TAS Elements in the Books & Comics

[JD]

I watched the TAS episode One of Our Planets is Missing this morning on Netflix, and it got me wondering how much the books and comics have used stuff from TAS.
I already know about the big ones, like M'Ress and Arex in Peter Davids TOS comics and NF, P8-Blue and the Nasat in SCE and other books, Simenon and the Gnalish in Stargazer, and Robert April in Diane Carey's pre-TOS books. Arex also played pretty big supporting role in the IDW TOS Year Four: The Enterprise Expirement mini-series.
So are there many books or comics that have included elements first introduced in TAS?
Edit:
Were there a couple SCE novellas that followed up on TAS episodes?

 

[Plaristes]

The second DTI novel included some material from TAS.

 

[Balok's Decoy]

The novel The Latter Fire begins with Chekov leaving the Enterprise and Arex arriving to replace him.

 

[Christopher]

The second DTI novel included some material from TAS.

As does The Face of the Unknown, which takes place immediately before The Latter Fire.

Also, Devna from "The Time Trap" (before she got trapped in the Delta Triangle) is a major character in my Rise of the Federation series. Basically a lot of my stuff uses or references TAS elements. Oh, and Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore's Where Time Stands Still in the SCE/Corps of Engineers series was a "Time Trap" sequel.

 

[JD]

Where Time Stands Still was the SCE novella I was thinking of, thanks @Christopher.
Have the Gnalish ever appeared outside of TAS and SCE?

 

[Idran]

Where Time Stands Still was the SCE novella I was thinking of, thanks @Christopher.
Have the Gnalish ever appeared outside of TAS and SCE?

Phigus Simenon, the chief engineer of the Stargazer throughout the novelverse (most significantly so in the Stargazer series) was Gnalish, and Progenitor in the Stargazer series was heavily about Gnalish culture.

 

[JD]

Oops, I actually meant Stargazer not SCE.

 

[Leto_II]

The first volume of DC Comics' TOS run from the mid-'80s used Arex and M'Ress in a supporting role, but the boot of Richard Arnold dropped onto the series during that time-period, and the pair basically vanished for years (last seen serving aboard the Enterprise-A, prior to the fall 1989 relaunch). Very likely this was also due to the Filmation-bankruptcy around that same time, which cast the rights of many of the TAS elements and characters into legal limbo, hence the moratorium. Fortunately, they returned to the continuity not too many years later.

 

[Stevil2001]

I should point out that nothing in the text of Reunion and Stargazer indicates the Gnalish are the same species as Sord. Our own @Therin of Andor asked Mike Friedman if it could be the case, and he said, 'sure it could,' essentially.

Speaking of which, Ian has an exhaustive catalogue of tie-in references to the cartoon here: http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/toon-trek.html

 

[tomswift2002]

I'm surprised that no one's mention the Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the TAS episodes. Sure the first 6 books were similar anthologies to the James Blish anthologies of TOS, but then 7, 8, 9 & 10 were full-on novelizations of The Counter-Clock Incident, Bem, The Slaver Weapon & The Eye Of The Beholder. The Slaver Weapon features an additional storyline showing what Captain Kirk and the Enterprise were doing while Spock and the shuttle crew were dealing with the Kzinti.

 

[Christopher]

I'm surprised that no one's mention the Alan Dean Foster adaptations of the TAS episodes. Sure the first 6 books were similar anthologies to the James Blish anthologies of TOS, but then 7, 8, 9 & 10 were full-on novelizations of The Counter-Clock Incident, Bem, The Slaver Weapon & The Eye Of The Beholder.

On the contrary -- each of the first six Logs was significantly longer in page count than most of the Blish volumes, yet adapted only three half-hour episodes instead of 6-7 hourlong episodes. So they all fleshed out the adaptations considerably, with a lot of added dialogue and side information, bridging material to link consecutive stories, and so forth. They were just the opposite of Blish's trimmed-down, streamlined approach. The last four volumes took it even farther, since they had only one episode per volume, and so they added entirely new sequel adventures that took up roughly the last 2/3 of each book -- or in the case of Log Ten, 13 of the book's 16 chapters, with three new storylines set before, during, and after the events of "The Slaver Weapon."

 

[JD]

I should point out that nothing in the text of Reunion and Stargazer indicates the Gnalish are the same species as Sord. Our own @Therin of Andor asked Mike Friedman if it could be the case, and he said, 'sure it could,' essentially.

