#star trek Gold Key recaps

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Star Trek Gold Key #31: The Final Truth

Our story begins with Kirk and his crew in the midst of yet another armed conflict with an alien government, which as usual is not going very well for them. Meanwhile, the narration box is going on about seeking answers to the mysteries of the universe, such as the mystery of “what does all this have to do with the shooty robots?” Like most great mysteries of the universe, answering this one will require delving into terrible and forbidden realms where we risk encountering sights we should never have seen, and knowledge we are unequipped to handle. Which is to say, we’ll have to read this comic.

[ID: A comic book splash page titled “Star Trek—The Final Truth—Part 1.” The page shows Kirk, Chapel, two goldshirts, and an orange-skinned alien wearing a purple leotard, all standing in the middle of a futuristic city while white and blue robots point guns at them. A figure in a hooded gold and brown cloak is standing in the foreground, pointing toward the Enterprise crew and saying, “You can see your weapons are useless! You are prisoners of the Ministry—and you shall remain so for the rest of your natural lives!” In the top left corner, a narration box reads, “The universe—laboratory of life! Countless mysteries, keys to creation itself, lie suspended in solution against a backdrop of stars. And the races that inhabit these stars, human or alien, will always seek the answers to these mysteries...although some answers may only come at great cost!”]

The issue begins with a ship’s log from Spock as he beams down with a small landing party onto a planet called Quodar, which is about to be admitted into the Federation. According to Spock’s Pepto Bismol-colored narration boxes, Quodar not only “[forms] a strong cornerstone against the Klingons,” it’s also rich in both dilithium and “triolium-L, a dilithium preservative.” How one goes about preserving dilithium I don’t know, but the point is that Quodar’s chock full of some important minerals, so the Federation has a lot of motivation to stay friendly with them. And yet, they sent these guys to conduct diplomacy. I mean, that’d be a sensible enough decision if this was the real TOS crew, but at this point I wouldn’t trust the Gold Key crew to attend a birthday party without blowing up a planet in the process.

Anyway, Spock’s group is greeted by T’oell, a bald dude in a bright pink jumpsuit who’s the Quodarian Secretary of Affairs. Spock informs us that T’oell is “always in the spotlight [and] sharply contrasts the queen, Arama, who chooses to be reclusive,” and indeed it would certainly be hard to miss T’oell in that outfit. T’oell says he’s sorry to see that Kirk isn’t with them, and Spock tells him that Kirk was “detained escorting Starfleet Admiral Tailen Kahn from Starbase in the shuttlecraft.” Apparently he did bring McCoy along, though; everyone else is too tiny to make out, but we know McCoy’s there because he’s chosen to helpfully stick his face right up against the front of the panel.

[ID: A comic book panel showing Spock walking next to a bald man wearing a pink jumpsuit open to the waist with a wide-collared pink shirt under it. Two more crewmembers are walking behind Spock, while in front of him are a male blueshirt with blond hair and McCoy, whose face is shown in extreme close-up. Spock is saying, “He has been regretably [sic] detained escorting Starfleet Admiral Tailen Kahn from Starbase in the shuttlecraft!” while the man beside him is saying, “Ah, then come. We shall make you as comfortable as possible!”]

Speaking of Kirk, he soon chimes in with his own captain’s log from over in the shuttle he’s currently sharing with Admiral Kahn, an orange-skinned alien of some sort wearing some kind of plastic leotard-looking thing; Chapel, who’s apparently decided to try out being a redhead; some random guy with brown hair; and Chekov. I only know that’s Chekov because Kirk addresses him by name a couple panels later. Before that I thought he was Sulu. It really shouldn’t be possible to draw Chekov in such a way that he can be confused with Sulu, but here we are.

[ID: A panel showing five people inside a shuttlecraft: Admiral Kahn, an alien with mottled orange skin, a tail, and short orange hair, wearing what appears to be a plastic purple leotard with abs modeled into it and a purple headband; Chekov, or at least a man with short dark hair in a green uniform shirt; Kirk; Chapel, who has orange hair for some reason; and a nondescript male greenshirt with brown hair. A narration box from Kirk reads, “Captain’s Log: supplemental! Spock has been sent ahead with the Enterprise to Quodar! The Vulcans long ago established diplomatic exchange with Quodar and Spock already is familiar with their customs!”]

Kirk says that Spock’s been sent ahead because the Vulcans already established diplomatic relationships with Quodar, so he’s familiar with their customs. Yeah, just like how I’m familiar with the customs of every country America has diplomatic relations with. But never mind that, there’s more pressing matters at hand. Chekov suddenly reports that “a freak cosmic storm” has come up on them, knocking out their guidance system. The admiral yells at him to compensate, but Chekov can’t because a planetary magnetic field is already pulling them in. No way around it, they’re going to crash. But when they do, it’s with a sound not typically associated with high-speed spacecraft impacts.

[ID: A narration box reads, “But, when the ship hits...” while the shuttlecraft impacts with a blobby green substance, making a “Glooomphh!” sound. A single question mark in a thought bubble emerges from the craft.]

is that question mark coming from inside the shuttle or is the shuttle itself just that confused about what’s happening

It seems their fall has been cushioned by something soft on the planet’s surface, leaving the shuttlecraft mostly useless but everyone unhurt. The crew clambers out to take a look. They’ve been saved by...moss?

[ID: The five members of the shuttle crew stand on a mossy green plain while the shuttlecraft sticks up at an angle behind them, covered in blobs of moss. Kirk is saying, “Look at it! This stuff is everywhere—deep and bonded enough to cushion the impact of a plummeting shuttlecraft!” Chapel is saying, “Readings show it’s parasitic—a moss! It’s uniformly about 30 miles thick, seemingly around the whole planet like a cocoon!”]

Yep, this planet is covered with thirty-mile-deep moss. For reference, thirty miles is the average depth of the Earth’s continental crust. That’s a lot of moss. Chapel says that her sensor readings indicate that the moss “lives off high energy levels” but she can’t yet determine the source. Chekov then points out some local wildlife, which “seem to be birds, except they burrow into the moss!” which I guess disqualifies them from being birds. According to Chapel the birds are also parasites, because they live off the moss.

So we’ve got moss as thick as a continent, which is somehow soft enough to cushion a spacecraft crashing from orbit, something water isn’t soft enough to do without the aid of some parachutes, and some birds that aren’t birds but are parasites even though that’s not what the word ‘parasite’ means. Confused? Don’t worry, it gets worse.

Admiral Kahn (yes, his name really is Kahn; presumably either the writer just plain forgot that there was already a Star Trek character named Khan or else placed an incredibly unlucky bet on which one-off TOS character would go on to become a household name by starring in one of the most famous sci-fi films of all time) isn’t interested in birds or moss, though. He’s interested in “matters at hand” such as them being stranded in the middle of a moss field. Kahn orders the spare greenshirt, Manning, to stand guard outside while the rest of them get back inside the shuttle with their distress beacon on until help arrives. This seems like a decent enough plan, but Kirk immediately vetoes it, on the grounds that “A beacon could just as easily summon trouble here! Sensors indicate a concentration of living beings close by!”

Fulfilling his sworn duty as a high-ranking Starfleet officer to be overly obstructive and hot-tempered at all times, Kahn immediately tries to pick a rank fight with Kirk. Kirk is unconcerned, pointing out that while Kahn might be an admiral, he’s in administration, without much field experience, and Kirk can’t let Kahn’s inexperience endanger his crewmembers’ lives. It’s Kirk’s job to endanger his crewmembers’ lives. Then he just starts walking off while Kahn splutters uselessly behind him.

Meanwhile on Quodar (no, they haven’t been on Quodar this whole time; why would you think that the planet they crashed into was the planet they were traveling toward? that would be silly), Spock’s getting concerned about Kirk and the shuttlecraft failing to appear. He’s contacted Starfleet, who apparently have some tracking information about the shuttle. T’oell is concerned about what that info indicates. “If Starfleet’s trackings are accurate, your shuttle crashed on our neighbor planet Tristas!” he tells Spock. “Your friends may be in serious danger!”

