Information about Star Trek Comics

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Almost continuously since 1967, a number of companies have published comic book series based on Star Trek and its spin off series, including Gold Key Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Malibu, Wildstorm, and currently IDW Publishing, with varying degrees of success. As of 2006, remains the only Trek series that has yet to be adapted in comic book form.

Publishers

Gold Key

The first Star Trek comics were published by Gold Key between 1967 and 1978. Originally they were illustrated by Alberto Giolitti, an artist in Europe who had never seen the series and only had publicity photos to use as references. These comics were highly stylized and diverged wildly from the TV series continuity. Nonetheless they are fondly remembered by fans and a series of reprints (The Key Collection) of these original titles began to appear in 2004. The original issues, most of which featured photographic covers showing images from the series, are highly collectable. Writers included George Kashdan, Arnold Drake and Len Wein.^[1]

Most storylines used in the Gold Key series featured original characters and concepts, although later issues did include sequels to the TOS episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Metamorphosis" and "I, Mudd".

Marvel

Marvel's series of Star Trek comics began in 1979 with an adaptation of , and continued for another two years, its tales presumably taking place during the apocryphal second five-year mission of Kirk and the Enterprise that would have been featured in the never-produced TV series. Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from utilizing concepts introduced in the original series, being restricted to only using the characters and concepts as they appeared in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The series lasted a total of 18 issues, ending in 1981.

Comic Strips (UK and U.S.)

From 1969 to 1973, a series of weekly Star Trek comic strips ran in the British comic magazines Joe 90: Top Secret, TV21 & Joe 90 and Valiant and TV21. A total of 258 issues were produced, as well as hardcovers annuals of Joe 90 and TV21, and a softcover Valiant summer special. All were original stories. Two more annuals, under the Mighty TV Comic banner, also produced original Trek materials. In addition, the weekly TV Comic reprinted serialized versions of the U.S. Gold Key comics.^[2]

Then, from 1979 to 1983, the Los Angeles Times Mirror Syndicate produced a daily comic strip based upon Star Trek. The strip debuted on December 2, 1979 and ran until December 3, 1983. The storylines were written and illustrated by Thomas Warkentin, Sharman DiVono, Ron Harris, Larry Niven, Martin Pasko, Padraic Shigetani, Bob Meyers, Ernie Colon, Gerry Conway and Dick Kulpa.^[3]

DC

Main article: Star Trek DC comics

The first DC series picked up immediately after , beginning in 1984 but after eight issues started to place stories after .^[4] In these later issues, Kirk, after a multi-issue showdown with the Mirror Universe, is given command of the Excelsior, while Spock, mentally restored after mind-melding with his mirror self, is given the command of the USS Surak. However, with taking place right after III left off, the series quickly wiped the slate clean by having Kirk lose command of the Excelsior and Spock return to the state he was at the end of III. After the release of The Voyage Home, the series continued with Kirk commanding the Enterprise-A. These later issues also re-introduced the characters of Arex and M'Ress from . In 1988, the series ended 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 and took place in the large gap between Star Trek V and , but did not continue on from the previous series, so storylines from that series were either ignored or rewritten. (One storyline was continued by Peter David in an original novel, Strike Zone.) Although more limited in scope than the first series, due to restrictions from Paramount (a prohibition on creating non-series-related ongoing characters resulted in R.J. Blaise - a popular character and love interest for Kirk - disappearing from the comic without explanation), 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. The series was mainly written by Peter David and Howard Weinstein, who are also Star Trek novelists.^[5]

Main article:

DC also published two comic series. The first, a six-issue miniseries taking place during the first season, was published in 1988.^[6] An ongoing monthly series was launched from October 1989, covering from season two to just before . The series was mainly written by Star Trek: The Next Generation novelist Michael Jan Friedman. The series would run until 1996.^[7]

At the same time DC was publishing its comics, Malibu published a series during the first three seasons, and DC and Malibu joined forces to publish a TNG/DS9 mini-series. DC also published one of the first crossovers between the TOS and TNG eras in another mini-series.

Malibu

Beginning in 1993, Malibu published an ongoing series based upon Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and, as noted above, also joined forces with DC to publish a cross-over story with that company's TNG series. In addition, Malibu 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.^[8][9]

In 1996, Malibu also announced plans to publish a Voyager comic, and art from this comic appeared in some comic industry periodicals, including Wizard. However, Malibu was bought out by Marvel Comics, and Paramount Pictures (owners of the Trek franchise) signed a deal with Marvel to publish comics based upon Star Trek and under the new Paramount Comics banner.

Return to Marvel

Marvel Comics obtained the Star Trek license from 1996. Marvel published various one-shots and the quarterly Star Trek Unlimited series, which covered TOS and TNG.^[10] Marvel published monthly comics based upon Deep Space Nine and .^[11][12]

They also introduced two new series, which dealt with Captain Christopher Pike's adventures as captain of the Enterprise (as depicted in the rejected TOS pilot "The Cage") and 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 later followed by a subsequent X-Men/TNG crossover, as well as a novel entitled Planet X based on this premise published by Pocket Books). However, the different series turned out to be relatively popular, with Starfleet Academy and Early Voyages registering strong sales.

After about 18 months, however, Marvel's management reevaluated the relatively high cost of the Star Trek license agreement with Paramount resulting in all titles being abruptly cancelled, even though Early Voyages was in the middle of a story arc at the time.^[13][14]

Wildstorm

Eventually the license drifted back to DC's Wildstorm imprint. Wildstorm decided to not do an ongoing series, but instead a series of miniseries and trade paperback graphic novels from 1999 onwards. Writers included Nathan Archer, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith,^[15], Keith R.A. DeCandido.^[16], Scott Ciencin^[17], Kevin J. Anderson^[18], K. W. Jeter^[19], John Ordover and David Mack.^[20]

Their TNG publications mainly dealt with the movie era, between and ; 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)^[21] and the video game Elite Force.

Their license expired in 2002.

Tokyopop

For several years, no comic book company held the rights to publish Trek-based comics. However, 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. [1]

IDW Publishing

On November 9, 2006, IDW Publishing announced that they had secured the publishing rights to Star Trek from CBS Consumer Products.^[22]

IDW's first title, , is a six-issue miniseries, and launched in January 2007. The Space Between is written by David Tischman and drawn by Casey Maloney.^[23] This storyline was collected in trade paperback form in September 2007.

The second series , launched in April, focusing on the Klingons' point of view on various episodes from the original series - the first four issues based around "Errand of Mercy", "The Trouble with Tribbles", "A Private Little War" and "Day of the Dove", respectively, and features a framing story based around the events of .^[24]

A third series started in July 2007, to be called , continuing the five-year mission of Kirk's Enterprise after the end of . A fourth series, Alien Spotlight launched in September 2007, focusing on various alien races, and a character-based TNG series, tentatively entitled House Call, will start in January 2008.

References

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