Marvel's Star Trek Overview Part 6: Star Trek: Early Voyages (1997-1998)

 Hey everyone, I'm back with the next installment of my Marvel Comics Star Trek overview series. Today I'm talking about Star Trek: Early Voyages, which focuses on the adventures of the crew of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. I'm actually going to have alot to say in this post because I have four issues of the series in my collection, and I want to talk about the possibility that elements of this comic book series made their way into Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is pretty much the TV show version of this comic book series. So, let's get into it.

The first issue came out in February 1997. It shows Pike and the crew on a mission, and also flashes back to when Pike took command, to when Spock first came onboard and when Number One, known as Commander Robbins, rather than Una Chin-Riley, here, first came onboard as First Officer. I won't go into too much detail here because I want to do a full review of this issue when I have the chance. I did a review of it on The Review Basement blog more than three years ago, but I haven't discussed the issue on here. The series was written by Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton with Patrick Zircher and Greg Adams on art.

One of the things that I like about this series is that it starts before the events of "The Cage". For example, in issue #3, the series tells the story of what happened on Rigel VII, which takes place right before "The Cage", and issue #4 deals with the arrival of Yeoman Colt and the immediate aftermath of Rigel VII. 

I also really love the artwork in this series too. It doesn't feel as cartoony as the artwork for alot of earlier Star Trek comic book series like DC's TOS and TNG comics, and some of the earlier Marvel stuff. Especially the '80s series set after The Motion Picture.

I got the first issue of the series at a comic book store that Brad and I went to right before the pandemic hit and we went into lockdown back in early 2020, but that was the only issue I found. And in the three and a half years since then, Brad has never found another issue for me and I hadn't found another one when I was able to start going out again. But then a few weeks ago we went to a garage sale and one of the regular comic book vendors that I've met at Ottawa Comiccon and other local geek events was there. I went through the Star Trek comics at his booth and I ended up finding issues 3, 5, and 7. So I bought them because this was the first time that I'd seen any issues of Early Voyages out in the wild since 2020.

It's interesting reading this series in 2023 because it's so similar and yet so different from Strange New Worlds. I'm almost 100% sure that Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Meyer took inspiration from Early Voyages when they were writing SNW, because there are so many shared similarities between that show and this comic. They both have Pike, Spock, and Una onboard, and it's the Enterprise, with all the familiar settings, though SNW's Enterprise is way more spiffy than Early Voyages's, and there's time travel involved in both. In issues 13, 14, and 15, Colt is transported into an alternate future, where Pike never had his accident and is still in command of the Enterprise, to the point where he's in command of the Enterprise-A in 2293, which is the year that Star Trek VI is set in. Instead of getting command of the Farragut, Kirk left Starfleet and became the captain of his own ship, whose crew includes Scotty. 

Even though SNW's first season finale showed us what the TOS episode, "Balance of Terror" could've been had Pike been in command of the Enterprise instead of Kirk, the catalyst for that is Pike from the time of the TOS movies, wearing the maroon uniform from those movies. Which you see him wear in these comics, as you can see from the cover for issue #14. I'm sure there are plenty of other similarities between the show and the comic.

One of the things that I love about this series is that it shows a crew that might've been had NBC picked up Star Trek for a series with "The Cage" instead of passing on it in favour of the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". SNW does the same thing. Oh and it also establishes that Robert April had been the captain of the Enterprise before Pike, which was mentioned in the series finale of Star Trek: The Animated Series, though Pike wasn't April's first officer in this version. That was something established in a very early Annual issue from DC Comics back in 1984 or 1985. But still SNW definitely feels like a modern TV version of this comic book series.

Sadly, the series was canceled in 1998, as Marvel lost the license to the Star Trek franchise. It ended with issue #17, which was the second part in a three issue arc that was never completed. I'm hoping to get more issues of this series because I like what I've read so far. Unfortunately it's incredibly difficult to find, and outside of the Eaglemoss hardcover collections, this series was never collected in trade paperback or hardcover. It's still a really good series though and while I don't normally do this because most of this overview has been about comics I've never read, I'm going to recommend this comic book series to you if you're a Star Trek fan and are a fan of Strange New Worlds, because it is worth the read to see what SNW might've been if it had been made in the '90s. 

That was Early Voyages. The next installment in this overview will be on Star Trek: Untold Voyages, which is set between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and details a version of Kirk's second five year mission as captain of the Enterprise, bridging the gap between the two movies.

And that friends, is it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of the third novel in the X-Wing series, The Krytos Trap. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.