T’oell goes on to explain that the two planets used to have good relations, with Tristas allowing scholars from Quodar to study in their halls of learning. The Tristians were peaceful and “a race advanced beyond any society we have encountered! Theirs was an endless quest for knowledge—an entire culture directed at but one goal! They sought the secret of life itself!” Whether the Tristians wound up building an enormous computer to answer the question for them, though, we don’t know, because one day Tristas suddenly and without explanation sent all the visiting scholars home and blocked communications. When the Quodarians tried to go visit to see what was up, they were told to turn back or be destroyed, and later received a message that anyone who did get through the Tristian defenses would become permanent prisoners of the military. Apparently those defenses aren’t that great, though, considering how easy it is to crash into the planet completely by accident.

Back on Tristas, the shuttlecraft crew seem to have turned something up.

[ID: One large panel with a smaller panel inset into the top left corner. The top panel shows a narration box reading, “Meanwhile, on Tristas, a discovery has been made...” while below Chapel, Kahn and Kirk look surprised. Chapel is saying, “Captain…?” In the lower panel, the crew are looking out through a gap in the mossy hills at a city of elaborate white buildings standing against a pink sky. Chapel is saying, “Tri-corder indicates all materials here—metals, glass—they’re all synthesized from compounds in the moss!” Kirk is saying, “Phasers set on stun—stay alert!” Kahn is saying, “We’re walking right into the hands of aliens! This is suicide, Kirk!”]

man, that is some seriously impressive moss

Before they can check out the moss-city, though, someone yells at the group to stop. Judging by the outfit of the person in question, I’m gonna say it’s a Jedi?

[ID: The shuttlecraft crew stands about in surprise, except for Kahn, who has dropped to his knees in a defensive crouch with an angry hiss. In the foreground stands a figure in a hooded brown robe with their hands on their hips, saying, “You are hereby in the custody of the Ministry! Your vehicle has already been secured! Remove your weapons immediately and follow me!”]

Kirk protests that they come in peace and only landed here by accident, but the Jedi Master and his accompanying robot minions are unmoved. Kahn, naturally, thinks the best solution to all this is to shoot first and ask questions later, while Kirk, who thinks that���s kind of a stupid idea, tries to hold him back. Meanwhile Manning, thinking that their would-be captor is distracted by watching Kirk and Kahn bicker, tries to take the chance to shoot the dude himself. The only thing that this accomplishes is promptly getting Manning shot by one of the robots.

On Quodar, Spock narrates that they’ve finally gotten T’oell, with much reluctance, to go directly to the queen with a request for her to help the crashed shuttle crew. While T’oell is gone, Spock tells McCoy that he’s positive he can get through the planetary defenses on Tristas (what, like it’s hard), if they can only convince Arama to help. McCoy is skeptical about Arama, questioning how a leader who never shows herself can inspire trust in her people, but Spock says that the Quodarians do trust her all the same and that she’s never let them down. Unfortunately the Enterprise crew aren’t quite so lucky, because T’oell comes back and reports that Arama has regretfully refused to grant them an audience because “it would be illogical to take action which could result in war!” Seems the Quodarians have picked up a few vocabulary words from all that diplomacy with the Vulcans.

Meanwhile, the shuttle crew find themselves being chivied into a strange form of confinement.

[ID: A large panel with a smaller panel inset into the bottom right corner. In the larger panel, the  crew are standing in a room covered with a glass dome, which is set into a larger room where several large and indeterminate pieces of machinery stand about. Some men with white hair, wearing long pink smocks over green shirts and boots, are looking down at the crew through the dome. Chapel is looking up at them and saying, “A laboratory specimen observation theatre!” One of the observers is saying, “Curious—the way they arrived on our world without activating the early warning defense systems!” Another one says, “There was that storm—a cosmic energy displacement—within our parsect! Several city-states reported malfunctions!” In the lower panel, Chapel is using her tricorder to scan Manning, who is sitting on the floor with a hand to his head. She says, “Manning is coming around, Captain! He’ll be a bit stiff, but he’s all right!” Manning replies, “Uhhh...that’s your story, Lieutenant!”]

Kirk demands to know who these people are and what’s going on. One of the pink-smocked observers says that they are the Ministry of Science and that he personally is “Science Lord for the city-state Chantil!” Yes, really, SCIENCE LORD. I don’t know what that entails, but what an amazing title. Oh, and also they’re keeping the crew prisoners. When Kirk asks “By what right?” the SCIENCE LORD says that “This is not a question of rights but imperatives! We must do this for the security of our people!” Oh yeah, sure, that’s what they all say.

The captives then have some kind of collars beamed directly onto them, although apparently not before the Science Ministers take the time to change from pink smocks to white in-between panels.

[ID: Two tall panels side by side. In the first, the scientists, their hair now blonde and their smocks white, look down at the captives while large white collars appear around the necks of Kahn and Kirk. One of the scientists says, “We have just beamed those collars on you—a regretably [sic] necessary disciplinary precaution, but only until you adjust to your situation!” Kirk is saying, “Wha...?” and Kahn is saying, “Hsssss....!” In the second panel, Kahn is leaping into the air with the aid of a little propeller built into the back of his leotard, while Kirk looks up at him from below. Kahn is yelling,”Humanoids! We will not be prisoners of your like! Do you hear me…?” Kirk is yelling, “Admiral!”]

Predictably, Kahn’s attempt to...actually, I don’t really know what he was attempting to do there, but whatever it was, it only results in him getting zapped by his e-collar and crashing to the floor. The SCIENCE LORD then tells the crew that they “are to become tenders of the divine life until such time as we no longer need you! This audience is now ended!”

Back to Quodar, where night has fallen on the capital, a couple of guards are patrolling the topiary when suddenly they come under attack. The narrator takes a moment to indulge in some purple prose while the armed guards somehow completely fail to defend themselves against three unarmed people in robes.

[ID: A panel with a narration box reading, “Out of night-darkness, as if birthed by the shadows they emerge from, three silhouettes attack with unrestrained fury...” The panel shows two guards dressed in yellow helmets, yellow vests, brown and white shirts and white pants, being assaulted by a figure in a hooded gray robe and exposes Starfleet uniform boots and the sleeves of a uniform red shirt. In the background, two other hooded figures are punching and kicking more guards. One of the guards is yelling, “Stop them—don’t let them get to Arama!”]

gee I wonder who these mysterious figures under robes that don’t fully conceal their Starfleet uniforms could be

One of the guards tries to escape to warn somebody, but before he can get away Spock steps out of the darkness and clocks him across the jaw. Just given up on the nerve pinch thing, I guess. McCoy and Uhura gather up the guards and McCoy gives them some sleepy hypos to keep them out for an hour. Spock then tells the others to go back to their quarters while he goes ahead to make his way to Arama alone. In perhaps the most out-of-character moment we’ve seen in these comics yet—and I don’t need to tell you that that is really saying something—McCoy agrees with him.

[ID: McCoy and Uhura standing in front of a gray building, while Spock walks away from them. McCoy is saying, “He’s right—whatever must be done from here on, is his to do!” Uhura is saying, “He’ll make it, Leonard! It would be too illogical from him not to succeed!”]

So Spock heads inside to see Arama on his own, knocking out another guard or two in the process. Why exactly Spock thinks that beating up the security and breaking into Arama’s quarters personally is going to make her more likely to listen to him I don’t know. In any case, with the guards out of the way Spock opens the door to Arama’s chamber, which apparently has something quite surprising behind it.

[ID: A narration box reads, “But, when Spock enters the chamber...” while Spock opens a large wooden door and exclaims, “You! It can’t be...But it is! We never suspected!”]

What’s behind door number one? Place your bets now! I guarantee you pretty much anything you guess is gonna be way more interesting than the actual answer.

We begin Part 2 back on Tristas, where Kirk and Co. are being introduced to what life as prisoners of the Science Ministry entails. Apparently wearing dorky jumpsuits is a large part of it.

[ID: A large panel titled “Star Trek—Part 2—The Final Truth.” A narration box at the top reads, “Captain’s Log: Supplemental! As a result of a cosmic storm, our shuttlecraft has been stranded on Tristas! We have been made virtual slaves, enforced by punisher collars!” The panel shows a wide shot of a moss field cut through by a river, with several people walking around carrying sacks. On the far side of the river is a large orange machine, with the white buildings of the city visible in the distance. On the near side, Kirk, Chapel, Chekov, and Manning are standing, wearing sleeveless white jumpsuits open almost to the waist, with yellow and orange shirts on underneath. Admiral Kahn, still wearing his purple leotard, is crouching nearby looking surprised. Kirk is saying, “What do you make of that housing, Lieutenant?” Chapel is saying, “Seems to be some sort of transformer! It might possibly be the source of energy feeding the moss, but it doesn’t seem powerful enough!”]

do you think it’s hard to get those jumpsuits on over the shock collars

A robot warden tells the newcomers that their job is to pick moss, and one of the other moss-pickers on duty approaches to show them the ropes. Kirk asks her why they’re all prisoners here. “Not prisoners—privileged!” she says. “We serve the life within! It is within us and we are within it!” A statement that would be a bit more believable if she were not also wearing a shock collar. But hey, maybe that’s part of the privilege, who am I judge.

