Category: TV Adaptations

By Len Wein, Arnold Drake, Alfredo Giolitti, Giovanni Ticci & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-231-9

Star Trek debuted on American televisions on September 8^th 1966, running until June 3^rd 1969: three seasons comprising 79 episodes. A moderate success, the series only really became super-popular after going into syndication; running constantly in American local TV regions throughout the 1970s. It was also sold all over the world, popping up seemingly everywhere and developing a fanatically devoted fanbase.

There was some merchandising, and an inevitable comicbook – from Gold Key – which ran for almost a decade beyond the show’s cancellation. However, at the start neither authenticity nor immediacy were paramount. Only six issues were released during the show’s entire 3-season original run. Published between July 1967 and December 1968, those quirkily enticing yarns were all gathered in the first Star Trek: Gold Key archive collection.

The reason for the inaccuracies between screen and page was simple and a clear indication of the attitude both studio and publisher held about science fiction material. Initial scripter Dick Wood had seen no episodes when commissioned to write the comic, and with Italian artists Nevio Zaccara and Alberto Giolitti, received only the briefest of outlines and scant reference materials from the show’s producers. The comics craftsmen were working almost utterly in a vacuum…

Nevertheless, by the time of these interstellar exploits – reprinting Star Trek #13-18 from February 1972 to May 1973 – most of the well-intentioned contradictions of established Trek lore were long gone, thanks to better reference materials and familiarity with the actual show. These printed Enterprise incidents and missions are far closer to canonical parity with the TV phenomenon.

Following entertaining Introduction ‘Let’s See what She’s Got’ from educator and Trek scholar Joseph F. Berenato, the extra-solar explorations resume with ‘Dark Traveller’ (by Len Wein & Giolitti) which sees the Enterprise taken over by a shadowy being of incredible power who boosts its capabilities to send the crew hurtling across the universe.

Nomad shares his story of a world that grew too perfect and fell into cultural stagnation, and how he abandoned it for more primitive, questing races, before concluding that now his energies are fading his time to return home has come…

However, when he and his unwilling travelling companions reach Utopia, they find no paradise but a ruined world wracked by bloodshed, with mechanical killers everywhere, intent on eradicating the organic population.

Stranded far from home, the Federation crew have no choice but to join Nomad’s brutal war against an old friend driven to madness and mass-murder if they are to have any chance of seeing familiar stars again…

Star Trek #14 from May 1972 reveals how a diplomatic mission goes lethally awry after James Kirk is injured during a landing party excursion. Subsequently tasked with feting an unaligned dignitary whose civilisation and political allegiance is also being courted by Klingon emissaries, the Captain seemingly goes crazy and provokes ‘The Enterprise Mutiny’.

However, canny Mr. Spock deduces there is another explanation for his comrade’s sadistic and erratic behaviour…

August found Enterprise propelled beyond reality by a cosmic maelstrom and latterly becalmed in a region where physical laws don’t work properly. Invited to visit the ‘Museum at the End of Time’ by its uncanny Curator, Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy meet explorers from many worlds and eras who have long ago lapsed into immortal indolence. Typically the newcomers cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that there is no escape from the timeless limbo that holds them…

The situation escalates into bloody warfare when Klingons from a battle-cruiser also caught in the cosmic storm invade the museum. As chaos erupts, the time-lost denizens of limbo finally regain their old verve and fight back, just as Spock discovers the timeless realm is dying. The imminent end, however, does present one perilously slim chance of returning to their original plane of existence…

In November an Enterprise shuttlecraft suffered a catastrophic accident and crashed on a primitive, feudal world where the Federation crew had to hide their alien natures from a superstitious, theocratic cult tyrannising the primitive populace. To stand any chance of rescue Kirk, Spock, McCoy and their subordinates had to ally themselves with a resistance movement to escape torture and death on the ‘Day of the Inquisitors’…

With #17 (February 1973), Arnold Drake replaced Wein as scripter and Giolitti split his illustrative duties with studio-mate Giovanni Ticci to solve the riddle of ‘The Cosmic Cavemen’.

On a distant world shared by dinosaurs and stone-age humans, Kirk, McCoy and Chief Engineer Scott are captured and paraded before telepathic priestess Lok. Their shock and disbelief go off the scale when they are taken to an idol which is the spitting image of Spock…

The immediate crisis seems over after the Vulcan beams in to rescue his crewmates, but wily Lok has a plan to place her tribe beyond the reach of all rivals and subtly steals the death dealing weapons of the starmen to further her aims…

The cosmic comic cavalcade then concludes with an interstellar crime caper from Drake, Giolitti & Ticci as planet Styra – threatened with imminent destruction – digitises and records its entire population on bio-magnetic tape, entrusting the Enterprise to transport and restore them to life on a new world.

