Funny, odd, amazing things in the ST Comics

[Christopher]

Not quite an illusion. They never explained exactly how the Klingon thought-enhancer works, but Dracula was real enough to murder the Regulun ambassador and to register as a solid, living being on the tricorder.

Interestingly, Kirk and Spock both refer to the Dracula legend, indicating that in the Star Trek universe, Dracula originated from folklore instead of a novel.

Yes, but that's what I meant -- that Dracula was treated in the story as a fictional character brought to life through technology, so it wasn't the real Marvel Dracula appearing in the story (though IIRC, the dialogue allows room for the possibility that he really existed in the past). "Illusion" doesn't specifically mean something intangible, it means something deceptive and unreal, something that isn't genuinely what it appears to be.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Interestingly, the theatre across the street seems to be showing The Black Hole. I was basically aware that both were "70s movies", but I had no idea both were in theatres at the same time. Sure enough, I checked Wikipedia, and both were released in December of 1979. (So *barely* 70s movies! )

Although, it looks like TMP came out on December 7, and The Black Hole didn't come out until December 21. Was TMP really popular enough in real life that it would be lined up "around the block" a full two weeks (or possibly longer) after its release?

In Sydney, TMP ran from December 20 until Easter. Only one city cinema - until the Easter school holidays when it moved out to the suburbs.

If "The Black Hole" was having a gala preview in NYC...?

 

[Smiley]

I have started to read some of the Gold Key comics, and they are better than their reputation led me to believe. A couple issues have been very solid Star Trek stories. It's a shame that the #1 issue had total annihilation of the antagonist as the chosen solution.

 

[NCC-73515]

I have started to read some of the Gold Key comics, and they are better than their reputation led me to believe. A couple issues have been very solid Star Trek stories. It's a shame that the #1 issue had total annihilation of the antagonist as the chosen solution.

My favorites so far are #32 and 43, but almost all of them have a very creative core plot

 

[Therin of Andor]

The Sensational She-Hulk is making a feature film at Major Motion Pictures. Crashing through a wall, she interrupts William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton making a crossover Star Trek movie!


"The Sensational She-Hulk" #12 by Ian McLean, on Flickr

 

[Therin of Andor]

Lieutenant Naraht the Horta by Ian McLean, on Flickr

I loved when Naraht the Horta (with his Starfleet voder) turned up the DC Trek comics, but those rectangular "eyes" when he sat in the command chair?

 

[Christopher]

The Sensational She-Hulk is making a feature film at Major Motion Pictures. Crashing through a wall, she interrupts William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton making a crossover Star Trek movie!


"The Sensational She-Hulk" #12 by Ian McLean, on Flickr

In a story written by Peter David. However, that's one of those non-John Byrne issues that Byrne effectively erased from continuity when he was rehired and picked up the storyline approximately where he'd left off, implying that everything since his departure had all been a dream. Gee, that feels familiar.

 

[dupersuper]

I have started to read some of the Gold Key comics, and they are better than their reputation led me to believe. A couple issues have been very solid Star Trek stories. It's a shame that the #1 issue had total annihilation of the antagonist as the chosen solution.

I just mentally change that to them leaving a warning buoy behind.

 

[NCC-73515]

Discovery predicted by 70s comics!

 

[NCC-73515]

Also: Doug Drexler!

 

[Extrocomp]

I just mentally change that to them leaving a warning buoy behind.

A warning buoy would not have worked. Planet Kelly Green was ejecting spores into space that mutate all lifeforms they come in contact with into killer plants, potentially destroying the civilizations of many other planets. The only peaceful solution I can think of is to set up a force field around the entire planet to prevent any spores from escaping.

 

[Therin of Andor]

M'Ress in "Passage to Moauv" by Ian McLean, on Flickr

M'Ress the Caitian had to be redrawn for the Power Records comic because ownership of her image was in flux, having been created for the Filmation animated "Star Trek" TV series. She looks more like Marta the Orion from "Whom Gods Destroy" (TOS).


Edoan Elisiar instrument in "The Crier in Emptiness" by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Similarly, Lieutenant Arex (of TAS) had to be redrawn as a human (and renamed Connors) for another Power Records comic. Arex's "Edoan elisiar" was allowed to stay. Connors often has an awkward stance throughout the story, indicating that an extra arm and leg have been erased at short notice. Extra digits have been added to his hands and even the shoulders have been widened. (Connors' name also overlaps the speech balloon border at times. A "paste-up" over the shorter word "Arex"?)

So how does Mr Connors play an Edosian elisiar with a total of only four limbs, anyway?