Kirk wants her to tell him more about this “life within,” but the woman draws back, telling him that “If you cannot link with it, then it is not for you to know! Please, ask me no more! Be happy that you are allowed to serve the presence!” Of course, Kirk’s not about to be satisfied with that, and demands answers, grabbing her arm as she tries to get away. The only thing this accomplishes is to get him zapped.

[ID: Two panels side by side. In the left panel, Kirk is falling to the ground and yelling, “YAAAAHHH!” as his collar shocks him with a “PZZZZZZZZAAATTTT!” sound, while two more people in jumpsuits stand nearby looking surprised and a red robot runs closer. In the right panel, Kahn watches while crouched above the scene on an outcropping while the robot says, “Stop! Humans have violated alien control dictum! They will be segregated!” A woman in a white jumpsuit and blue shirt with a black bowl cut replies, “They will be no such thing! Return to your post, machine! We can act upon our own directives!”]

Admiral Kahn promptly jumps into the middle of this mess, declaring that actually, they’d rather obey the robot’s order, because “We have no interest in your lot and you obviously have none in ours!” Another one of the moss-pickers tells the woman that there’s no point in arguing. “There is nothing we can do!” he says. “They cannot understand as we do! That is why they cannot be told!”

Later—presumably after a hard day of moss-picking—the crew reconvenes in some remarkably lush-looking quarters.

[ID: A tall panel with a narration box reading, “Later, as night falls..” In a room with elaborately decorated white walls, Kahn is sitting on what appears to be a green mattress placed on top of a larger blue mattress, while Kirk stands in front of a pink table with some indeterminate objects on top of it, and Chekov sits nearby in a pink and blue armchair. Kirk is saying, “At least they’ve made us comfortable! I think it was a good idea to segregate ourselves. We need to plan!” Kahn is pointing at Kirk and saying, “I don’t need your patronizing, Kirk! It was easily observed that your peculiar manner of questioning was getting little result!”]

Dang, this must be the white-collar prison.

Chapel wonders if this ‘life within’ everyone keeps talking about is something theological. Kirk doesn’t think it’s that simple. “They aren’t worshippers [sic]...they’re protectors! I have a hunch, though! I think the answer is tied to whatever the source of the energy that feeds the moss is!”

At that very moment (I recommend you don’t try to work out the timeline here) Spock is entering Queen Arama’s quarters, where we were promised something truly unexpected and game-changing. What could it be?

[ID: A long panel with a narration box reading, “At the moment, on Quodar...” Spock is standing in the foreground of a room with decorated pink walls. In front of him, a woman is standing on a dais with a large chair behind her, wearing a green dress with a white top and a headdress made of several green ribbons pointing different directions. Spock is saying, “Live long...and prosper, Queen Arama! I find it most unexpected that you are a...” Arama is saying, “A Vulcan? I’m not, except by heredity. I am a Quodarian daughter of Vulcan’s last ambassador here. As to why you’re here, my answer is still no!”]

Turns out Arama’s a Vulcan, a twist that McCoy saw coming back in part one:

[ID: A panel showing Uhura and McCoy watching T’oell walk toward a doorway. Uhura is saying, “B-but you can’t just leave the captain and the others stranded!” T’oell is saying, “I-I’m sorry…!” McCoy is saying, “Illogical? Bah! It wouldn’t surprise me if Arama turned out to be Vulcan!”]

“Finally, my tactic of calling everyone who uses the word ‘logic’ a Vulcan has paid off!”

You might naturally be wondering what significance this is going to have for the rest of the story, so let me just save you some time here: absolutely none whatsoever. It has nothing to do with anything and will never be elaborated on.

Spock protests Arama’s decision to not change her first decision, but she takes him to task, pointing out that what he’s asking would risk war with Tristas, something that would not end well for Quodar. Spock is remarkably chastened by this.

[ID: Arama standing before Spock and saying, “I know their capabilities—such a war would hardly last a day! Do you wish that on my people? Does the Federation?” Spock is bowing his head a bit and saying, “I-I’m sorry, Arama—I don’t know what came over me! You are correct...and logical!”]

Chastened but not deterred, apparently, because early the next morning, the Quodarian FAA spot one of their miniature ‘starscout’ spaceships taking off unauthorized. Arama doesn’t have any trouble figuring out who the culprit is, but apparently she’s not much bothered about it either.

[ID: A panel labeled, “Inside the starscout...” Spock is inside a spacecraft looking down at a small screen which shows an image of Arama’s face. Through the screen Arama is saying, “I presume I am speaking to Mr. Spock! We have broadcast to Tristas that one of our starscouts has been stolen! Your human half is very predictable...good luck, Spock!”]

On Tristas, Kirk and Friends are back at it in the moss mines, trying to figure out a way to deal with their robot guards. Chapel suggests she could “knock out” the two of them (how one knocks out a robot I don’t know) but Kirk doesn’t think she could take both of them down fast enough. Admiral Kahn, naturally, is once again unsatisfied with Kirk’s approach and takes it upon himself to take action.

[ID: A panel with a narration box reading, “Kahn approaches cautiously, as if to empty his shoulder bag! But...” Kahn is shown punching one robot into a bush, while his tail is wrapped around the leg of another robot that is otherwise offscreen, making “SPA-TAAANNG!” “KRAAMM!” and “ZZZRAACCKK!” sounds.]

spa-taaanng

He then heads off by himself to find their shuttlecraft, although not before delivering this little speech:

[ID: Kirk, Sulu and Manning stand together taking off their collars and jumpsuits, while Kahn stands nearby on a ledge, saying, “So tell me, Kirk, how do you find my performance in the field now...or had it never occurred to you that I was never given the chance for such experience! I hope I can trust you to find someplace to hide...”]

I’ve been sitting here for five minutes trying to parse that first sentence and it’s just not happening.

Oh, and he also tells Kirk that he wants Kirk “alive and well when I come back! Well enough for a court martial!” Kirk is pretty unperturbed by this, though he does tell Chekov and Manning to shadow Kahn in case he gets into trouble, because of course he’s going to get in trouble. In the meantime, he and Chapel head back into the city. On their way to the Science Ministry, another robot tries to apprehend them, so Chapel promptly kicks it to death.

[ID: A tall panel showing a green robot being kicked by Chapel’s boot with a “SPAAANNNGGG!” sound while the robot says, “SQUEEEEE-EEE!” From offscreen, Chapel is saying, “For all the trouble these robots are causing, we should have tried breaking out earlier!” Kirk, standing in the foreground at the bottom of the panel, is saying, “The people here aren’t used to agression [sic] or violence...without those collars they can’t do much!”]

After taking the robot’s weapon, Chapel says that if they can get to the main computers in the observation lab she might be able to work them, since she’s “been trained in advance computronics.” Man, Chapel’s really been holding out on us, apparently.

They break into the Science Ministry and confront Minister Tonar. And if you’re thinking “wait, who’s Minister Tonar?” that’s because no such character has been named in the story so far. Presumably that’s the name of the SCIENCE LORD (with this art it’s pretty much impossible to identify him by appearance alone) but how exactly Kirk came to learn his name is a mystery. At any rate, Kirk doesn’t waste any time getting right to the threats.

[ID: Kirk pointing a gold-colored blaster at Tonar, an old man with white hair wearing a pink smock over a green shirt. Kirk is saying, “I’ve seen enough here to realize that all your threats and defenses are bluff! Well I can show you violence that would turn this city-state inside out before you could even organize yourselves! Talk!”]

you know the thing I really love about Star Trek is how it portrays such a wonderfully enlightened and peace-loving future for humanity

“You fool!” Tonar says. “You don’t know what you are doing! It’s your very violence that I’m protecting our secret from” and so outraged by this is he that his dialogue runs right into the edge of the speech bubble without room for a punctuation mark. Chapel interrupts to say that she’s getting strange readouts from the computer she’s been messing with. “I asked for a catalogue readout on anything pertaining to “the life within,”” she says, “but I’m getting data on psychosociological experimentation and interplanetary insect surveys!”

