DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 3: Star Trek Adaptations (1984-1995)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing okay. I'm back with this week's segment of my DC Comics's Star Trek Overview series. Today we're looking at the various comic book adaptations of movies, TV episodes, and novels. Originally I was just talk about the comic book adaptations of the movies that DC did from 1984 to 1994, but there's also an adaptation of "All Good Things...", the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation and an adaptation of the 1995 novel by William Shatner and Garfield & Judith Reeves-Stevens, The Ashes of Eden, so I decided to talk about those too. Let's get into it.

While Marvel Comics had begun it's Star Trek run with an adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) in 1980, for some reason, neither Marvel nor DC ended up publishing an adaptation of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). In fact, the movie would remain un-adapted as a comic book until IDW did one in 2009 prior to Star Trek (2009) being released. However, DC Comics would publish a comic book adaptation of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) between issue #8 and issue #9 of the monthly series, which I covered in part 1 of this overview. Like the novelization that Pocket Books put out around this same time, the comic book adaptation added things that weren't in the movie and removed things that were in the movie. I'm not quite sure what because I've never owned a copy of this adaptation. I'm hoping to someday, but it's not one I see at comic book sales or conventions, so I may be out of luck on that one.

The same thing goes for the comic book adaptation of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). Published by DC in 1986, this adaptation probably follows the movie closely enough, though like most single issue comic book adaptations of movies, it's a condensed version of the movie. Which I know because of my experience with other comic book adaptations of movies published by DC, such as Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), and Batman & Robin (1997).

Next is the comic book adaptation of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Unfortunately, like the previous two I talked about, I've never read this issue because I've never been able to find it at conventions or comic book sales. But just from the cover I know that Peter David wrote this adaptation, which is pretty cool given how big Peter David was becoming with his run on Action Comics in 1988, his eventual runs on Aquaman (1994-1998) and Young Justice (1998-2003) as well as his work for Marvel Comics. I also enjoy the Star Trek novels he's written like Q-in-Law (1991), Imzadi (1993), and Q-Squared (1994).

Unlike the other ones I do have the comic book adaptation of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). It's basically a truncated version of the movie, with no deleted scenes or earlier versions of scenes being included. I got it at a comic book sale a few years ago now. The artwork is by Gordon Purcell and Arne Starr, the same people who did the art for the 1989 Star Trek monthly comic book series, and of course, Peter David wrote the comic. 

So this next one is interesting as it's the only comic book adaptation of an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things...". However, what actually makes it interesting is that I'm pretty sure that my dad has it packed away somewhere because I remember reading it about 27 or 28 years ago when we lived in the log house out in the country. But, again that was almost three decades ago and I actually haven't seen it since then. Michael Jan Friedman, who was the main writer on the Star Trek: The Next Generation monthly series, wrote this issue, and Jay Scott Pike and Jose Marzan Jr., who are some of the artists on the monthly series around this time, which was in 1994, did the art for this issue. Aside from a pin-up page of her facing Armus, the being who killed her in the season 1 episode, "Skin of Evil", in Star Trek: The Next Generation Special #1, this is the only TNG comic from the monthly series that Tasha Yar appears in.

Next is the comic book adaptation of Star Trek Generations (1994), which also came out in 1994. Once again, Friedman is the writer and Purcell is also on this book as one of the artists, this time paired up with Jerome Moore and Terry Pallot. I have this issue in my collection currently, and unlike the earlier comic book adaptations, this includes scenes that were taken out of the final version of the film. The original opening scene of Kirk parachuting and talking to Scotty and Chekov about accepting the invitation to join the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-B on it's maiden voyage/shakedown cruise is the first one. It's probably a bit shorter than the deleted scene on the DVD, being a comic book. The second is after Harriman, Scotty, and Chekov go to deflector control and see the massive hull breach in the section that Kirk had been working at and they have Sulu's daughter, Ensign Demora Sulu, scan the area for Kirk's whereabouts before they declare him dead and inform Starfleet Command of the loss. The third is something that's covered in one of Picard's captain's logs, where Doctor Crusher examines Data and tells Riker and Worf that the emotion chip has been fused into his circuitry and that he feels guilty that Geordi got kidnapped by Soran.

  And finally we have the comic book adaptation of the novel, Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner and Garfield & Judith Reeves-Stevens. They wrote the comic as well, which makes sense as I think the comic came out around the same time as the novel did. Which is interesting because unlike Dark Horse Comics which did a few comic book adaptations of Star Wars novels, this is the only time that any comic book publisher has done this with Star Trek novels. Especially at the same time as when the novel was published. I've never owned this one, but I do remember seeing an ad for it in one of my later issues of DC's Star Trek (1984-1996). The artists on this volume were Steve Erwin and Jimmy Palmiotti, who is married to Amanda Conner who is known for doing the cover art on issues #65 and #66 of Batgirl (2000-2006), and the writer of Birds of Prey issues #47-49 from 2002 to 2003, and most of the ongoing Harley Quinn books from 2014 onwards. So that's cool.

And that my friends is it for me for today. Next time I'll be covering the six issue mini-series that launched the Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book line at DC Comics in 1988 and had some...interesting results. So until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.