M'Ress dismissed by Ian McLean, on Flickr

An promotional b/w page from "Amazing Heroes" magazine #170 (Aug 1989, page 99). By the time DC Comics' "Star Trek" Series II, issue #1 was actually published, M'Ress the Caitian had been redrawn as M'yra the antelope woman, named for Peter David's then-wife, Myra. (And for the first issue to feature Arex, who was moving across to Security for the new comic, he had been replaced by skinny, blue Ensign Fouton.)


M'yra replaces M'Ress in Issue #1 by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Mego "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" action figures advertisement, Marvel Star Trek comic, 1980.


Mego TMP action figures ad by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Note that the Rigellian figure was actually a Saurian. (I almost got to visit "Heroes World" in Michigan in 1984, during a trip to visit my penpal, but we phoned ahead and they had nothing "Star Trek" in stock.)

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I almost got to visit "Heroes World" in Michigan in 1984, during a trip to visit my penpal, but we phoned ahead and they had nothing "Star Trek" in stock.

Heroes World! In 1994, Marvel would buy them and turn them into their exclusive comics distributor, and that collapsed spectacularly by 1997.

 

[Extrocomp]

Amazing Spider-Man and ST:TMP by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Peter Parker and friends attend a screening of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" ("Amazing Spider-Man" #203, April 1980).


Amazing Spider-Man and ST:TMP, part 2 by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Amazing Spider-Man and ST:TMP, part 3 by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Not only is Star Trek fictional in the Marvel Universe, but Marvel is fictional in the Star Trek universe. In Starfleet Academy #2, Decker returns to his quarters and is shocked to find Nog reading his Captain America and X-Men comics after taking them out of their hermetically sealed cases. You can clearly see the cover of X-Men #1 (1963). Later in the story, Nog apologizes to Decker by giving a copy of Marvel Comics #1 (1939) in mint condition. Turns out he swiped it as a souvenir during the events of Little Green Men.

Marvel Comics apparently doesn't see any problem with Marvel and Star Trek being fictional in each other's universes but also able to crossover with each other.

 

[Christopher]

Later in the story, Nog apologizes to Decker by giving a copy of Marvel Comics #1 (1939) in mint condition. Turns out he swiped it as a souvenir during the events of Little Green Men.

How the heck could there be a nearly mint-condition copy of a 1939 comic (though Decker erroneously says early '40s) on a military base in 1947? Even assuming that there were comics collectors back then, anyone who cared enough about a comic to keep it preserved in near-mint condition for nearly eight years would probably have it stored away somewhere secure, not just sitting out on a table where Nog could swipe it while passing by. (I mean, they didn't have plastic bags then, so how would they even preserve a comic book?)

I suspect there was a disconnect between the script and the art. The dialogue suggests it was meant to be a current 1947 comic that someone just happened to be reading, but the artist chose a '39 comic instead.

Marvel Comics apparently doesn't see any problem with Marvel and Star Trek being fictional in each other's universes but also able to crossover with each other.

Batman and The Green Hornet did the same thing in the '60s. Although Marvel Dracula showing up in Star Trek #4-5 was just an implied crossover, not an explicit one. And the later Star Trek/X-Men crossover explicitly established them as existing in alternate universes, though the later TNG/X-Men comics crossover more or less treated them as part of the same timeline.

 

[Extrocomp]

And the later Star Trek/X-Men crossover explicitly established them as existing in alternate universes, though the later TNG/X-Men comics crossover more or less treated them as part of the same timeline.

It's the other way around. Star Trek/X-Men implied that Star Trek might be a possible future of the X-Men timeline, with Spock recognizing the term Homo sapiens superior. It was the TNG/X-Men comic and novel that clearly established that Star Trek and Marvel are separate universes.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Although Marvel Dracula showing up in Star Trek #4-5 was just an implied crossover, not an explicit one. And the later Star Trek/X-Men crossover explicitly established them as existing in alternate universes, though the later TNG/X-Men comics crossover more or less treated them as part of the same timeline.

As an aside, I suggested to the people at Diamond Select Toys, back in 2008, that they could do Star Trek/X-Men Minimates. Two blister packs of five, one for each of the comics crossovers. My ideas never went anywhere.

 

[Christopher]

It's the other way around. Star Trek/X-Men implied that Star Trek might be a possible future of the X-Men timeline, with Spock recognizing the term Homo sapiens superior. It was the TNG/X-Men comic and novel that clearly established that Star Trek and Marvel are separate universes.