[ID: Chapel standing in the background next to some machinery, while Kirk looks towards Tonar and says, “It’s all beginning to make a crazy sort of sense now! This city—it’s like a bee-hive! Workers! Robot drones! And you...” Tonar says, “Very well, Captain Kirk, you will have your answers! Now!”]

well I’m glad this is all making sense to somebody

“Our race embraced the secrets and sciences of the universe, yet we did not know our own planet!” Tomar begins to explain, and I use the term ‘explain’ loosely. “Beneath the moss there is a layer that defies analysis but we finally managed to penetrate that layer...It was discovered that our planet was actually hollow, like a great egg! In that “egg” were energies that were life in its most fundamental form—a link to creation itself!” He then says that the Science Ministry started to devise an experiment in the hopes of unlocking the secrets of this egg energy, an experiment which they neglected to tell the rest of the planet about. Evidently this troubled Tomar, as he says that he embarked on his own experiment, “one to save our race from destruction! The people were merely told that the forces of creation itself had been discovered! They were told only that we had become tenders of an egg that would hatch the ultimate living creation!” Which is a hell of a thing to get told by your government. Imagine waking up one morning and seeing “forces of creation discovered” trending on twitter.

Anyway, then this happens:

[ID: Three panels, two small ones on the top and one large one below that. The top left is labeled, “At that very moment, beneath the city-state...” and shows Kahn in a corridor, looking at a door with a sun symbol on it, as he says, “I don’t know what all this is leading to—but I think the answer lies just beyond that door up there! Maybe it’s the shuttlecraft!” The next panel shows Kahn’s hands reaching to open the door as he says, “Suddenly have feeling...like premonition...like I shouldn’t enter! And yet, on the other hand, I feel I am compelled to—as if my fate were tied up here!” In the third panel, Kahn is suddenly falling through a green-walled tunnel that ends in a black void filled with pink orbs and swirls of light, as he yells, “YAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”]

you guys maybe should have put a lock on that door or something

Things get even weirder from there:

[ID: Three panels, two side by side on top and one long one below. In the first, Kahn is kneeling on the floor, eyes wide, saying, “I am the universe...I am alone...somebody help meeee!” Around him, two disembodied speech bubbles are saying, “Is this Tonar’s doing?” and “No! Let us hope that what he saw didn’t permanently damage his brain!” In the second panel, pink and white fog begins to surround Kahn as the voices say, “If Tonar only realized that in small doses, the “Eye” could expand the mind of any thinking creature!” and “But that is for them to reconcile—when everyone is ready to accept us, we shall reveal ourselves!” In the bottom panel, Kirk and Chapel are watching Tonar gesturing in front of a screen that shows a blob of beige-colored slime. Tonar is saying, “We created the Eye—a shape your mind conjures for identification since the mass of energy has no form—from the unstable forces contained in our planet! Mental energy is the required tool...Kirk, that thing you see on the screen is the six scientists that were sent to study that energy! All six of them!”]

“A collective intelligence—pure unsiphoned mental energy!” Kirk says, somehow discerning a heck of a lot more from that image than I am. “More than you know!” Tonar replies. “The Eye has increased their energies a hundredfold! The eye’s emanations reach to the furthest reaches of this galaxy—and they can now travel with it!”

So let me try to sum this up. These people were living on a planet covered with a continent-thick layer of moss, and then one day they discovered that under that moss was magical mystery energy that had something to do with the forces of creation. They tried to study this energy by creating the Eye, and we don’t actually know what the Eye is because it’s undefinable, but the scientists who looked at it got turned into a blob of super-intelligent scientist goo, and now both the Eye and the scientist goo are being kept in a completely unlocked and unguarded room in the Science Ministry building. Got all that? If you do, please explain it to me, because I’m lost.

Tonar explains-- ‘explains’--why he hasn’t told anyone about the scientist goo. “Don’t you see...we were a civilization at its very pinnacle! We would have nothing more to live for if the secrets of the Eye were revealed. Our knowledge would have killed us!” So I guess he just told everyone that they had to pick moss for the rest of their lives instead. Cool. While he’s rambling on about this, Kahn somehow gets transported into the room, but no one pays him much attention.

Kirk is skeptical of Tonar’s motives. “I see a man who is either short-sighted or vain enough to believe the universe is finite!” he says. “Or is your real motive that you fear the idea that your race’s entire lifestyle will be totally changed?” Keep in mind that said “lifestyle” currently consists of “everyone picks moss every day forever” and listen, I know change is hard, but I feel like most people would be pretty happy to move on from that one.

Tonar assumes that now Kirk has learned about...whatever it is Kirk has learned about here...he will “either control it or destroy it!” Kirk assures him that they won’t, and not only because seriously, where would they even start. “There are those who will try,” he says. “The Federation can protect you, allow you to share your knowledge with a united scientific collective! We are not exploiters, Tonar—and we’re not conquerors!”

Oh, and also Spock is here.

[ID: Tonar walking away towards the foreground, saying, “Please excuse me, Captain Kirk...I have something to tell my people!” Spock and Kirk are standing behind him, Spock saying, “It would seem I was not needed after all, Captain! I found Chekov and Manning looking for Admiral Kahn! They brought me here!”]

wow, you were so helpful in this issue Spock. really got a lot done.

Everyone heads back to Quodar, where Kirk tries to reconcile with Kahn, but apparently his encounter with the Eye has changed his priorities somewhat, and their differences now seem “pitifully insignificant.” Instead he’s been thinking about transferring to work with “the Tristas project” despite said project not yet being a thing that exists.

With that, everyone goes off to celebrate Quodar’s induction to the Federation, complete with some guys playing instruments that I initially mistook to be one double-barreled vuvuzela, which is a terrifying concept.

[ID: A large panel showing a crowd of people in front of a large building, while T’oell, Chapel, Arama, Spock, Kirk, Manning, Chekov and Kahn stand on a parapet under a green awning watching the celebration. In the foreground is a bald man in a blue shirt, green tabard and blue headband, playing a long silver horn, with another man standing behind him playing another such horn. Narration boxes at the top read, “Captain’s Log: Personal. Admiral Kahn admits his mind has pushed into his subconscious most of what he saw when he stumbled into the Eye, but I observe he is indeed a changed person! Other than that, the universe seems frustratingly unchanged in view of making what could be humanity’s greatest discovery! I don’t know what Khan saw in the “Eye”--but I envy him for having seen it!”]

And that’s the end! Well, that seems to sum everything up satisfyingly. I sure can’t think of any loose ends that might need tying up here, can you? Nah, I think we’re good.

[thisiscomics]

The art in these strips is really quite impressive, surprisingly so. Not surprising for a newspaper strip- people often forget there were many great artists working in this particular format- but more for the apparent handling of Star Trek comic strips in general. The Gold Key comics didn’t seemed too bothered by likenesses, and even the early Marvel comics that would have been released around the same time as the strip started did not feel as polished as this. The detail on the Enterprise looks straight out of The Motion Picture, and there’s no mistaking Uhura. There are still some inaccuracies, such as Ilia appearing for a few weeks, before simply vanishing without comment when Warkentin discovered she was actually missing by the film’s end, but this is not unusual when tie-in material is produced in advance of the final film being released, and is hardly as strange as some the Gold Key variations. The stories themselves are very much in keeping with the Star Trek universe that emerged from The Motion Picture, and there’s not a bad one amongst them. The only downside is that this one of those strips that doesn’t flow particularly well when read sequentially in concentrated doses. One of the most frustrating features is that the Monday strip appears to essentially retell the goings on from the colour weekend strips, making it almost redundant. It’s not just a one panel or caption recap, but all the key points. This likely made sense from a commercial perspective, in that weekday readers didn’t miss anything if they didn’t read the weekend editions, and perhaps appealed to any papers that picked up the strip for syndication and didn’t have weekend editions- or colour comics sections- as they didn’t need to worry about running that particular episode. It’s a bit frustrating for the modern reader, but one must accept that as the price to pay for having these stories preserved and reprinted- it’s likely that they were never intended to exist in such a format and so this simply wouldn’t have been a creative consideration at the time, From Star Trek: The Newspaper Strips (strip credited to Thomas Warkentin)

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Gold Key #30: Death Of A Star

Our story begins with an old woman doing something mysterious, which on its own wouldn’t be terribly foreboding, but of course, we can’t possibly start a Gold Key comic with anything less than imminent danger lest the readers feel they haven’t gotten their money’s worth, so she’s also about to explode. Or so Kirk tells us, anyway. How he came to this conclusion I’m not sure.

