Star Trek (comics)

Almost continuously since 1967, multiple companies have published Star Trek comic books with varying degrees of success. These companies include Gold Key Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Malibu Comics, Wildstorm, and IDW Publishing. Star Trek: Enterprise remains the only Trek TV series that has yet to be adapted in comic book form.

Publishers

Gold Key

Gold Key Comics published the first Star Trek comics between 1967 and 1978. These were stylized and diverged from the TV series continuity. In most issues, the crew members, except for Spock, wear lime green uniforms. Most plots in the Gold Key series featured original characters and concepts, but later issues included sequels to the original series episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Metamorphosis", and "I, Mudd". Writers included George Kashdan, Arnold Drake and Len Wein. Originally they were illustrated by Alberto Giolitti, an Italian artist who had never seen the series and only had publicity photos to use as references. Since Giolitti didn't have a publicity photo of James Doohan, early issues of the series had Mr. Scott drawn differently.

The Gold Key series had a run of 61 issues. (Starting with issue #20 all but nine stories were also released under the Whitman Comics brand.) The original issues, most of which featured photographic covers showing images from the series, are collectible. Checker published a series of reprints ("The Key Collection") in 2004, in five volumes containing issues #1-40. In 2010, Devil's Due Digital made the Gold Key series available in digital form.

Gold Key lost the Star Trek license to Marvel Comics in 1979, but Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from using concepts introduced in the original series.^[1]

Marvel

Marvel's series of Star Trek comics began in 1979 with an adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and continued for another two years. These tales take place during the apocryphal second five-year mission of Kirk and the Enterprise that would have been featured in the never-produced Star Trek: Phase II TV series. Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from using concepts introduced in the original series. They were only allowed to use the characters and concepts from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The series lasted 18 issues and ended in 1981.

Comic Strips (UK and U.S.)

From 1969 to 1973, a series of weekly Star Trek comic strips ran in the British comics magazine eventually known as TV Century 21. 258 issues were produced, as well as various annuals and specials. All were original stories. Two more annuals, under the Mighty TV Comic banner, also produced original Star Trek materials. The weekly TV Comic also reprinted serialized versions of the U.S. Gold Key comics.^[2]

From 1979 to 1983, the Los Angeles Times Mirror Syndicate produced a daily and Sunday comic strip based upon Star Trek. The strip debuted on December 2, 1979. The Sunday ran until October 24, 1982. The daily continued until December 3, 1983. Thomas Warkentin, Sharman DiVono, Ron Harris, Larry Niven, Martin Pasko, Padraic Shigetani, Bob Meyers, Ernie Colón, Gerry Conway and Dick Kulpa wrote and illustrated these stories.^[3][4]

FotoNovels

In 1977–1978, before home video was widely available, Mandala Productions and Bantam Books published FotoNovels of TOS that included direct adaptations of actual color television episode frames (with word balloons) in comics format.

These books from Star Trek: The Original Series (Mandala Productions/Bantam Books) include:

• FotoNovel 1: The City on the Edge of Forever
• FotoNovel 2: Where No Man Has Gone Before
• FotoNovel 3: The Trouble with Tribbles
• FotoNovel 4: A Taste of Armageddon
• FotoNovel 5: Metamorphosis
• FotoNovel 6: All Our Yesterdays
• FotoNovel 7: The Galileo Seven
• FotoNovel 8: A Piece of the Action
• FotoNovel 9: The Devil in the Dark
• FotoNovel 10: Day of the Dove
• FotoNovel 11: The Deadly Years
• FotoNovel 12: Amok Time.

Movie adaptations from Pocket Books:

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Photostory, edited by Richard J. Anobile
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: The Photostory, edited by Richard J. Anobile (in black & white).

DC

The plot of the 1984 DC series picked up immediately after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. After eight issues the series took place after Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.^[5] In these later issues, Kirk, after a multi-issue showdown with the Mirror Universe, takes command of the Excelsior. Spock is mentally restored after mind-melding with his mirror self and takes command of the USS Surak. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home took place right after III left off, so the series wiped the slate clean by having Kirk lose command of the Excelsior and Spock return to the state he was in at the end of III. After The Voyage Home, the series continued with Kirk commanding the Enterprise-A. These issues re-introduced Arex and M'Ress from Star Trek: The Animated Series. The series ended In 1988 when Paramount required all tie-in licenses to be renegotiated.

