Star Trek - City on the Edge of Forever Comic

[BritishSeaPower]

Re: Star Trek - City on the Edge of Forever #1

Great cover. Decent art, though it's wildly uneven. (That 3/4 page shot of the City is breathtaking. The panel where Spock's face is slightly obscured and his eyes are either side of his face... not so much.) I didn't think Woodard was the strongest choice for the TNG/Doctor Who Crossover and I'm not certain he was the best choice here.

As other's have said the dialogue is rough. I'm not certain why Spock is shouting commands in that one panel. Nor why Spock would allow a man to wonder around the bridge in a fog for 2 hours before doing something about it.

 

[Villordsutch]

City on the Edge of Forever #2

Hello all here is my review of Issue #2 of Star Trek: Harlan Ellison’s City on the Edge of Forever over at Flickering Myth

Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Harlan Ellison’s City on the Edge of Forever #2…

Harlan Ellison’s WGA Award-winning teleplay, visualized for the first time! Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Yeoman Rand return to the Enterprise following their first encounter with the Guardians of Forever, only to find a darker, more vicious crew of renegades awaiting them! Can they return the timestream to its proper state? And will they even survive long enough to try?

I can’t recall a recent comic book that I have such pleasure in taking my time in reading and absorbing so much as I have with the two issues of City on the Edge of Forever so far (issue One review is here). My stall is obviously set out in front of you here and you can see that this review for issue #2 is going to be a positive one, but there is no point keeping it as the big reveal and letting it all out now will just help this article flow much easier.

I am also honestly considering, if they release it, purchasing the graphic novel of the comics combined. I know it sounds odd as I’m currently in the process of reading the comics and I’m only actually hitting the second issue out of five issue series, but already I’m hooked on what the Tiptons, Woodward and of course Ellison are giving to us – plus these are preview digital editions and I want the real thing in my hand. The Tiptons (Scott and David) are, to me, seamlessly weaving Harlan’s original teleplay into the Trek history via this comic book medium; it’s exciting, it’s brilliant, and it’s just perfect. And to make this comic even shine that bit more the art from J.K. Woodward is truly fantastic; with time and care given to each page of this important piece of Star Trek history, it hasn’t taken a step wrong.

We get to see, in this issue, something rather brilliant which was missing from the original episode as the crew of the Enterprise all beam back to the ship from the planet. It is here we discover the Enterprise isn’t the Enterprise, but a ship called the “Con...

Full article <<<

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

Re: City on the Edge of Forever #2

Another enjoyable issue. Rand continues to kick butt and Spock pretends he's the Six Million Dollar Man by hopping over a tall fence. Good stuff.

A bit jarring to read the racist term from the man on the soapbox but Spock's reaction was perfectly executed.

The print version includes a letters page with Ellison himself responding occasionally to reader responses. One of his responses concerns the "runes/ruins" mix-up from the episode's set design and it's pretty interesting.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: City on the Edge of Forever #2

Yep, read it today and thoroughly enjoyed it. Another episode that will go into Grace Lee Whitney's Regrets List. She says at conventions that her big disappointments were losing roles in "Dagger of the Mind" and "The Galileo Seven" (Rand was in both first drafts.). I had read the original Ellison script in "Six Science Fiction Plays" decades ago and knew it had a good role for Rand. This comic brings that part to life!

 

[JD]

Re: City on the Edge of Forever #2

So is Ellison actually involved with this, or at they just using his old script?

 

[Paris]

Re: City on the Edge of Forever #2

So is Ellison actually involved with this, or at they just using his old script?

He's involved. I was reading the letters page, and he was answering some of the questions.

I just got the issue and read it. Not bad. I'm digging Woodward's artwork, and the story isn't too bad. I really like that Ellison made Rand as badass as he did

 

[trampledamage]

I'm going to merge this with the first City of Forever thread - so it'll be easier to discuss previous issues as well.

 

[Harvey]

This is a really interesting project. I wonder if other unfilmed (or dramatically re-written) Star Trek scripts might get the same treatment?

 

[Commishsleer]

Re: Star Trek - City on the Edge of Forever #1

Seeing Rand wielding a phaser rifle is odd because it's not something you expect from a clerical worker. But then, this was written early in the series before the characters were well-defined. Seeing a murderous drug dealer on the Enterprise is odd too. As is hearing Spock say "You've been walking around this bridge like a man under water for two hours." (On top of the simile being out of character for Spock, why would the helmsman be walking around the bridge at all?)

When Ellison was working on COTEOF I wonder how much of TOS he had seen.
I believe Blish said he hadn't seen any of TOS before he wrote his novel adaptions.
I'm thinking if he hadn't really seen much of TOS it would be difficult for Ellison to get the nuances of the characters exactly right in first draft. I know he could have read previous scripts and talked to the writing team but I think the actors and performance added a lot to the characters.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

If memory serves, he had seen WNMHGB in a special screening for writers wishing to pitch. His first treatment of City is dated March 21, 1966; his second revised treatment, May 13, 1966, and his First Draft script was dated June 3, 1966. So, the show had not premiered. A photo of he, Shatner and Nimoy shows them standing on the miners' hut set from "Mudd's Women," so he visted the set whenever that show was being filmed.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Pauln6]

Part 2 was a fun read. I think the Guardian of Forever was more fun than the humanoids but largely everything else I prefer in this version (not that I don't love the original). I think some of the elements of humour might end up missing in part 3 and I'm quite fond of those too however. We'll see.

It's interesting that he says in the letters page that because the script was written before the series aired, Rand was simply written as the main character she was intended to be. She's portrayed as a competent crewman who shoots guns, fights, jerry-rigs the transporter, and is left in charge of the security team of lower-ranked crewmen. This is the Rand we should have got!