[ID: A comic splash page titled STAR TREK: DEATH OF A STAR PART 1. A narration box at the top reads, “Trapped on a veritable keg of cosmic dynamite, Captain Kirk and the Star Trek crew become an unwilling captive audience to the most shattering spectacle in all the galaxy: a star going nova! But the natural cataclysm takes on tragic overtones when a mysterious old woman’s life is mystically linked to...a strange cosmic force!” In the foreground Kirk and Chapel are holding their arms out, facing away from the camera and looking toward Spock and an old woman wearing orange and yellow robes, who is touching Spock’s forehead; swirls of red and yellow are spiraling away from the old woman. Chapel is saying, “Captain! What is happening to her?” Kirk is saying, “I’m not sure, Nurse, but I think she is going to explode!”]

Kudos to the narration box up there for its use of the excellent term “a veritable keg of cosmic dynamite” although “But the natural cataclysm takes on tragic overtones when a mysterious old woman’s life is mystically linked to a strange cosmic force!” sounds like a sentence that someone started out saying without knowing quite how it was going to end.

So, what’s the Enterprise crew done now that’s somehow resulted in an old woman spontaneously combusting? It begins, as usual, with a captain’s log. “Our mission,” Kirk tells us, “is to study and record, from a safe distance, the final death throe of the star Isis. According to our calculations, this gem of space has only 48 hours before it explodes, destroying everything for billions upon billions of cubic miles. Fortunately, its solar system is uninhabited!”

So a star is due to go supernova and they’re going to park somewhere at a safe distance and watch the fireworks. Cool. How close is a safe distance? At least billions upon billions of cubic miles away, apparently, since, sure, we definitely measure astronomical distances in cubic miles. I sure don’t know how far back you have to stand from a supernova to avoid getting turned into a cloud of nicely toasted atoms, but apparently the material being ejected from the star can travel at speeds up to 10% lightspeed, or about thirty thousand kilometers per second. Exactly how fast the various warp factors are is all over the place, but we know warp one is lightspeed. So the Enterprise can outrun a supernova, if it gets going in time. Let’s give a generous safety estimate and say it takes a minute to go to warp. At thirty thousand kilometers a second, in the space of that minute the ejecta, or in scientific terms, the Big Hot Cloud of Death, could travel about 1,800,000 kilometers, so theoretically they’ll be safe if they hang farther back than that. For comparison, one Astronomical Unit, defined as the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, is about 150 million kilometers. Astronomically speaking, they could get within spitting distance of this star and call it a safe point. I mean, they probably shouldn’t. But they could.

Anyway, while they’re hanging out waiting for the show to start, Sulu suddenly reports that he’s getting “readings of humanoid life-forms from Isis III!” Spock is dubious.

[ID: Two comic panels. In the first, Kirk is sitting in his captain’s chair saying, “What do you make of that, Mr. Spock?” Spock, standing next to him with his hands on his hips, is saying, “Highly unlikely, captain! Earlier, and much more thorough sensor scans suggest no such signs of life!” In the second panel Kirk is saying, “But you don’t deny that these readings are genuine?” and Spock replies, “Most likely a malfunction in the system, captain! The chances are 87.663125 to 1 in favor of it!”] 

love Spock’s pose in the first panel there

Kirk isn’t having it. “When that ‘1’ may be a human life, I consider the odds even!” he declares, somehow jumping to the conclusion that because the life signs are humanoid they must be human, even though practically everybody in this galaxy is humanoid. Point is, he intends to check this out, so he tells Uhuru to get a fix on the sensor readings. Which is not her job, and also, not her name.

[ID: Kirk half-turning to Uhura, who is sitting at her station, and saying, “Lt. Uhuru, get me a fix on those readings!” Uhura says, “Roger!”]

THIS IS THE THIRD TIME, GUYS, COME ON IT’S JUST NOT THAT DIFFICULT

Kirk then orders Sulu to set a course for Isis III. Spock quite sensibly points out that even if the sensors are right and there are people down there, they can’t evacuate a whole planet in the forty-eight hours before the star blows. Kirk isn’t having that either.

[ID: Kirk pointing at Spock, whose ears are drawn abnormally large in profile, and saying, “We can try!” Someone off-panel is saying, “Captain?”]

“Captain, that statement is so ludicrous it made my ears stand up straight!”

So last issue, the scanners reported no life signs, so they sent a landing party down to check. This issue, the scanners are reporting life signs, which Spock says must be a malfunction, so they’re going to send a landing party down to check. I’m starting to wonder why they even bother scanning for life in the first place if they’re so determined to go down and check anyway.

Meanwhile, Uhura has a report on the upcoming planet. I’d question how she got sensor data at the communications station, but as this panel demonstrates, whoever drew this clearly never saw the actual bridge set, so perhaps it’s a bit much to expect whoever wrote it to remember what everyone’s jobs are. Or their ethnicites. Not only is Uhura white once again, they didn’t even color in her earring separately, which results in a somewhat disturbing image.

[ID: Uhura, colored with a pale Caucasian skin tone, looking out over the bridge, where Kirk is sitting in a bright pink chair, and in front of him two helm officers are sitting at a control panel. A viewscreen is visible at the end of the bridge, with several computer screens below it. Uhura is saying, “Class M planet, sir! Capable of supporting human life! Sensors indicate a massive life-force, suggesting a large population! I don’t understand how Federation probes could have missed them!” Her large hoop earring is colored the same as her skin, making it appear to be part of her ear.]

Man, gauges got kinda extreme by the twenty-third century.

Uhura goes on to report that she has a fix on the life signs, but it’s weird, because “All the life-force is emanating from one spot as if the entire population were on the head of a pin!” “Perhaps that’s why your earlier probes missed them, Spock!” Kirk comments. “They’re either midgets...or angels!” Spock then starts to give the odds against this before Kirk cuts him off. Yes. Hilarious.

Kirk tells Uhuru (sigh) to get ready to beam down with him and Spock, and to inform Chapel that she’s coming with too. “She has proven to be of invaluable assistance on past missions!” he explains, and I use the term ‘explains’ loosely.

The unorthodox landing party is soon ready to beam out, although that might prove to be difficult because apparently a terrible transporter accident has fused the bridge and the transporter room together.

[ID: Two panels. In the first, Kirk, Spock, Uhura and Chapel are standing on the transporter pad, with Sulu and Scotty looking at some screens in the foreground. Kirk is saying, “Sulu, how much of a safety factor do we have?” Sulu replies, “24 hours, sir!” In the second panel, Kirk is leaning in and saying, “Scotty, I want you to wait precisely 23 hours, 59 minutes for us and then warp out of her immediately!” Scotty, who is sitting at what looks like one of the bridge stations, says, “Aye, aye, captain!”]

WHERE ARE WE

So...unless it took them twenty-four hours to get that landing party ready, they still have forty-eight hours before the sun goes nova. I’m not sure exactly what Sulu’s ‘safety factor’ means, but I’m guessing he means the buffer of extra time they’ve allotted to make sure they can get out of there before things get really dangerous. Which means Kirk is telling Scotty to leave...one minute before they have twenty-four hours before the sun explodes?

Having left those baffling instructions in their wake, the landing party beams down, and has the perfunctory exchange of comments.

[ID: Chapel, Uhura, Spock and Kirk standing against a dull purplish-gray sky with some foliage creeping into the panel on the right. A narration box says, “Soon…” Chapel is saying, “Wow! I’ll never get used to that sensation!” Uhura says, “Nor to the sight of a new world! Amazing! That sky!” Spock says, “Atmospheric conditions are caused by pre-nova solar activity!” Kirk says, “We’re not here to sight-see!”]

Wow, that sky. Breathtaking. Incredible. I’m in awe.

After reminding everyone that they are not here to sight-see, they’re here to save a WORLD! Kirk asks Chapel where they should be going, since their landing site is mysteriously devoid of all the people they were expecting to find there. Chapel says she doesn’t know because the atmosphere is scrambling her equipment. Dang Federation technology gets scrambled the moment you take it out of the packaging.