Sadly, comely castaway Allura has already inserted herself aboard ship and begins vamping Spock whilst her partner – deranged showman and magician Anzar – purloins the tape and holds ‘The Hijacked Planet’ hostage.

The crazed genius believes he has every avenue covered but has never faced anyone as clever as the Vulcan or as foolhardy as James Kirk…

Rounding out this compelling collection is a gallery of painted covers by elusive but brilliant George Wilson and an in-depth, fact-packed biography and assessment of the phenomenal strip illustrator in ‘Alberto Giolitti: About the Artist’.

Fun, thrilling and astoundingly compelling, these are comics classics not just for devoted TV fans but a prime example of graphic storytelling at its most engaging.
® and © 2015 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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 witnesses”…

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?
Star Trek ® and © 2009 CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc.

By Dick Wood, Len Wein, Alfredo Giolitti & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-63140-108-4

Star Trek debuted on American televisions on September 8^th 1966, running until June 3^rd 1969: three seasons comprising 79 episodes. A moderate success, the series only really became popular after going into syndication, running constantly in American local TV regions throughout the 1970s. It was also sold all over the world, popping up seemingly everywhere and developing quite a devoted fanbase.

There was some merchandising, and an inevitable comicbook – from Gold Key – which ran for almost a decade beyond the show’s cancellation. However, at the start neither authenticity nor immediacy were paramount. Only six issues were released during the show’s entire 3-season run: published between July 1967 and December 1968, those quirkily enticing yarns are all gathered in the first Star Trek: Gold Key archive collection.

The reason for the inaccuracies between screen and page was simple and probably a clear indicator of the attitude both studio and publisher held about science fiction material. Scripter Dick Wood (a veteran comics writer with credits ranging from on hundreds of series from Batman to Crime Does Not Pay to Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom) had never seen any episodes when commissioned to write the comic, with he and Italian artists Nevio Zaccara – and later Alberto Giolitti – receiving only the briefest of outlines and scant reference materials from the show’s producers. The comics craftsmen were working almost utterly in a vacuum…

Nevertheless, by the time of these interstellar exploits – reprinting Star Trek #7-12 from March 1970 to November 1971 – the well-intentioned contradictions to now-firmly established Trek lore were slowly fading as better reference and familiarity with the actual show steered the printed Enterprise incidents towards canonical parity with the TV phenomenon.

Following a revelatory Introduction ‘The Adventure Continues…’ from licensed-character specialists/authors Scott and David Tipton, another stunning photo-collage cover – a rarity at the time outside Gold Key titles – leads into an eerie cosmic quest as Kirk and his crew discovers ‘The Voodoo Planet’ (Wood & Giolitti, #7).

In an unexplored region of space, Enterprise discovers an uninhabited doppelganger of Earth, complete with monuments and landmarks. When a hidden mastermind then causes the Eiffel Tower to crumble, word comes that the original back home has also come tumbling down…

As the seemingly magical destruction continues, Enterprise tracks a transmission and travels to a planet almost obscured by debris and space junk and finds there a primitive race practising voodoo…

Shock follows shock as a landing party finds escaped Earth war-criminal Count Dressler has subjugated the natives and adapted their abilities to launch devastating attacks on the world that exiled him…

The villain’s arrogance soon proves his undoing as Dressler underestimates the ingenuity of Mr. Spock and sheer bloody-mindedness of James T. Kirk…

‘The Youth Trap’ was released with a September 1970 cover-date and sees assorted members of the crew transformed into children by a manic alien explorer who has turned a fantastic survival technology into an irresistible weapon.

Whilst Kooba‘s appalled comrades only want to get home, the madman believes his chronal ray will win him a universe. Once again the combination of Spock’s brains and Kirk’s brawn win the day…

From the February 1971 ninth issue, Wood was replaced by dedicated Trek viewer Len Wein (Swamp Thing, Batman, Spider-Man, Hulk) who joined the astounding Alberto Giolitti to explore ‘The Legacy of Lazarus’ wherein the ever outward-bound Enterprise fetched up to a remote planet and found it populated with all the great figures of humanity’s past.

