Marvel's Star Trek Overview Part 2: Star Trek: Voyager (1996-1998)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's hot outside today, but it's September, so the cold is coming. Today I'm back for the second part in my Marvel's Star Trek overview series. In this part we'll be talking about the comic book based on the fourth live action Star Trek TV show, Star Trek: Voyager. This is the only '90s Marvel Star Trek comic that I read when I was growing up and I only ever had two issues of it. So let's get into it.

With a cover date of November 1996, Star Trek: Voyager #1 was released on September 25th, 1996. I've never read this issue, all I know about it is that it's the first part of a three part story involving a group of Talaxians that the Voyager crew are trying to rescue from a weird ion storm that trapped both ships.

Issue #2 was actually the second issue I got when I was a kid. And I actually didn't get it right after it came out. Instead I got it as a birthday or Christmas present in 2002 or 2003, so I was actually in high school when I got this issue. What's weird to me is that these Talaxians were hired by the Trabe to capture Voyager. The Trabe was a race that had originally enslaved the Kazon (the big bad of season 2 of Voyager) and when the Kazon rebelled, the Trabe lost their homeworld and a vast majority of their space fleet. In the TV show, the Trabe only showed up once in the season 2 episode, "Alliances", where after being under attack by the Kazon for several weeks, resulting in severe damage to Voyager and some casualties, Captain Janeway attempted to make peace with them, but ended up in an alliance with the Trabe instead, which also went south pretty quickly.

According to Memory Alpha, in an interview that Voyager comic book writer, Laurie S. Sutton said in an interview published in issue #9 of The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine which was published in 1996, that she'd originally planned to use the Kazon and have them take over Voyager, but, being that comic book issues are written about a year or so before the issue is due to come out, she started writing these first three issues while the Voyager production staff were writing the script for the season 2 finale, "Basics", which had Voyager being captured by the Kazon, so Paramount informed Sutton that her story would conflict with the season finale and so she changed the big bads from the Kazon to the Trabe, because they're the only other bad guys Voyager had encountered in the Delta Quadrant up to that point who wanted to take the ship, being that the Vidiians just wanted to harvest the crew's organs to replace their own to combat the Phage. Which I'll get into when I actually review Voyager at some point later on. 

I discovered the series when I got issue #13 for either a Valentine's Day or an Easter present in early 1998 since I couldn't have chocolate at the time since I was being completely tubefed at the time. I know it wasn't a birthday or Christmas present. This issue was part of a story arc that ran through the four comic book series that entirely took place in the 24th Century or included issues that took place in the 24th Century, which was all of them, with the exception of Early Voyages. 

The artwork in this series is weird. The first eight issues, as well as issues 10-12, were done by Jesus Redondo, and issue #9, and #'s 13-15 were done by Terry Pallot. As you can see from the cover of the first issue, Redondo's artwork is a bit more cartoony and all of the characters look angry, even if they aren't supposed to be. Pallot's art style is more realistic looking. I'll give you two examples.

The picture above is Jesus Redondo's artwork from issue #2. As you can see, it's much more cartoony than Terry Pallot's artwork, which you can see in the picture below it. Pallot's character designs for the show's main characters are much closer to the actual actors and actresses on the show than Redondo's character designs do

The series was canceled after issue #15, though there would be a mini-series called Splashdown that came out between April and July of 1998. I've only ever owned and read the two issues I mentioned before so I don't have that much actual experience with this series. 

Originally the Star Trek: Voyager comic was going to be published by Malibu Comics, which had been publishing the Deep Space Nine series since 1993. However, just as things were being finalized for Malibu to do the comic, Marvel bought the publisher, and Paramount had transferred the license from Malibu and DC, who had done the TOS and TNG comics up to that point, to Marvel, creating the Paramount Comics imprint.

1996-1998 was a very interesting time for Marvel as not only was the company on the verge of bankruptcy but Star Trek wasn't the only IP Marvel had the comic book license for during this time. They'd just lost the Disney license, and had wrapped up the comic book series based on Gargoyles they'd been doing, and they'd also been publishing two comic book series based on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. One called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the other called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Ninja Rangers. And of course Marvel had had everything from Star Wars to Transformers in the '80s. 

Overall, the Voyager comic is an interesting read if you can get your hands on it. Aside from the Eaglemoss hardcover collected editions, the Voyager series was never collected. There aren't even any trade paperback collections from IDW. So they can be pretty difficult to find. I've never even found any beyond the two I got when I was a teenager in long boxes at sales or even the back issue bins at comic book stores. But, if you do find some, definitely pick them up. 

That's it for this part of the overview. Next week I'll be diving into Star Trek Unlimited, a series that tells stories from TOS and TNG since neither series had their own Marvel Comics series this time around. It's also a series that I've never read before. So it's probably gonna be a shorter post than this one ended up being. Don't worry though I have other posts coming up before Ottawa Comiccon this weekend. So until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.