Uhura and Spock then have a baffling exchange in which she comments that she “feel[s] like we’d been plopped down on a “Doomsday Earth” movie set!” and Spock replies “For all intents and purposes, we have, Lieutenant!” I’m not sure if Spock understands what a movie set is. Or possibly I don’t understand what a movie set is, or at least what a “Doomsday Earth” movie set is. Ultimately it’s irrelevant though, because the conversation is cut off by Spock getting attacked by a giant cloud of spray cheese.

[ID: A tall panel in which Uhura is yelling, “Look out!” and pushing Spock out of the way of a beam of yellow energy strikes down from the sky in front of him with a “PHFFAZZZ!”]

Kirk declares that “Whatever we do, we better get out of HERE, fast!” and takes off running, but Spock grabs him and pulls him in the other direction; turns out that somehow in the past five seconds or so that Kirk was occupied, the rest of the landing party found a path. Which Kirk is pretty sure wasn’t there before, but there’s no time to deliberate on that, with more spray cheese energy bolts on their tail.

[ID: Kirk, Chapel, Uhura and Spock running through some woods with bolts of energy striking all around them, making “PAHZAZ!” “PHFFFZING!” and “PAHZOWIE!” noises.]

“Don’t ask, captain! Just keep moving!” Spock says. But Kirk, of course, isn’t going to let a little thing like running for his life distract him from asking questions. “I don’t like it, Mr. Spock!” he declares as they charge through the bolts. “This path from nowhere! These bolts just missing! It’s as if someone were herding us somewhere! But where?”

Fortunately we don’t have long to wait for the answer to that question, because in the very next panel Chapel points out a rather attention-grabbing landmark up ahead.

[ID: A full page containing mostly one large panel with two smaller ones, inset at the top and bottom. In the top panel, Chapel is pointing into the distance and saying, “Perhaps there, captain!” while Uhura, behind her, says, “Goodness!” In the main panel, the landing party is looking through a tangle of trees towards a large angular pyramid-like building with two flights of steps leading up to the top and a door inset under an archway in front. A yellow triangle with an eye symbol in the middle is hovering above it. Uhura is saying, “What is it, captain?” Kirk says, “I was just going to ask Spock that!” Spock says, “It appears to be a religious temple!” In the bottom right panel, the group has gathered around the door of the building. Uhura is saying, “It reminds me of ancient temples to the sun!” Chapel is saying, “Captain! My sensor’s going crazy! There must be an army inside there!”]

alright, who summoned Bill Cipher

I appreciate that Kirk’s first reaction to seeing this thing was going to be asking Spock, who has exactly the same amount of information about it as Kirk does, what it is. Which I’m not sure is a great idea in this case, because Spock’s over there leaping to some big ol conclusions. Sure, that could be a religious temple, but it could just as easily be a tomb, a dwelling, a government building, hell it could be an artfully decorated grain silo. There’s no way to know just by looking at the outside of it! Geez, keep this guy away from archaeological sites.

Kirk declares that they’re going inside the temple, since that’s quite obviously the intended way to advance the adventure. Chapel protests that they might be walking into a trap, but Kirk says they don’t have much choice—the path they came by has disappeared again. Oh, so this is definitely a trap, then. Kirk orders them all to put their phasers on stun and aim them at the door, presumably intending to stun the door into submission. But before anyone can fire, the door opens on its own.

[ID: Two panels. In the first, the landing party is gathered around the doors, which appear to be opening on their own, while a voice from within calls, “WELCOME! BEINGS OF EARTH...AND WATER!” Chapel says, “That voice! Like a light in my head!” In the second panel, we see through the doors to where an indistinct robed figure is sitting in a tall chair surrounded by curtains, saying, “Enter the temple of the sun! Home of the sun-god incarnate! Enter crew of the Enterprise!” Someone offscreen says, “Incredible!”]

Huh.

Foregoing all thought of this being a trap, Kirk strolls on in through the door, the better to put his hand to his chest dramatically and say, “You—you know us???”

“You are not the only ones with “eyes,” captain!” the robed woman replies, in a rather disconcerting use of quotation marks. “I saw you out there...watching! You were curious about me, so I, in turn, am curious about you!”

Kirk asks if she’s aware that she and the rest of her people are in some serious danger, but she’s not fazed in the least: “I know that my time grows short! As does everyone’s and every thing’s!” “But you don’t have to die!” Kirk says. “We can save you! We can take you aboard our...boat in the sky! And take you to a safe place!” Smooth, Kirk.

The woman only says that she did not summon them there to save her. “You wished to see me die,” she says, “I give you your chance!” This thoroughly baffles everyone in the landing party, since last time they checked no one summoned them here at all. Evidently they’ve missed something.

[ID: Kirk approaches up the steps towards the woman sitting on the throne, who is draped in a yellow cloak with a red head covering. Kirk is saying, “Look, I don’t know where you got the idea we came to watch you die, but maybe the rest of your people aren’t so eager! Where are they?” The woman says, “Alas, they left but moments before you arrived!”]

Or we could just decide the old woman is the one who’s wrong, that works too.

Kirk asks where all these people left to, and the woman points off somewhere and says, “There! From whence they came!” Helpful. Kirk wonders if this means they’re all dead and buried and the woman is the last of her race, but Chapel says she’s still picking up a huge amount of life-force from around the temple, more than one person could account for. I’m still trying to figure out how the heck their sensors are quantifying ‘life-force.’ I mean life signs, I could understand life signs, I could understand detecting, say, heartbeats or respiration or a thermal signature, but apparently Chapel’s just straight up got some kind of aura reader over there.

Kirk—very dramatically—asks the woman just who she is. She tells him.

[ID: The landing party stand in a line looking at the woman, who is extending her hands upward and saying, “I am the warmth! I am the light! I am the giver! I am the protector! I am Isis, the god of the sun!” Kirk is thinking, “You’re also a warp four loony!”]

Nice, Kirk, very diplomatic thought bubble there. The use of ‘warp four’ there also implies a scale of looniness that goes up to at least seven.

Kirk asks Spock what he thinks of Isis. Spock refrains from giving any rankings of looniness, only speculating that perhaps she was left here as a sacrifice. So we’re just dismissing the god theory out of hand, huh? Ordinarily that would be considered a reasonable enough decision, but you guys have already met several beings who may not necessarily have been divine from a theological standpoint but sure had enough power to make that pretty much a moot point. I’m just saying, if I’d personally encountered folks like the Metrons, the Thasians, Trelane and his parents, etc, I’d at least take a minute to hear out anyone else who told me they were a god, just to save any nasty surprises down the line.

But instead, Kirk tells Chapel to stay with Isis—not for any particular reason that he feels like explaining—while the rest of the party goes out to look around some more. “The other inhabitants must be around here someplace,” he says as they walk outside, “and we are going to find them!”

Uhura points out that the path is still gone, but this doesn’t bother Kirk. Not because it is usually actually possible to walk through woodland without a path (sometimes unpleasant, but usually possible) but because hey, they’ve got phasers, so they can make a path. He tells the other two to set theirs to ‘heat blasts. I didn’t realize that was an option for phasers.

[ID: Spock, Kirk and Uhura firing their phasers into a copse of trees with a ‘PHFFFIZZZZZLE!’ Kirk is saying, “Fire!” Spock says, “Captain! Nothing! Our phasers don’t fire!” Uhura says, “I think….we’re being….surrounded.”]

And evidently, I was right about that.

I don’t know what Uhura thinks is surrounding them that requires such heavy use of ellipses, but Kirk yells for everyone to get back inside, then throws his phaser at a tree for good measure. But once back inside, they find Chapel passed out on the floor. Uhura, who is not a nurse or doctor, and is using no tricorder or other medical equipment, nevertheless manages to instantly identify the problem as sunstroke. Kirk is so distraught by this that his hand starts mutating.

[ID: Kirk gesturing towards Spock with one arm bent in an unnatural position to put his hand on his head, his thumb inexplicably large and also at a wrong angle. Kirk says, “What’s going on around here??? Has this world gone crazy! Beam us out of here, Spock! Now!” Spock says, “I can’t captain! Solar flares are interfering with communications to our ship!”]

you okay there buddy

“I fear we are trapped here, Captain!” Spock declares. Oh, what a surprise.