When Spock vanishes his trail leads to a hidden cavern where Earth’s greatest historian Alexander Lazarus has combined robotics and recovered alien technology to gather in the actual brainwaves of history’s giants to create the most astounding resource for knowledge ever conceived.

Sadly, the great feat has only whetted the savant’s appetite and Lazarus wants to perform the same feat with the great and good of Vulcan’s past. To get started, he needs the brain of a native and Spock is the nearest and therefore only logical candidate…

Luckily for the beleaguered Science Officer, Kirk and his comrades can call on the wisdom and courage of Earth’s greatest heroes to aid in their rescue attempt…

With Star Trek #10 (May 1971) stills from Paramount were no longer forthcoming and George Wilson began his series of captivating painted covers. Meanwhile, on the pages inside, mystery and imagination hold sway as the starship is plucked out of the void by a cosmic genie whilst Kirk, Spock, Dr. Leonard McCoy and Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott are dumped at the feet of a storybook tyrant who demands they steal for him the awesome ‘Sceptre of the Sun’…

All too soon however the doughty space-farers unravel the lies underpinning the seeming omnipotence of Chang the Sorcerer to find his true origins stem from a long-lost expedition from Earth in ages past…

From August 1971, ‘The Brain Shockers’ details how neophyte Yeoman Pandora Trask is tricked by a marauding alien into opening a hatch she wasn’t meant to; unleashing a wave of malignant emotions hidden aboard the Enterprise.

The deadly feelings were originally extracted and bottled at the time Vulcans first sought to abandon passion for logic and were being transported to a secret destination, but now their rampage through the ship and the assailant’s world will wreak havoc unless Spock can outthink both them and immortal, seemingly suicidal Malok…

Closing this bombastic treasure-trove is ‘The Flight of the Buccaneer’ (#12, November 1971) with Kirk, McCoy, Scott and Spock ordered undercover to infiltrate a nest of interstellar pirates and recover Star Fleet’s stolen store of Dilithium crystals in a fast-paced, all-guns-blazing romp homaging Treasure Island…

Packed with photo-covers, promotional photos and a complete Cover Gallery this is another fabulously enticing, expansive and epic compendium of thrills: truly engaging stories to delight young and old alike and well worthy of your rapt attentions.
® and © 2014 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Mike Johnson, Stephen Molnar, Joe Phillips & various (IDW Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-150-1

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 awesome brainchild. Currently IDW have the treasured funnybook license and have combined great new tales with a choice selection of older examples from other publishers. In 2012 the company also began a long-term project adapting, updating and retelling classic episodes of the original “Five Year Mission” in the context of the 2008 rebooted film franchise as re-imagined by J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

Thus a series of very familiar yarns for older fans starring the visual likenesses of the new Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura et al, all working under the influence of very different social mores and far more complicated personal relationships, presented in lean, terse, stripped down comics that work with potently understated effectiveness…

Written by Mike Johnson and illustrated by Stephen Molnar & Joe Phillips, proceedings open with ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ as Chief Engineer Scott pushes his team to complete the million-&-one tasks necessary to keep a starship running. It’s the earliest days of a projected five-year voyage of exploration and rookie captain James Kirk is spending as much time playing chess with his beloved friend and academy comrade Gary Mitchell as his schedule will allow.

The quiet time ends when Science Officer Spock informs him of a distress beacon. It is being emitted by an artefact from legendary lost ship SS Valiant, vanished two centuries past. That vessel was attempting the same task as the Enterprise: finding the edge of the galaxy and seeing what was beyond…

The garbled records-data is unclear but indicates a terrible calamity, crewmen changing, something about extra-sensory perception and then nothing…

Apprehensive but undaunted, Kirk orders the ship onward and soon they are facing an energy phenomenon at the galactic terminus point: an energy-wall preventing further progress which explosively disrupts hundreds of ship-systems and has an agonising effect on many of the crew, especially Mitchell…

Soon the extent of a bizarre metamorphosis is apparent. Gary is no longer human. However, the problem is not the incredible array of psychokinetic abilities Mitchell is increasingly displaying but that he now clearly believes himself above and beyond humanity. When Uhura discovers that the crew of the long-vanished Valiant destroyed their own ship, Spock realises what must be done but finds it almost impossible to convince his wilful, emotionally-encumbered superior of the need to destroy his best friend before it’s too late…

‘The Galileo Seven’ is the next classic revamp as the Enterprise is diverted to deliver crucial medical supplies to a plague-wracked colony world. En route, the ship passes a rare cosmic phenomenon and, over-ruling the doctrinaire career-politician aboard, Captain Kirk allows his science staff time to briefly examine the cosmological treasure-trove before resuming the mercy-dash to Makus III.