Nope, I just double-checked the issues on my shelf. Star Trek/X-Men begins with the Enterprise encountering a spatial rift through which the X-Men and the Imperial Guard emerge. On the splash page featuring Deathbird (p. 22, if I count right), she says she wants to possess the psionic rift, "a power source situated on the cusp of our universe and one other." Two pages later, Beast says "We don't know if this psionic rift started in our universe or your own." Four pages after that, the merged Proteus/Mitchell says the rift is "a doorway between our reality and one other." And so on. Plus the Enterprise crew has no knowledge of mutants, the X-Men, the Shi'ar, or anything that would be common knowledge to residents of the Marvel Universe. Yes, it asserts that the Homo sapiens superior designation exists in both universes, but it couldn't be more explicit that they are separate universes.

Conversely, TNG/X-Men: Second Contact is a little more vague about the relationship between the universes. It does eventually establish that they're in an alternate 1990s, but on page 4, Riker recognizes the technology they detect in Westchester as "Shi'ar-derived," as if he's familiar with the species. I guess it could be in Starfleet databases after the first crossover, but then that would already tell them they were in an alternate past, and they don't actually figure that out for another 12 pages.

 

[Extrocomp]

Nope, I just double-checked the issues on my shelf. Star Trek/X-Men begins with the Enterprise encountering a spatial rift through which the X-Men and the Imperial Guard emerge. On the splash page featuring Deathbird (p. 22, if I count right), she says she wants to possess the psionic rift, "a power source situated on the cusp of our universe and one other." Two pages later, Beast says "We don't know if this psionic rift started in our universe or your own." Four pages after that, the merged Proteus/Mitchell says the rift is "a doorway between our reality and one other." And so on. Plus the Enterprise crew has no knowledge of mutants, the X-Men, the Shi'ar, or anything that would be common knowledge to residents of the Marvel Universe. Yes, it asserts that the Homo sapiens superior designation exists in both universes, but it couldn't be more explicit that they are separate universes.

Conversely, TNG/X-Men: Second Contact is a little more vague about the relationship between the universes. It does eventually establish that they're in an alternate 1990s, but on page 4, Riker recognizes the technology they detect in Westchester as "Shi'ar-derived," as if he's familiar with the species. I guess it could be in Starfleet databases after the first crossover, but then that would already tell them they were in an alternate past, and they don't actually figure that out for another 12 pages.

In Star Trek/X-Men there is this dialogue exchange:

BEAST: Deathbird's sojourn notwithstanding, we don't know if this psionic rift started in our universe or yours.
SPOCK: That assumes we actually come from two different universes, Dr. McCoy.

And this one:

CYCLOPS: Captain Kirk, the X-Men have had more than a little experience with alternative futures. However, none of them have offered the hope that you and your crew have presented to us. I just wanted you to know it's encouraging to believe that both humans and mutants have a future worth fighting for.
KIRK: I feel safe in saying that you and the sacrifices you people have made are a good part of the reason that we've made it this far as a race.

Like you said, the Shi'ar would've been in the Starfleet database after the previous crossover. The presence of Shi'ar technology on Earth doesn't prove they're in an alternate universe. There have been alien visitations to Earth before the official first contact. It just indicates that there's alien technology on Earth for some unknown reason. It's only the fact that there's no Eugenics Wars that proves it's a alternate timeline.

 

[Christopher]

In Star Trek/X-Men there is this dialogue exchange:

BEAST: Deathbird's sojourn notwithstanding, we don't know if this psionic rift started in our universe or yours.
SPOCK: That assumes we actually come from two different universes, Dr. McCoy.

That just means Spock is thinking like a scientist and remaining skeptical until he has more evidence one way or the other. He's not saying Beast is certainly wrong, he's saying it remains to be seen if it's right or not. And the preponderance of evidence is that Beast is indeed correct.

And this one:

CYCLOPS: Captain Kirk, the X-Men have had more than a little experience with alternative futures. However, none of them have offered the hope that you and your crew have presented to us. I just wanted you to know it's encouraging to believe that both humans and mutants have a future worth fighting for.
KIRK: I feel safe in saying that you and the sacrifices you people have made are a good part of the reason that we've made it this far as a race.

Cyclops overtly calls it an alternative future, so I have no idea why you think this somehow proves they aren't in alternate universes.

Like you said, the Shi'ar would've been in the Starfleet database after the previous crossover. The presence of Shi'ar technology on Earth doesn't prove they're in an alternate universe.

Except that, despite your inexplicable need to deny it, the first comic established unambiguously that the Shi'ar were from an alternate universe. I re-read the damn thing this morning -- you will never convince me I didn't read the words I read and quoted verbatim. Let's just drop this whole silly argument.