Speaking of which, Ian has an exhaustive catalogue of tie-in references to the cartoon here: http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/10/toon-trek.html

I didn't realize that. I had only ever heard the Gnalish being referred to as species of the reptilian alien from The Jihad, so I had assumed that was MJF's intention from the beginning.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I had assumed that was MJF's intention from the beginning.

So did I. But TAS's Sord never had a name given for his species. People quibbled with my suggestion, so I asked JMF. His original intention was to have several types of Gnalish in his stories and, upon consideration, he said that Filmation's Sord would be a Fejjimaera Gnalish, ie. not the same as his regular character Simenon (who lacks a crest).

From Toon Trek:
GNALISH of "The Jihad" - Sord of TAS is a reptilian sentient being who worked with Kirk to solve a theft on Skorr. Perhaps a Fejjimaera Gnalish. USS Stargazer's Phigus Simenon is a Mazzereht Gnalish ("TNG: Reunion", "TNG: Double Helix: The First Virtue", "Stargazer" series, N). The Aklaash Gnalish are bigger aliens than Simenon ("Stargazer: Progenitor", N). A Gnalish linguist featured ("S.C.E.: War Stories, Book 1", eBook). An officer on USS Musgrave is Gnalish ("The Road to Edos" in "New Frontier: No Limits", SS). Gorus Gelemingar of Gnala serves on the Federation Security Council ("Articles of the Federation", N). Race not named until "TNG: Reunion", N.

Toon Trek and The Andor Files are sadly in need of an overhaul. I have about 40 novels and comics here with Post-it notes, awaiting an update. And an unread tower.

Very likely this was also due to the Filmation-bankruptcy around that same time, which cast the rights of many of the TAS elements and characters into legal limbo, hence the moratorium. Fortunately, they returned to the continuity not too many years later.

Yes, exactly. Strangely, the queasy use of Arex and M'Ress in other media had occurred earlier, too. Alan Dean Foster penned some (uncredited) comic/record adventures and, since he was also writing the "Star Trek Logs" adaptations, he included Arex, Arex's Edoan musical instrument, and M'Ress in the companion story. Arex got overdrawn as a human at the last minute, renamed Connors (but you can see where his extra leg was erased, and the poorly done paste-ups on his name), but he still has Arex's Edoan elisiar - and M'Ress was drawn to resemble a blue version of Yvonne Craig's Orion from TOS!


Edoan Elisiar instrument by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Passage to Moauv by Ian McLean, on Flickr


M'Ress about to be redrawn! by Ian McLean, on Flickr


... as M'yra by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Larry Niven's kzinti lost their batwing ears in the LA Times Syndicate's comic strip sequel to TAS's "The Slaver Weapon":

LA Times Syndicate kzinti, The Wristwatch Plantation by Ian McLean, on Flickr

 

[Jinn]

I already know about the big ones, like M'Ress and Arex in Peter Davids TOS comics and NF, P8-Blue and the Nasat in SCE and other books, Simenon and the Gnalish in Stargazer, and Robert April in Diane Carey's pre-TOS books.

Robert April also appeared in the final issues of Early Voyages, but his story there was by no means resolved as the series was canceled.

 

[JD]

I didn't know that. Since I knew going in they were part of an unresolved arc, I never read the last couple issues of EV.

 

[Christopher]

I didn't know that. Since I knew going in they were part of an unresolved arc, I never read the last couple issues of EV.

April first appeared in EV in issue 12, the start of the 4-part time-travel story that preceded the final, unfinished arc.

 

[JD]

Oh, it's been a while so I don't remember the series that well.

 

[ryan123450]

I didn't know that. Since I knew going in they were part of an unresolved arc, I never read the last couple issues of EV.

That's what I did too. It would be cool if IDW hired the same writers for a new Pike comic and the mission we see them wrap up at the beginning of the comic is the cliffhanger mission from Early Voyages.

 

[Dayton Ward]

FWIW, Arex and M'Ress also appear in That Which Divides.

 

[Stevil2001]

That's what I did too. It would be cool if IDW hired the same writers for a new Pike comic and the mission we see them wrap up at the beginning of the comic is the cliffhanger mission from Early Voyages.

Really, Dan Abnett doing any Trek comic would be an instant buy for me-- dude knows his space opera. Co-wrote a phenomenal run on Legion Lost, not to mention all his Marvel space stuff.