Tragically the volatile quasar they’re focused on unleashes all its fury and the shuttlecraft Galileo 7 – carrying Spock, Dr. McCoy, Engineer Scott, Yeoman Rand and crewmen Latimer, Gaetano and Boma – is disabled in a wave of energy and only just manages to crash down on a nearby planet. Although breathable the atmosphere prevents their communications equipment from functioning…

Moreover, Taurus II is not uninhabited and the proto-sentient primitives evolving there don’t like strangers…

As the stranded crew struggle to repair the cracked and crushed shuttle, the first death comes, but even after miracles are wrought and the Galileo is prepped for one last take-off, the sums are done and it’s clear that not all of the survivors are going to be able to ride on the compromised, fuel-deprived final flight.

The closely-circling natives agree…

With a clock ticking and thousands of lives at stake Kirk – after exhausting every avenue left to him – regretfully gives the order to abandon the search for his lost crewmen, but Uhura refuses to leave her lover Spock behind and instigates a mutinous, last-ditch attempt to rescue them…

Also featuring a copious ‘Art Gallery’ which includes covers and variants by David Messina & Giovanni Niro, Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash and Joe Corroney plus photos  and pin-ups of the new crew, this book is a simple, no-nonsense, old-yet-new space opera romp to please fans of the franchise and lovers of straightforward science fiction worlds of wonder.
® and © 2012 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. © 2012 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

By Dick Wood, Nevio Zaccara, Alfredo Giolitti & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-922-4

Star Trek debuted on American televisions on September 8^th 1966 and ran until June 3^rd 1969: three seasons comprising 79 episodes. A moderate success, it only really became popular after going into syndication, running constantly throughout the 1970s. It was also sold all over the world, popping up seemingly everywhere and developing quite a devoted fanbase.

Being a third world country, Britain didn’t see the show until July 12^th 1969 when BBC One screened “Where No Man Has Gone Before” in black-&-white and then proceeded to broadcast the rest of the series in the wrong order.

“Arena” was the first episode screened in colour (November 15^th 1969), but viewers didn’t care. We were all hooked anyway and many of the show’s catchphrases – some entirely erroneous or even fictitious – quickly entered the popular lexicon of the nation.

It even spawned a British-originated comic strip which ran in Joe 90, TV21 and TV21 and Valiant from the late 1960s and into the 1970s. Those have also been collected by IDW and I’ll get to them in the fullness of time and space.

In the USA, although there was some merchandising, things were a little less enthusiastically embraced. Even though there was a comicbook – from Gold Key, running for almost a decade after the show’s cancellation – authenticity wasn’t really a watchword and immediacy or urgency not an issue. In fact, only six issues were released during the show’s entire run of three seasons. Published between July 1967 and December 1968, they are all gathered in this first archive Star Trek.

Printing giant Whitman Publishing had been producing their own books and comics for decades through their Dell and Gold Key imprints, rivalling and often surpassing DC and Timely/Marvel at the height of their powers. Famously they never capitulated to the wave of anti-comics hysteria which resulted in the crippling self-censorship of the 1950s and Dell Comics never displayed a Comics Code Authority symbol on their covers.

They never needed to: their canny blend of media and entertainment licensed titles were always produced with a family market in mind and the creative staff took their editorial stance from the mores of the filmic Hayes Code and the burgeoning television industry.

Just like the big and little screen, the product enticed but never shocked and kept contentious social issues implicit instead of tacit. It was a case of “violence and murder are fine but never titillate.”

Moreover, most of their adventure comics covers were high quality photos or paintings – adding a stunning degree of veracity and verisimilitude to even the most outlandish of concepts for us wide-eyed waifs in need of awesome entertainment.

The company seemed the only logical choice for a licensed comicbook, and to be honest, these stories are cracking little space opera yarns, but they occupy an odd position in the hearts of older fans. In the UK, distribution of American comicbooks was haphazard at best, but the Trek yarns were reprinted in hardback Christmas annuals. However, the earliest ones bore little resemblance to the TV version.

Our little minds were perplexed and we did wonder, but as the adventures offered plenty of action and big sci fi concepts we just enjoyed them anyway.

