily reliant on adapting media properties, he was the go-to guy for dozens of tie-in titles including all Star Trek books at various companies; Babylon 5; manga import Negima; Halo: Helljumper; Tron and younger reader titles like Powerpuff Girls and The Little Mermaid. His screen credits include Babylon 5 and animated series including Ben 10, Young Justice and Space Cases which he co-created with Bill Mumy. In comics he created or co-created Spiderman 2099, Fallen Angel, Sachs and Violens, Soulsearchers and Co., SpyBoy, The Atlantis Chronicles and so much more.
A tireless scribe and popular culture maven, his nigh 100 prose books include original creations, genre and franchise spin-off novels for all Star Trek sub-franchises, Babylon 5, Alien Nation, Battlestar Galactica, Swamp Thing, Transformers, novelisations and adaptations, movie, biographies commentary and nonfiction. Outspoken, ferociously liberal, minority-advocating and never, never boring, he was a master of spit-take comedy moments and crushing emotional body blows in his work, and we are all poorer for his passing.
Previously on the Final Frontier: a number of hostile alien races – the Klingons just prior to a grand rapprochement with the Federation – and a now-uncomfortably un-PC fundamentalist species called Nasguls (based on then-contemporary bugbear Iran under the Ayatollahs) had recently fallen foul of James T. Kirk’s unconventional problem-solving methods. Having had enough of that human’s impious interference, the sacred Salla of the Nasguls had placed a planet-sized bounty on the Enterprise’s Captain.
Kirk didn’t care: he always has bigger problems, but finally fed up with his interstellar shenanigans and maverick solutions, Starfleet had appointed civilian protocol officer R. J. Blaise to the USS Enterprise to ensure Kirk behaves properly. Somehow this particular 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. Although 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, mere hours later, the infallible stalker arrives with a fleet of ships and instantly 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 the captive Vulcan. The scrupulously polite and terrifyingly brilliant manhunter has never met a prisoner like Spock, 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 Tau Gamma II colonists. However, no longer willing to tolerate the political machinations, Kirk 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 Klingon antagonists revel in the chance to destroy the greatest hindrance to their plans and ‘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 a host of fan-favourites from TV episodes to act as “character witnesses”…
Despite making some telling points, an Enterprise crewman turning to the Dark Side and the frank sworn testimony of R. J. Blaise, the 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 own 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 Federation and Klingons and Kirk’s full exoneration.
Sadly, those efforts completely fail to expose the treacherous mole high in Star Fleet Command who was crucial to instigating the entire affair…
This tale is pure classic Trek. Fans loved it then and you will now. It’s also a superb example of how to do a licensed property in comic form, and readers and wannabe creators should buy and take note. Balancing action and drama are captivating moments of interpersonal byplay filling out the roles of beloved characters like Uhura & 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 fully embracing and enhancing canonical Star Trek for the dedicated devotee, offering memorable comic book adventure for followers of our art-form and, most importantly, providing 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?
Star Trek ® and © 2009 CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc.