Marvel's Star Trek Comics (1980-82)

[inflatabledalek]

I wasn't a great fan of the Rand story. I love the character and was pleased to see her get more than one frame in the transporter room but the story didn't ring true on a lot of levels.

Yeah, it's got some nice ideas in it with the aliens who can cope with intergalactic travel, but the whole idea that Rand would manage a relationship with something so different that would also require her to renounce all human contact for the rest of her life even though her beloved is going to be plugged into a spaceship so they'll never properly be together anyway... Well maybe it could be done convincingly but not in the page count required. And her dumping him at the end when he's now mentally damaged makes the whole relationship seem even more insubstantial.

I found the best issue to be the Joanna one, as someone said upthread, the idea of her dating a Vulcan is genius, and Spock and McCoy have a lovely moment at the end.

 

[Pauln6]

It did have some fun issues though. I liked the one with the slugs and robots - even Chief DiFalco got some action in that story. Scotty being beaten up by the Black Annis was fun, even if the resolution of the story was cheesy. The transporter origin story could have been a nice horror story if it had been spread over several issues. I think most of the stories suffered from being single issue adventures. A few of them didn't finish soon enough.

I noticed that Joanna was a nurse in the older story and a doctor in her more recent appearance in the Lost Years mini series. Sadly, they contradict each other in more ways than one.

 

[Steve67]

I found the best issue to be the Joanna one, as someone said upthread, the idea of her dating a Vulcan is genius, and Spock and McCoy have a lovely moment at the end.

As a kid, I liked this one best because of all the disintegrations! There's an insane hand-phaser battle in this one. I also liked the inhabitants of the planet having had artificial intelligence implanted in them...it's like what we had done to us here on Earth.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Strange. TMP was a heavily merchandised movie - I loved that as a kid. Still, why would you want to limit the creativity of the comics by being so unduly restrictive.

Two guesses:

1) Paramount didn't want Marvel emphasizing TOS elements at the expense of TMP. Remember, TMP was the new product that Paramount wanted to support & merchandise, and presumably the subsequent movies were expected to follow in that direction. And who knew in 1979 how much life TOS still had left in it?

2) Marvel didn't want to bother paying extra for the rights to TOS when TMP contained most of the major Trek elements they needed to do a comic adaptation. And when you factor in all the walk-on characters & aliens that were in TMP, they really had a wealth of material to work from.

 

[BillJ]

Of course issue 9 had a pre-refit Constitution on the cover:

 

[inflatabledalek]

Of course issue 9 had a pre-refit Constitution on the cover:UOTE]

And features within it as well. One of the covers also has the Phase II Enterprise on it (via it basically being a copy of the early Movie Poster that used it).

 

[Steve67]

1) Paramount didn't want Marvel emphasizing TOS elements at the expense of TMP. Remember, TMP was the new product that Paramount wanted to support & merchandise, and presumably the subsequent movies were expected to follow in that direction. And who knew in 1979 how much life TOS still had left in it?

Seems as though Marvel was limited in their other short-lived (1979-81) sci-fi/fantasy comic from that same time, Battlestar Galactica. According to this site:

"Starting with #6, the series ignores the rest of the events of the television series and begins completely original stories (Marvel's contract with Universal specifically did not allow them to use anything from the television series that followed Lost Planet Of The Gods)."

Marvel had a two-headed monster of misfortune on its hands during that time, though their original stories for Star Wars were often fantastic, at least to my then-youthful self.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Marvel had a two-headed monster of misfortune on its hands during that time, though their original stories for Star Wars were often fantastic, at least to my then-youthful self.

Well, tough to go wrong with Archie Goodwin writing your comic book. Particularly when the great Al Williamson is drawing the movie adaptations!

 

[Christopher]

^I felt each of the regular writers of Marvel's Star Wars comic was an improvement on the previous one. Roy Thomas < Archie Goodwin < David Michelinie < Jo Duffy. Not that I had a problem with Goodwin's writing, I just found his successors' work even more satisfying.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Christopher do you really prefer Jo Duffy to David Michelinie? I mean isn't that like comparing grape juice to a bottle of Dom? Sure grape juice is nice but Dom Pérignon is Dom Pérignon! I can't imagine preferring the creator of Lahsbees and Huks to the creator of Shira Brie and the Tarkin.

 

[BillJ]

Christopher do you really prefer Jo Duffy to David Michelinie? I mean isn't that like comparing grape juice to a bottle of Dom? Sure grape juice is nice but Dom Pérignon is Dom Pérignon! I can't imagine preferring the creator of Lahsbees and Huks to the creator of Shira Brie and the Tarkin.

I just think Christopher has his '>' going the wrong way.