Original British Star Trek yarns came in serialised comic-strip form, superbly illustrated and bearing a close resemblance to the source material. It only appeared as 2 or 3-page instalments in weekly anthologies, but was at least instantly familiar to TV viewers.

I discovered the answer to the discrepancy years later: scripter Dick Wood (a veteran writer who had worked on hundreds of series from Batman and the original Daredevil to Crime Does Not Pay and Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom) had not seen the show when commissioned to write the comicbook iteration, and both he and Italian artists Nevio Zaccara – and later Alberto Giolitti – received only the briefest of outlines and scant reference materials from the show’s producers. They were working almost in the dark…

When you read these tales, you’ll see some strange sights and apparent contradictions to Trek canon lore, but they were all derived from sensible assumptions by creators doing the very best with what meagre information they had.

If you’re likely to have your nostalgic fun spoiled by wrong-coloured shirts or “Lasers” rather than “Phasers”, think alternate universe or read something else. Ultimately, you are the only one missing out…

That’s enough unnecessary apologising. These splendidly conceived all-ages tales don’t deserve or need it, and even the TV version was a constantly developing work-in-progress, as fan and occasional Trek scripter Tony Isabella reveals in his Introduction ‘These Are the Voyages…’

Accompanied by the stunning photo-collage covers and endpapers – a rarity at the time outside Gold Key titles – the quirky collation of cosmic questing commences with ‘The Planet of No Return’ (Wood & Zaccaria, #1, July 1967) as the Enterprise enters a region of space oddly devoid of life and encounters predatory spores from the planet designated Kelly-Green.

It’s a world of horror where vegetative life contaminates and transforms flesh and mindlessly seeks to constantly consume and conquer. After the survivors of the landing party escape deadly doom and return to the safety of space, there is only one course of action Captain Kirk can take…

‘The Devil’s Isle of Space’ was released with a March 1968 cover-date and found the ever-advancing Enterprise trapped in a space-wide electronic net. The technology was part of a system used by an alien race to pen death-row criminals on asteroids, where they would be (eventually) executed in a truly barbarous manner.

Sadly, it’s hard not to interfere in a sovereign culture’s private affairs when the doomed criminals hold Federation citizens hostage and want Kirk to hand his ship over to them…

Bombastic and spectacular, ‘Invasion of the City Builders’ (#3 December 1968) saw the legendary Alberto Giolitti take the artistic reigns. Prolific, gifted and truly international, his work and the studio he created produced a wealth of material for three continents; everything from Le Avventure di Italo Nurago, Tarzan, The Phantom, Mandrake, Flash Gordon, Zorro, Cisco Kid, Turok, Gunsmoke, King Kong, Cinque anni dopo, Tex Willer and dozens more. In England the Giolitti effect enhanced many magazines and age ranges; everything from Flame of the Forest in Lion to Enchanted Isle in Tammy.

His gritty line-work added a visual terseness and tension to the mix, as seen in his first outing as the Enterprise crew land on a planet where automated machines programmed to build new homes and roads have been out of control for a century. Forcing the organic population to the edge of extinction, the mechs build cities no one can live in over the soil they need to grow food. The machines seem indestructible but Mr. Spock has an idea…

Social commentary gave way to action and suspense when ‘The Peril of Planet Quick Change’ (June 1969) finds the crew investigating a world of chimerical geological instability, only to see Spock possessed by beings made of light. The creatures use him to finally stabilise their unruly world, but once the crisis is averted, one of the luminous spirits refuses to leave the Vulcan and plans to make the body its own…

‘The Ghost Planet’ (September 1969) was fast approaching parity with the TV incarnation as Enterprise encounters a world ravaged by radiation rings. The twin rulers are eager for the star men’s help in removing the rings but don’t want them hanging around to help rebuild the devastated civilisation. A little investigation reveals that most of the carnage is due to eternal warfare which the devious despots plan to resume as soon as the Federation ship destroys the radiation rings and leaves…

Wrapping up this first hardback treasure-trove is ‘When Planets Collide’ (December 1969): a classic conundrum involving two runaway worlds inexorably drawn to each other and mutual destruction. What might have been a simple observable astronomical event becomes fraught with peril when the Enterprise crew discover civilisations within each world which would rather die than evacuate their ancient homes…

With time running out and lives at stake there’s only one incredible chance to save both worlds, but it will take all Spock’s brains and Kirk’s piloting skill to avert cosmic catastrophe…