 

[Commishsleer]

Part 2 was a fun read. I think the Guardian of Forever was more fun than the humanoids but largely everything else I prefer in this version (not that I don't love the original). I think some of the elements of humour might end up missing in part 3 and I'm quite fond of those too however. We'll see.

It's interesting that he says in the letters page that because the script was written before the series aired, Rand was simply written as the main character she was intended to be. She's portrayed as a competent crewman who shoots guns, fights, jerry-rigs the transporter, and is left in charge of the security team of lower-ranked crewmen. This is the Rand we should have got!

Its funny that Elison could create a 'random' Starfleet woman in command of men back-in-the-day while the so-called progressive writers of Star Trek had trouble after the initial pilot.

Not that I take Elison's side on City on the Edge of Forever.
But it might have been nice if they'd been able to fit in a kick-ass Rand (or Uhura) in City if they'd had time

 

[Pauln6]

Part 2 was a fun read. I think the Guardian of Forever was more fun than the humanoids but largely everything else I prefer in this version (not that I don't love the original). I think some of the elements of humour might end up missing in part 3 and I'm quite fond of those too however. We'll see.

It's interesting that he says in the letters page that because the script was written before the series aired, Rand was simply written as the main character she was intended to be. She's portrayed as a competent crewman who shoots guns, fights, jerry-rigs the transporter, and is left in charge of the security team of lower-ranked crewmen. This is the Rand we should have got!

Its funny that Elison could create a 'random' Starfleet woman in command of men back-in-the-day while the so-called progressive writers of Star Trek had trouble after the initial pilot.

Not that I take Elison's side on City on the Edge of Forever.
But it might have been nice if they'd been able to fit in a kick-ass Rand (or Uhura) in City if they'd had time

Given how cool Number One was compared to later women, there was clearly potential for them to write competent, professional women who didn't try to flash their legs at the first sign of scabs. They could certainly have done better than they did. Uhura had her moments but she sucked in a fight. Celeste Yarnell (I think) was trained in Judo so she got to throw around a native in the Apple, which was quite fun.

What's clear though is that Rand's rank wasn't clearly defined in the character treatment (and actually fluctuated during her subsequent appearances). I suppose a lot of captains' yeomen are officers in the real navy. Still, assuming she was a petty officer, which seems likely, given that she became a CPO by TMP, she would still have outranked the average security guard.

 

[Commishsleer]

I think Grace Lee Whitney had the potential to make the character something better/stronger if given a chance by the writers. In Naked Time I think she was telling crewman Green off and clearly wasn't cowering to Charlie in Charlie X.
If she were introduced in the next movie, I'd love to see the character kick ass.

 

[Pauln6]

I think Grace Lee Whitney had the potential to make the character something better/stronger if given a chance by the writers. In Naked Time I think she was telling crewman Green off and clearly wasn't cowering to Charlie in Charlie X.
If she were introduced in the next movie, I'd love to see the character kick ass.

She also steeled up and told Kirk to get out of her quarters in the Enemy Within. Roddenberry stated that all the crew would be trained astronauts, they just never demonstrated that on screen much.

In the IDW comic Rand is still a yeoman but has most often been featured as security support. Despite being a yeoman she has yet to be shown doing any admin for Kirk or anybody else though and she's been little more than a cypher, delivering plot dialogue.

For a while she was featured alongside or alternately with Zahra, who is no longer a yeoman but a security lieutenant (not sure why they made her such a senior officer but I suspect the writers don't have a good grasp of the naval hierarchy). But recently Rand has vanished and Zahra has morphed from a north african/south asian to a blonde caucasian. It's curious that Rand has not featured at all recently and some speculate that it might be because she will be featured in the next movie.

Having said that, there was the same speculation about Chapel and she just got abused off camera, so who knows.

I would love to see an updated version of the Enemy Within, maybe where evil Kirk gets off the ship for a few issues and we have some stories with Kirk being a less effective captain. I'd love to see evil Kirk roll up drunk to Janice's cabin and get cr*p beaten out of him.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

If memory serves, he had seen WNMHGB in a special screening for writers wishing to pitch. His first treatment of City is dated March 21, 1966; his second revised treatment, May 13, 1966, and his First Draft script was dated June 3, 1966. So, the show had not premiered. A photo of he, Shatner and Nimoy shows them standing on the miners' hut set from "Mudd's Women," so he visted the set whenever that show was being filmed.

After DC Comics announced Batman '66: The Lost Story, an adaptation of an unsold Ellison outline for the Adam West Batman series, I began to muse on an alternate history where Ellison sold "The Two-Way Crimes of Two-Face" to Batman. How would the writing of that script gone? Could it have dragged out and become as difficult as the writing of "City"? Is it possible that Ellison would've been too busy because of Batman to pitch to Roddenberry? Would the world have been spared the stupid Roddenberry/Ellison feud? One script, and we could be living in a world with "City on the Edge of Forever."

Think on that.

 

[Therin of Andor]

After DC Comics announced Batman '66: The Lost Story, an adaptation of an unsold Ellison outline for the Adam West Batman series...

Excellent news! Thanks!

 

[xavier]

I might pick up this comic, the art work is magnificent.

 

[Steve Roby]

Looks like I forgot to add this to my pull list at the comic shop, so I'll get the paperback (I always do, anyway). If Woodward's art is the same style as in the Trek/Who crossover I'll be less than thrilled. As for the story, it'll be interesting to see how close it is to the original draft that's been published in book form at least three times now. TBH, I always thought DC Fontana's changes improved the story. But seeing a visual take on it may help.

 

[JD]

I've only read the previews for Assimilation2 and CotEoF, but they do appear to have the same art style.