DC Comics's Star Trek Overview Part 11: Mini-series and One-Shots (1987-1996) (Finale)

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm pretty good. It's Wednesday, which means it's the final time I'll be writing about Star Trek comics published by DC Comics. When I began this series back in August I didn't know how often I would write these posts, how in depth they would be or if I would just stick to the four main series and their annuals and specials given that's what I'm most familiar with. But now, 11 weeks later, I'm wrapping it up because I've talked about the entire line except for these last few series that cover both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, one last time, let's get into it.

First up is Who's Who in Star Trek, which was a two issue mini-series that was published in 1987. It's basically an encyclopedia of every character in TOS, including the first DC comic book series that started in 1984. DC had done a series like this for the DC Universe, which celebrated the publisher's 50th anniversary in 1987. The first issue goes from A to Mc. I never had this issue.

I did have the second issue though. I got it as a birthday or Christmas present from my sister one year. This is the issue where I began to really understand just how big the early series was. At this point I'd only read Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga which collected issues 9-16 of the 1984 series and then issue #4, so I hadn't read any of the crew's missions on the Excelsior or the Enterprise-A from that series yet. This was in like 2005 or 2006, sometime either as I was still in high school or had already finished high school. 

Next up is Star Trek: The Modala Imperative, a four issue mini-series that DC published in July 1991. I've never read this mini-series, but according to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, the story has the Enterprise visiting a planet that Kirk visited when he was a younger officer, around the time that Captain Pike was in command of the Enterprise. It also tells how this mission was Chekov's first landing party, though according to Memory Alpha, the story's stardate places it concurrent with "The Menagerie Part I", which is before "Space Seed". But again, this is a comic book series so it's not canon with what we know of TOS lore, with Chekov having not joined the crew yet, or at the very least not having any association with the senior officers of the ship. 

Two months later, DC began publishing the sequel series, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Modala Imperative, which has Spock and McCoy returning to Modala on the Enterprise-D at a time when Modala was fighting for independence. That's all I know from the short blurb on the Memory Alpha page for the first issue. For some reason I never got either of these mini-series, and I've never actually seen them out in the wild. At least, not the trade paperback or all of the single issues together. I think I found the first issue of the TOS series at a comic book sale once, but I didn't grab it.

Next up is Star Trek: Debt of Honor, which was published in 1992. It was a trade paperback sized one-shot graphic novel that took place between Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). I already did a Comic Book Longbox post on this book months ago, so I won't go too indepth on this book here. I had two copies growing up. The first my dad bought for me, and the second I got as a gift from the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation when my parents and I visited the set in January 1993. This book was my introduction to the work of legendary comic book writer, Chris Claremont as I wouldn't read any X-Men comics until I was an adult, and Claremont didn't work on any of the Batman comics I had when I was a kid. 

Next was a four issue crossover mini-series between Star Trek: The Next Generation published by DC Comics, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a comic book series based on the third live action Star Trek TV series and published by Malibu Comics. Each publisher put out two issues with parts 1 and 4 published by DC and parts 2 and 3 published by Malibu.

I actually had part 4, which was the second issue published by DC when I was a kid. Despite it being the final part of a four issue mini-series I wasn't lost with what was going on. Being that, up to this point, the crossover mini-series was published from 1994 to 1995, I'd only been allowed to watch "Emissary", the pilot episode of DS9, I wasn't familiar with the characters, aside from Chief O'Brien since he'd been a character on TNG for the first five and a half seasons. It was a decent story though. While I'd gotten rid of my original copy before we moved in 2016, I picked up another copy at a comic book store that Brad and I went to the weekend right before we first into lockdown back in 2020.

Next was another four issue mini-series called Star Trek: The Next Generation: Shadowheart. I vaguely remember my dad having the first issue when I was eight or nine, but I never saw it again after the day he brought it home so I don't even know if he actually kept it or not. I just remember seeing the cover and holding the issue in my hands, as well as seeing the ad for it in one of my issues of the TNG ongoing monthly series. This was a Worf centered story that had to do with Klingons, Worf's adoptive brother, Nikolai Rozhenko, and his biological brother, Kurn. Because this mini-series started around the time that Star Trek Generations (1994) had come out in theatres, we'd already met Nikolai in the season 7 episode, "Homeward", which this mini-series takes place before. It wasn't like with the Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy YA series, where Worf's adoptive brother was named Simon.

And finally we have Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ill Wind, the last TNG four issue mini-series. Unlike the crossover with the DS9 comic and Shadowheart, I don't remember seeing Ill Wind advertised in my Star Trek comics. I think that's just because by the time it was coming out, I wasn't getting either series anymore. I also wasn't going to comic book stores yet so I never saw the issues on the racks. In fact, I haven't even seen this mini-series in back issue bins of the comic book stores that I have been to. So I'd be interested to find the mini-series as there's no collected edition for it as DC was just starting to do collected editions for their mainline story arcs, such as Batman: Contagion and Superman and Lois Lane's wedding by the time this mini-series ended in 1996. 

Not long after this mini-series ended, both the TOS and TNG monthlies ended and the comic book license for Star Trek transferred from DC and Malibu back to Marvel Comics, where it had gone when Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in 1979. It would only be there until 1998 due to dwindling sales with the overflow of Star Trek comics coming out from the company. At least, according to Memory Alpha, that's the story everyone believes. 

Personally I think it's because by the late '90s Star Trek just wasn't as popular as it had been in the '80s and into the mid-'90s when TNG ended. The ratings for Star Trek: Voyager (1995-2001) had been in a slow decline on UPN since the first season, hence why Seven of Nine, played by the wonderful Jeri Ryan, was introduced in season 4, and box office numbers were down for Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), despite that movie being directed by Jonathan Frakes, who had also directed Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and had been written by Michael Piller, the man who was responsible for TNG's success in the early '90s. Plus Playmates Toys's line of Star Trek toys had dropped as well, with them not even being sold in Canada. Aside from a couple of issues of Star Trek: Voyager, I didn't know much about the Marvel Comics line of Star Trek comics since I wasn't getting Star Trek: Communicator magazine yet, and I never saw them at the hospital gift shop the way I had the DC comics line. I also didn't have friends who were comic book readers in the late '90s the way I did in high school, college, and now, as an adult. Plus Marvel wasn't exactly everywhere the way it has been in the 2000s and the 2010s with the MCU and the Fox, Sony, and Universal Marvel movies.

And that is it my friends, the end of our journey through the DC Comics Star Trek comic book line that ran from 1984 until 1996. While 12 years is a long time, it's now been surpassed by IDW's comic book line which started in 2007, eleven years after DC's line ended.

I hope you all enjoyed this lengthy, indepth series. I had so much fun writing these posts. These are the comics that got me into comics when I was a kid and even now, thirty years after my dad first picked up Star Trek #31 and Star Trek: The Next Generation #31 at the local hobby store that he still goes to today, though it's in a different location than it was thirty years ago, the DC Comics Star Trek comics line is still my favourite comic book line of all time, even above the regular DC Universe series that I've read over the years. And I wanted to share that love with you in the hopes that you have as fond memories of this run as I do. I also wanted to share it with you in the hopes that if you haven't read these comics before you have been inspired to do so. 

That's gonna be it for me for now. But I'll be back soon with more blog stuff. Until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.