 

[Steve67]

^I felt each of the regular writers of Marvel's Star Wars comic was an improvement on the previous one. Roy Thomas < Archie Goodwin < David Michelinie < Jo Duffy. Not that I had a problem with Goodwin's writing, I just found his successors' work even more satisfying.

I'm a lifelong fan of Michelinie's and thought his work with Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer was among the book's finest moments. Issues #51-52 come to mind...regardless of the Death Star connection. I loved Goodwin's "Wheel" saga and that distinctive Carmine Infantino/Gene Day artwork.

 

[Christopher]

I've been immersing myself in TMP-era stuff lately, partly as research for the TMP-era portions of Forgotten History and partly for fun, and I just finished a read-through of the Marvel series (not counting the TMP adaptation). I remembered our discussion of the TOS elements that got slipped past the radar, and decided to make a list of the ones I found. There's actually a remarkable number of TOS/TAS concepts and even characters that were used or alluded to in these 15 issues, despite the "ban" on their inclusion -- especially in the issues written by Martin Pasko. Here's the list (which might not be entirely comprehensive):

• Issue #4 & 6: Admiral Fitzpatrick (from "The Trouble With Tribbles")
• #5: Klingon mind-sifter
• #6: Ensign Kirk's service on the Republic (though the story contradicts what "Obsession" established about the Farragut being Kirk's first deep-space assignment); pilot-era uniforms
• #8: Mr. Kyle
• #8 & 13: Klingon stasis weapon (from "More Tribbles, More Troubles") -- only referenced in #8 but actually used in #13
• #8, 10, 17: the Prime Directive
• #9: A TOS-style USS Endeavor; pilot-era uniforms; "transtater" [sic] as basis of Starfleet tech
• #11: Mr. DeSalle; Berthold rays and a reference to Omicron Ceti; mentions of Carolyn Palamas and Mira Romaine
• #12: Galactic barrier and references to the Valiant and Enterprise encountering it; discussion of Kirk/Rand romantic tension; a Class J cargo ship; "Jeffries tube" [sic]; Elba II referenced
• #13: Joanna McCoy, and a reference to her time as a nurse on Cerberus ("The Survivor"); the Organian Peace Treaty; pergium; "pon far" [sic] and its 7-year cycle; engines in "red zone proximity" with four hours to blow ("The Savage Curtain"); choriocytosis and strobolin ("The Pirates of Orion")
• #14: "Class M" planet; Hodgkins' Law of Parallel Planetary Development
• #14, 15: cordrazine
• #14, 16: neutronium
• #15: cloaking device; Antosians and their metamorphic abilities ("Whom Gods Destroy"); Argan sur-snake ("The Ambergris Element"); the Vulcan inner eyelid ("Operation: Annihilate"); alternative terms for mind-meld such as "mind-touch" and "mind-fusion"
• #16: Matter transmuters reminiscent of those from "Catspaw"
• #17: tritanium

So that's three canonical non-TMP characters who slipped past the radar and actually appeared in the comic: Admiral Fitzpatrick, Mr. Kyle, and Mr. DeSalle. Four if you count Joanna McCoy, whose existence was established onscreen in TAS: "The Survivor."

 

[Therin of Andor]

• #15: Argan sur-snake ("The Ambergris Element")

Ah cool! One to add to my Toon Trek pages. Thanks!

 

[Christopher]

^Only one? So you already have the references to the Klingon stasis weapon, Joanna and Cerberus, and choriocytosis and strobolin?

 

[Therin of Andor]

^Only one? So you already have the references to the Klingon stasis weapon, Joanna and Cerberus, and choriocytosis and strobolin?

I think so. I have a major update coming at some point. There was so much Joanna McCoy stuff, I think I didn't end up making her a TAS-first reference in the list, because she did exist before TAS, just not canonically. I may end up putting her in.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, the idea of Joanna existed before TAS, in a 16-page story outline by D. C. Fontana, but as far as I know, "The Survivor" is the first time Joanna is referenced in an actual, completed and released (and arguably canonical) work of professional fiction. Even the Gold Key comics that give McCoy a daughter named Barbara were published after TAS ended, as was Joe Haldeman's Bantam novel Planet of Judgment (which referenced Joanna as McCoy's daughter but used "Honey" as his wife's apparently legal name).

 

[Therin of Andor]

"Hi Honey, I'm home."

As useful a name as Lovey Howell.

 

[JD]

I've been immersing myself in TMP-era stuff lately, partly as research for the TMP-era portions of Forgotten History and partly for fun, and I just finished a read-through of the Marvel series (not counting the TMP adaptation).

Have you read Marvel's Untold Voyages series, from their '90s Trek comics? I've been thinking about checking that out one I finish the DC TNG arc I'm reading.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Have you read Marvel's Untold Voyages series, from their '90s Trek comics? I've been thinking about checking that out one I finish the DC TNG arc I'm reading.

Highly recommended.