Bold, expansive and epic, these are great stories to delight young and old alike and well worth making time and space for.
® and © 2014 CBS Studios, Inc. Star Trek and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

By Peter David, Tom Sutton, Gordon Purcell, Ricardo Villagran & various (IDW)
ISBN: 978-1-61377-831-9

The stellar Star Trek brand and franchise probably hasn’t reached any new worlds yet, but it certainly has permeated every aspect of civilisation here on Earth. You can find daily live-action or animated TV appearances constantly screening somewhere on the planet as well as toys, games, conventions, merchandise, various comics iterations generated in a host of nations and languages and a reboot of the movie division proceeding even as I type this.

Many comicbook companies have published sequential narrative adventures based on the exploits of Gene Roddenberry’s legendary brainchild, and the splendid 1980s run produced under the DC banner were undoubtedly some of the very finest.

Never flashy or sensational, the tales embraced the same storytelling values as the shows and movies; being simultaneously strongly character- and plot-driven. An especially fine example can be found in this superior epic, seamlessly blending spectacular drama, subtle character interplay and good old fashioned thrills, with the added bonus of madcap whimsy thanks to the impassioned fan-pandering efforts of scripter Peter David.

This swashbuckling space-opera (originally printed in DC’s Star Trek #49-55 and boldly spanning April-October 1988) was a devotee’s dream, pulling together many old plotlines – in a manner easily accessible to newcomers – to present a fantastic whodunit liberally sprinkled with in-jokes and TV references for über-fans to wallow in.

Illustrated by Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagran, it began in ‘Aspiring to be Angels’ as, following the aftermath of a drunken shipboard stag-night riot (caused by three very senior officers separately spiking the punch), the Enterprise crew discovers a rogue Federation ship with impenetrable new cloaking technology is destroying remote colonies in a blatant attempt to provoke all-out war with the Klingons.

At one decimated site they find a stunted, albino Klingon child who holds the secrets of the marauders, but his traumatised mind will need special care to coax them out…

Naturally the suspicious, bellicose Klingons want first dibs on the Federation “rebels” and political tensions mount as Kirk and his opposite number Kron not-so-diplomatically spar over procedure in a ‘Marriage of Inconvenience’.

Emotions are already fraught aboard the Enterprise. Preparations for a big wedding are suffering last-minute problems and a promising ensign is being cashiered for the High Crime of Species Bigotry…

Moreover, unknown to all a telepathic crew-member has contracted Le Guin’s Disease (that’s one of those in-jokes I mentioned earlier), endangering the entire ship…

The crisis comes with Federation and Klingon Empire on the verge of open hostilities. Thankfully the renegade ship moves too precipitately and is defeated in pitched battle. However, when Security teams board the maverick ship what they recover only increases the mystery of its true motives and origins…

Taking advantage of a rare peaceful moment, ensigns Kono and Nancy Bryce finally wed, only to get drawn into a ‘Haunted Honeymoon’ as the Enterprise is suddenly beset by uncanny supernatural events, culminating in the crew being despatched to a biblical torture-realm resembling ‘Hell in a Handbasket’…

When the effects of the telepathic plague are finally spent, normality returns for the crew, just in time for them to discover Kirk has been stabbed…

Gordon Purcell steps in for ‘You’re Dead, Jim’, with Dr. McCoy swinging into action to preserve the fast-fading life of his friend. Lost in delirium, Captain Kirk is reliving his eventful life and is ready to just let go when Spock intervenes…

With the Captain slowly recovering and categorically identifying his attacker, justice moves swiftly. The assailant is arrested and the affair seems open and shut, but ‘Old Loyalties’ delivers a shocking twist and sets up a fractious reunion as Kirk’s Starfleet Academy nemesis Sean Finnegan (who first appeared in the classic TV episode Shore Leave – written by the legendary Theodore Sturgeon) arrives.

The senior officer has been sent by the Federation Security Legion to investigate the case and what he finds in ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ (with Sutton & Villagran reuniting for the epic conclusion) is an astounding revelation which upsets everyone’s firmly held convictions, unearthing a sinister vengeance scheme decades in the making…

Masterfully weaving a wide web of elements into a fabulous yarn of great and small moments, Peter David has crafted a compelling yarn which ranks amongst the greatest Star Trek stories in any medium: one which will please fans of the franchise and any readers who just love quality comics.
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