After a year's hiatus, DC's second Star Trek series began with an adaptation of Star Trek V and took place during the gap between Star Trek V and Star Trek VI. Stories from the previous DC series were either ignored or rewritten. Although more limited in scope than the first series, due to restrictions from Paramount, the series lasted 80 issues and fleshed out some of the changes between V and VI, such as Sulu's promotion to captain of the Excelsior. As part of Paramount's increased restrictions on storytelling, planned appearances from Arex and M'Ress were shelved, with some formative artwork showing M'Ress (that appeared in a preview) re-drawn. Peter David and Howard Weinstein, who are also Star Trek novelists, wrote most of this series.^[6]

DC also published two Star Trek: The Next Generation comic series. They published the first, a six-issue limited series taking place during the first season, in 1988.^[7] DC launched an ongoing monthly series in October 1989, covering from season two to just before Generations. Star Trek: The Next Generation novelist Michael Jan Friedman wrote most of this series, which ran until 1996.^[8]

In another limited series, DC also published one of the first crossovers between the TOS and TNG eras.

Malibu

In 1993, Malibu published an ongoing series based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and collaborated with DC to publish a cross-over story with that company's TNG series. Malibu also published a standalone issue focusing on the Romulans and two issues of a "celebrity series" of stories written by Star Trek actors Mark Lenard and Aron Eisenberg.^[9][10]

In 1996, Malibu announced plans to publish a Voyager comic, and art from this comic appeared in some comic industry periodicals, including Wizard. Marvel Comics bought Malibu, and Paramount Pictures signed a deal with Marvel to publish comics based upon Star Trek and Mission: Impossible under the new Paramount Comics banner.

Return to Marvel

Marvel Comics obtained the Star Trek license in 1996. Marvel (under the "Marvel/Paramount comics" imprint) published various one-shots and the quarterly Star Trek Unlimited series, which covered TOS and TNG.^[11] Marvel also published monthly comics based upon Deep Space Nine and Voyager.^[12][13]

They also introduced two new series, Star Trek: Early Voyages, which dealt with Christopher Pike's adventures as captain of the Enterprise, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which dealt with a group of cadets, including Deep Space Nine's Ferengi, Nog.

Fan acceptance of these comics got off to a shaky start when Marvel's inaugural publication of its new Star Trek line turned out to be a crossover between TOS and Marvel's popular superhero team, the X-Men. This was followed by an X-Men/TNG crossover and a Pocket Books novel, Planet X, which was also based on this premise. The different series turned out popular, with Starfleet Academy and Early Voyages registering strong sales.

After about 18 months, Marvel's management reevaluated the cost of the Star Trek license agreement with Paramount and abruptly canceled all Star Trek titles, including Early Voyages, even though it was in the middle of a story arc.^[14][15]

Wildstorm

In 1999, the license drifted back to DC, to its Wildstorm imprint. Wildstorm decided to not do an ongoing series, instead publishing limited series and trade paperback graphic novels. Writers included Nathan Archer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith,^[16] Keith R.A. DeCandido,^[17] Scott Ciencin,^[18] Kevin J. Anderson,^[19] K. W. Jeter,^[20] John Ordover and David Mack.^[21]

Their TNG publications dealt with the movie era between Insurrection and Nemesis; their Deep Space Nine stories were based on the post-Season 7 novel continuity, and their Voyager series took place during the series. Wildstorm also published an issue based on the novel series New Frontier (written by series creator Peter David)^[22] and the video game Elite Force.

Their license expired in 2002.

Tokyopop

For a couple of years, no comic book company held the rights to publish Trek-based comics. In October 2004, Tokyopop announced plans to publish an anthology of Next Generation-based stories presented in the style of Japanese manga.

No firm publication date was ever announced, but two projects by Tokyopop, based upon the original series, were released instead. The new comic anthologies, produced by Joshua Ortega, were released annually in September 2006 (Shinsei Shinsei) and 2007 (Kakan ni Shinkou). Five artists and writer teams presented five new stories, per volume, based on the original series.^[23]

IDW Publishing

On November 9, 2006, IDW Publishing announced that they had secured the publishing rights to Star Trek from CBS Consumer Products.^[24]

IDW's first title was Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between, a six-issue limited series launched January 2007.

Over the next six years, IDW published 31 mini-series and one ongoing series with a total of over 140 issues.

In 2009, IDW published a prequel to the 2009 reboot/prequel film Star Trek, entitled Star Trek: Countdown.^[25]

In 2009, IDW published Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, written by Andy Schmidt and based on the second Star Trek movie, and the only movie with the Original Crew that had never been in comic form.^[26]

In September 2011, IDW began publishing a new ongoing Star Trek series set in the continuity of the 2009 film. A number of storylines in the ongoing series featured retellings of Original Series storylines.

In 2013, IDW published a prequel to the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness, entitled Star Trek Countdown to Darkness, which featured the Enterprise encountering Robert April, the apocryphal first captain of the Enterprise introduced in Star Trek: The Animated Series. Its main ongoing series began telling stories set after the film.

Titles

This is a list of all ongoing Star Trek comic book series:

See also

• Primortals – a comic related to Leonard Nimoy
• Tek World – a comic related to William Shatner

Notes

References

External links

• Star Trek Gold Key digital comics from Devil's Due Digital
• Star Trek Fotonovels retrospective from Taint The Meat