[ID: A splash page titled STAR TREK: DEATH OF A STAR: PART 2. It shows the Enterprise orbiting a planet with a bright sun in the distance. A narration box at the top reads, “Captain’s Log, supplemental: While the Enterprise orbits helplessly overhead, due to interference from the near-nova sun, we are trapped on a planet marked for doom! Our desperate search for Isis III’s mysterious inhabitants has only led us to a strange old woman! But now I have a more immediate concern than saving the lives of the inhabitants—namely, saving the lives of the crew and myself!” Below that a smaller narration box reads, “On the Enterprise...” Two speech bubbles are coming from the Enterprise, one reading, “Are you sure about these figures this time, laddie?” and the other one, “I’ve checked and double checked everything, Scotty!”]

Part two begins with Scotty harassing Sulu in an exchange so generic you could probably stick the dialogue into a good half of all TOS episodes with barely any variation. “I hope you reach the captain before it’s too late for all of us!” Scotty says, to which Sulu replies, “I’m trying but something down there is interfering!” Having established this very important bit of information about what the people back on the ship are getting up to, we immediately leave them behind again and get back to the planet.

Kirk helps Chapel up, or at least, he kneels beside her and says, “Are you feeling better, nurse?” Yes, Chapel says, she’s fine now, but she doesn’t know what happened—she just fainted. No worries, low blood sugar happens to the best of us.

But Kirk isn’t satisfied with that. “You!” he shouts at Isis. “You’re behind all this, somehow, aren’t you?!” Unconcerned as ever, Isis replies, “You have come to record my death! So be it! But on my terms!”

Rather than make any effort to engage with her to figure out what she means, Kirk declares that this whole thing is hopeless-- “trapped on a sinking ship with a lunatic!” That’s what I love about Kirk, he’s so sensitive and respectful. But Spock has had an idea. Maybe, he says, when Isis said her people were “down there” she meant it literally. Perhaps they’re underground, in some sort of shelter. Wait...you mean, it’s possible that Isis could actually have meant what she said? I dunno about that, man. I mean, what she said didn’t immediately make sense to us, so I’m pretty sure it must be total nonsense.

But there’s not much else for them to do, so Kirk has Uhuru (sigh) and Chapel stay behind to try and get “some sense out of Isis” while he and Spock go looking for some kind of passage or tunnel around this joint. It takes all of one panel before Spock locates the incredibly obvious switch on the wall that opens a secret door.

[ID: Kirk and Spock standing in a long stone corridor, facing the wall. Spock is pressing on a large panel engraved with a triangle-eye symbol, which makes a CLICK! He says, “Captain! Come quick! I believe I have found a way to our “Lost Isisians!” Between him and Kirk a door is opening in the wall with a ‘HYMMMMMMMM MMMMMM’.]

For an extremely loose definition of ‘secret’, anyway.

While Spock and Kirk are off making their Perception checks, Isis, having finally gotten rid of that annoying guy who keeps shouting at her whenever she tries to say anything, leads Uhura and Chapel out on a walk in the garden, because “There is much yet to say and little time to say it!” As they head outside, some mysterious lights appear.

[ID: Chapel and Uhura flanking Isis, each with a hand on her back, leading her down a path through some greenery. A line of sparkling orbs is snaking around the three women.]

That’s probably fine.

Meanwhile, Spock is showing off his discovery to Kirk, when suddenly...uh, actually, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here. I guess either the switch opened up the door in the wall and then a second door in the floor underneath them, or else they both just tripped and fell through the first door.

[ID: Three panels. On the top left, Kirk and Spock are looking at the door opening into the wall. A narration box leads, “Suddenly, while Mr. Spock investigates...” Kirk says, “What is it, Mr. Spock? What have you found!” Spock says, “Very simple, Captain. This “eye” seems to operate some kind of…..” On the right, a long panel shows Kirk and Spock falling into an abyss, Spock yelling, “...TRAP DOOOOR!” while Kirk yells, “WE’RE FLOATING! SPOCK!” On the bottom left, Kirk and Spock have landed in a cave. Spock says, “Though the odds were against it, there must have been a second passageway below our feet!” Kirk says, “Odds or no odds…..”]

What do you mean, the odds were against it? Spock, I don’t know if you’ve been playing too much Oblivion lately or what, but the architectural features of most buildings are not randomly generated. People either put doors in places or they don’t, there’s not just like a 30% chance of a trapdoor spawning in any given location.

But regardless of how the passage got there, they’ve clearly happened upon something significant. Or, as Kirk puts it:

[ID: Kirk and Spock look out through the cavern at a large underground city in the distance. Kirk puts his hand on Spock’s shoulder and says, “You’ve hit the jackpot, Mr. Spock!”]

Any hopes of locating a friendly NPC and getting some exposition about this weird place are quickly dashed, though, because closer examination reveals the city to be a thoroughly abandoned ruin. As they explore, Kirk wonders once again where everyone went, and why they left Isis behind. Luckily, Spock happens to stumble upon a room that has exactly what they need.

[ID: Three panels. On the top left, Spock is beckoning Kirk into a room that contains a pile of tapes and other junk in the corner. Spock says, “Perhaps these will tell us, captain!” Kirk says, “What have you got there, Mr. Spock?” In the right panel, Spock and Kirk look towards the tapes, each with a glowing spot on their forehead. Spock says, “They appear to be history tapes, captain!” Kirk says, “I can hear them, see them inside my head!” In the bottom panel, the light on Kirk’s head projects an image of a planet in space with a sun shining in the distance and a triangle with an eye hanging above the planet. A disembodied narrator says, “At first there was only “the eye”, Isis!”]

Well that’s an unorthodox method of data storage.

The tapes go on to explain how Isis—represented here by an Eye of Providence for some reason-- created life on the planet, inasmuch as the word ‘explain’ can be used to mean ‘somehow made things even more confusing than they were to begin with.’

[ID: Four panels. On the top left, a red sun is shining above a jungle, with the pyramid floating above it all. The narrator says, “And ISIS looked down on our world and saw that there was no light!” On the top right, the pyramid floats above the planet with a stream of tiny yellow eyes falling from it onto the planet, while the narrator says, “So Isis seeded the earth with her eyes!” On the bottom left, the eyes fall onto the ground, and a fuzzy red humanoid figure emerges from the earth. “And there-in rose up a people called Isisians!” On the bottom right, the figure looks up at the sun, which now has the pyramid in it. “And when they looked up there was light! For Isis now lived among them!”]

I’m...assuming this is some kind of metaphor, but it might make just as much sense either way.

Anyway, the Isisians (try saying that one three times fast) built the temple to house Isis, who proceeded to stay there to be with her children on the planet. Everything was great for a while, but “all things must pass! Even peoples! Even suns!”

[ID: A panel showing several figures gathered around the temple as the pyramid jumps up into the sky while the narrator says “And thus it came time for Isis to return to the sky, taking with her the gifts of life and light!”]

“alright my children it’s been fun but I gotta bounce byyyeeeeee”

The narrator (do you think they got some famous Isisian VA to do this?) concludes by relating that “in the twilight of our race, we have groped blindly underground to make this our final resting place! Yet we are not bitter! We are sad! For one day Isis too must give up the eye and pass! Thus ends our story! Thus ends our race!” So, what, they recorded their entire history and just left it laying around on a tape in some random room before they all went extinct? Were they intending for someone to come find this someday as a last record of them or did they just do it for kicks?

Well, anyway, Kirk is impressed. “Am I correct in assuming, Spock, that we have heard the legend of a people long since extinct?” he asks. “25 million years extinct, Captain, if my estimate is accurate!” Spock replies. Your...your estimate? Your estimate based on what, exactly? Did you just look around the city and go “hmmm yeah this looks about 25 million years old” or what? Also, that is one hell of a sturdy record tape that’s still fully functional 25 million years later. Can I get one of those anywhere? Cause I’ve had this harddrive for like five years and it’s starting to go on me.

Back up on the ship, Sulu is being pointed at so dramatically he’s having to lean back to get out of the way.

[ID: A panel showing the Enterprise bridge, with a narration box reading “Meanwhile, on board the Enterprise...” Scotty is pointing dramatically at Sulu, saying, “Still no luck, Sulu?” Sulu, only his head visible at an awkward angle in the corner of the panel, is saying, “No sir!”]

Scotty proceeds to explain to Sulu, who presumably already knows all this, that “Ya got tah raise ‘em, laddie! When the captain beamed down we told him he had twenty-four hours! But that was a mistake! That blasted star could go at any minute according to our new figures! If we stay, the whole ship’s in danger! If we go….” That’s all in one panel, by the way—there’s barely room for his head left under the speech bubble.

