DC Comics's Star Trek Overview: Part 1: Star Trek (1984-1988)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm back for part 2 in my multi-part overview of DC Comics's Star Trek series from 1984 until 1996. Today I'm going to be discussing the first series that ran from 1984 until 1988. I'm just focusing on the main series for this part, and will be discussing the Annuals next time. So let's get into it.

In the wake of the financial and critical success of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982, the comic book license shifted from Marvel Comics to DC Comics. Though despite it's success, The Wrath of Khan wouldn't get a comic book adaptation until 2009, making it the only Star Trek TOS movie to not get a comic book adaptation during DC's time with the comic book license. Despite that though, Paramount Pictures commissioned DC Comics to publish a monthly comic book series set after The Wrath of Khan but before the next movie, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock which was due to come out in June of 1984. The first issue of the series was published in February of that year, only four months before the movie came out.

The first issue sees Admiral Kirk being given command of the Enterprise in the wake of Captain Spock's death at the end of Star Trek II. The rest of the crew, including Lieutenant Saavik, who everyone seems to have forgotten was actually still a cadet at Starfleet Academy, stay onboard, despite the fact that Sulu was about to take command of the Excelsior, according to the novelizations of Star Trek II and Star Trek III, and Chekov wasn't actually assigned to the Enterprise anymore even though the ship he WAS assigned to, the USS Reliant, having been destroyed in the movie. I have this issue in my collection and it's quite good. 

The series also introduced some new characters in Ensign Bearclaw, Ensign Bryce, Ensign Sherwood, and Lieutenant Konom, a Klingon who joined Starfleet, who was created only three years before Lieutenant Worf would be created for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994). The artwork for this series is a bit wonky in that the starship bridges look much larger than they usually do and most of the time resemble generic spaceship command centers, rather than the starship bridges of Star Trek.

The first issue I ever got from this series was issue #4, which is the final issue in the first story arc, which has the Excalbians, from the TOS season 3 episode, "The Savage Curtain", manipulating both the Federation and the Klingon Empire to start a war with each other in order to entertain the Excalbians for their research. Kirk, along with Captain Koloth and Lieutenant Konom, defeats them yet again.

The series only lasted eight issues before it ran into The Search for Spock where Saavik is no longer on the Enterprise, the ship still isn't fully repaired following the events of Star Trek II, most of the ship's crew, who were all trainees from Starfleet Academy, having been reassigned, and Kirk still being an admiral. DC Comics did a comic book adaptation of Star Trek III, which I'll be covering in another part, and starting with issue #9, the ongoing monthly series became set after the events of that movie. Also beginning with issue #9, the series began a new story arc, called "New Frontiers", not to be confused with the Pocket Books novel series, Star Trek: New Frontier that began publication in the late '90s. This arc took Kirk and the crew from Vulcan, where a resurrected Spock was recovering after the events of the movie, into the Mirror Universe, after first hijacking the ISS Enterprise from their Mirror Universe counterparts, and then hijacking the Excelsior from them. At the end of the arc, Kirk is given command of the Excelsior, though he retains the rank of admiral, and Spock is given command of the USS Surak, a science vessel.

Starting with issue #17, the series focuses on Kirk and his crew's adventures on the Excelsior. These stories are told in issue #17 to issue #33. However, the series ran into a problem, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was due to come out in late 1986 and it was set three months after Star Trek III, and despite the comics being out of continuity with the TV show and movies, they weren't allowed to contradict any events shown in the TV show and movies. Luckily series writer, Len Wein, had a plan.

Issues #34 to #36 contain an arc that would restore the crew's status quo to where it would line up with where they are at the beginning of Star Trek IV. After an attack on the Surak leaves it's crew dead and Spock's mind in turmoil, and the crew of the Excelsior prevents a war with the Romulans, Kirk, Saavik, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Scotty, and Chekov take Spock back to Vulcan in the Klingon Bird-of-Prey they'd captured following the destruction of the Enterprise in Star Trek III, which they had conveniently stored in the shuttlebay of the Excelsior, leaving the ship for Captain Styles to reclaim and take back to Earth.

Issue #37 sees a newly demoted Captain Kirk assume command of the new USS Enterprise NCC-1701-A, with his crew back at their posts as if they'd never left it. After a religious zealot attempts to destroy the ship, the series just keeps going forward with new adventures. Some issues take place during the five year mission depicted in the original TV series, but for the most part the remainder of the comic book series takes place between Star Trek IV and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Though it still had some surprises in store for the readers.

From issue #48 to #55, the final story arc of the series was published. The arc was called "Who Killed Captain Kirk?" and it was written by Star Trek novelist and legendary comic book writer, Peter David. This arc has the crew investigating the attempted murder of Kirk and leads to Ensign Bearclaw being arrested. The artwork for this end of the series is much improved, particularly when it comes to the sets. The bridge, corridors, Sickbay, and Engineering all look more screen accurate than they did in the first several issues of the comic. 

Issue #56 was the final issue and the story takes place during the time of the TV series. When the issue was published in November 1988, DC was retooling it's Star Trek line to include Star Trek: The Next Generation and to get rid of original characters like Konom, Bryce, Sherwood and Bearclaw, as well as Lieutenants Arex and M'Ress, characters from Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974) who appeared in the series starting with issue #37. 

In the late '80s and early '90s, DC Comics still weren't putting out collected editions for their books as often as they do now. Normally that was reserved for important storylines like Superman: The Man of Steel, and Batman: Year One, and series such as Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. But in 1991 they published The Best of Star Trek, which collected several issues from both of their series based on Star Trek. For this series the book collected issue #'s 5, 24, and 25, as well as Annual #'s 2 and 3. I bought this book for my collection when I found it at one of the monthly Ottawa Comic and Card Show events a few years ago.

In 1992 DC published Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga, which collected "New Frontiers" from issues #9-#16. I have this book in my collection and I got it in January 1993 as a gift from the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation when I visited the set. This book was my first exposure to the earlier DC Comics Star Trek comic book series.

Then in 1993 DC published Star Trek: Who Killed Captain Kirk?, which collected the "Who Killed Captain Kirk?" storyline from issues #48-#55. I've never found this volume but hope to at some point as I'm interested to read some of these later issues. 

Also by the time the series was canceled to be retooled, DC had already published a six issue mini-series based on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I'll be talking about that mini-series at another time.

This series was interesting in that it had so much more leeway in the creation of characters that never appeared on the TV show or in any of the movies. Particularly since they created the first Klingon to join Starfleet, only three years before Gene Roddenberry would do the same thing with Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Robert Justman was the one who proposed to Roddenberry the idea of a Klingon marine being a member of the Enterprise crew during development of TNG, but I don't know if he came up with the idea on his own or if he actually read the DC Comics Star Trek series, which Konom was still a pretty major presence in in early 1987 when TNG's cast of characters were being created.

That's it for this part folks. Next week I'll be talking about the three annuals that came out for this series, so that's going to be a much shorter post. In the meantime I have part three of my Disney Sing-Along Songs retrospective coming out tomorrow and then I'll be back next week with plenty more blog posts. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.