Having delivered his exposition, there’s not much left for Scotty to do but tell Sulu to keep doing what he’s been doing. Meanwhile, we’re told that Spock and Kirk “returned to the surface via the transport tube.” Ah yes, the transport tube. The transport tube that was definitely clearly established before that panel. That transport tube. Oh, and Uhura tells them she no longer wishes to change Isis’s mind.

[ID: Spock, Kirk, Uhura and Chapel standing in front of some trees and bushes, while Isis stands in the right corner. Kirk is saying, “You what??” Chapel says, “We no longer wish to change her mind, captain! We respect her right to die!” Uhura says, “She has a kind of nobility, sir! A soul! I have a tremendous empathy for her!”]

What, did you not think she had a soul before?

Kirk, apparently, takes quite a hard line on the whole right to die debate, because he immediately accuses Isis of bewitching his crewmembers. “See if you can reason with Isis!” he tells Spock, having made absolutely no attempt to reason with Isis. “I give up!”

Spock says he’ll try, but “logic rarely works on humans!” He then confronts Isis on how she earlier claimed that her people left just moments ago, “Yet there have been no humans on this world for millions of years! How do you explain that?” Which is an odd thing to say, considering that the images of the Isisians we saw were quite clearly not humans, yet Spock’s first statement rules out the idea of him using ‘human’ as a catchall term for sapient lifeforms. Evidently Spock’s definition of ‘human’ is ‘everybody in the galaxy that’s not a Vulcan.’

“So you have heard the legend of Isis?” Isis says, still as unperturbed as ever. “What do you think of it?” “An interesting folk tale!” Spock replies. Evidently this was not the right answer.

[ID: Spock and Isis stand in the background, Isis with one hand on Spock’s forehead, as she says, “Your logic is a cage, Mr. Spock! Come closer and let me set you free!” Red and yellow swirls are extending out from her in all directions. In the foreground, Chapel, Uhura and Kirk are watching. Uhura says, “Captain? What’s happening to her?” Kirk, leaning away in alarm, says, “I don’t know! It looks like...yes! That’s it!”]

What? What is it? What’s happening? Is she...no, she couldn’t be...

[ID: A tall panel showing the pyramid of Isis at the top with red and yellow light/flames emanating from it as the four landing party members float in the air. Isis says, “Farewell! Kirk says, “ISIS IS EXPLO...”]

Hmm, still not sure what’s going on. Could we get that confirmed one more time, please?

[ID: A panel on the Enterprise bridge, with a narration box reading, “On the Enterprise...” Sulu is standing up from his helm panel, saying, “The planet is exploding right now, sir!” Scotty rises from his own chair and says, “Then it’s...”]

cool thanks

Before Scotty can get the bagpipes out for a funeral dirge, our brave heroes are whisked onto the bridge, remarkably unexploded. For another few seconds, at least.

[ID: Three panels. On the top right, a narration box reads “At that exact instant...” above Chapel, Uhura, Kirk and Spock appearing on the bridge in a flash of light. Scotty, in the foreground, exclaims, “Captain Kirk! Spock!! Uhura! Chapel! How??” Someone in the landing party says, “Oooo! What’s happening? Am I dreaming?” On the bottom left, Scotty throws out his hands towards Sulu, saying, “Sulu! Warp eight! Immediately!” while Sulu says, “It’s...too...” On the bottom right, Sulu yells, “...Late! Ugh!” as explosions rock the bridge with ‘OOF!’ and ‘EEEEEEEEE!’ sounds and the helm shorts out with a ‘BZZZZT!’]

well maybe we would’ve had time if Scotty hadn’t stood around shouting the names of every single person in the landing party

And then the planet explodes. Hang on, I thought it was the sun that was exploding? Man, supernovas are confusing.

Luckily for the Enterprise, it turns out supernovas are also remarkably like hurricanes.

[ID: A large panel showing the Enterprise caught in a stream of energy from the pyramid of Isis as rocks and flame explode out from it. A narration box at the top reads, “The Enterprise is buffeted like a paper airplane in a hurricane as the force of a billion atomic bombs washes over it! Yet, like a hurricane, there is a place of calm in the center of the violence and the Enterprise, as though guided by some unseen protector, rides out the storm...in “the eye” of the hurricane!”]

Or, to put things less poetically:

[ID: The Enterprise bridge filled with smoke, a narration box reading “Suddenly...” Scotty, looking up with a stunned expression, says, “It’s a miracle! We’re saved! We’re in some sort of space pocket!”]

is that like a hot pocket

Unconcerned by the smoke now filling the bridge, Scotty asks Kirk what happened down on the planet. “I’m not sure, Scotty!” Kirk says, speaking for the audience. He asks Spock what he saw when Isis touched his forehead. Spock replies that he “felt...er...admiration, captain! And I saw things...inconceivable things! And I saw that a star had taken on human form in its final hours, so that it could talk to us!”

“You mean that Isis really was Isis?” Uhura exclaims. “It does explain a lot of things, lieutenant!” Kirk says. “Like how she could use the planet’s resources against us! And how she was able to block communications!” ...does it explain those things? Can stars usually control planets? Did I miss that episode of Cosmos?

As the Enterprise flies off, Kirk wonders if this means that stars really are living beings. “From what I glimpsed, captain, they may be more “alive” than we are!” Spock replies.

[ID: The Enterprise flies away with star-filled space on its right and a blue sky with a large sun on its left. A speech bubble from the ship reads, “Mr. Spock, next time we’re in the vicinity, remind me to have a long chat with our “lucky ole sun”, will you?”]

I dunno man, it didn’t go super well when they tried it in that Doctor Who episode.

And so ends another issue, with yet another planet destroyed. There’s not gonna be many planets left by the time this series ends. At least they didn’t start any wars on this one first, although I’m sure if there had been more than one person down there they would have found a way.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Gold Key #28: The Mimicking Menace

Our story begins with shooting, although, apparently, not enough shooting for Spock.

[ID: A comic book splash page featuring Spock and McCoy, on a rocky planet with a pink sky and a volcano on the horizon, pointing their phasers at Kirk and a redshirt woman, who are firing their phasers back. Spock is saying, “McCoy, don’t argue! Fire your phaser! Shoot or they’ll kill us!” and McCoy is replying, “But how can I destroy my own captain—kill Kirk?” The comic is titled ‘STAR TREK: PART 1: THE MIMICKING MENACE’ and a narration box in the top right corner says “What form can life take? In an infinite universe, it can take infinite forms! Now, as the crew of the Enterprise seeks to learn about a wandering asteroid, it is confronted with an unsuspected life form that turns Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Calder against the others!”]

Things are a bit more low-key this time—no planets exploding or outbreaks of war, at least—but you can tell we’re in for a trip just by that dialogue. I mean, can you imagine McCoy saying that? I can’t. About the only time McCoy recognizes that Kirk is his captain is for the purpose of being passive-aggressive about it, never mind him reacting to Spock saying this with just sort of open befuddlement instead of yelling “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR VULCAN MIND??” Meanwhile, Spock could easily have shot both people himself in the time it’s taking him to try to convince McCoy to do it, while the narration box is dramatically telling us about how Lieutenant Calder will turn against the others, as if we have any idea who Lieutenant Calder is or why we should care that much about them.  

Ah well, I suppose we’re supposed to be interested in why Spock is advocating for Kirk’s death, so we might as well see what’s up with that.

We begin with a captain’s log: “The wandering asteroid Tactis II is now below the Enterprise! Question—does this asteroid pose a threat to the Federation?” We get absolutely no explanation as to why they’re interested in this asteroid specifically. Checking out every single asteroid to see if it’s a threat to the Federation does not, how should I put this, seem like a terribly efficient use of time. Then again, considering the results of their last two missions, I wouldn’t be surprised if Starfleet sent them out here to categorize all the space rocks just out of a desperate attempt to keep them out of trouble.

Anyway, as Kirk says to OC of the Week Lt. Calder, this might be an easy mission (you’d think he’d know better than to say that by now) because there’s no sign of life on the asteroid. Even the volcano is inactive! Asked to confirm, Spock says, “Temperature readings all negative!” I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he means they’re only reading temperatures below zero, because if you’re getting temperature readings of “no” I’d say you need to do some maintenance on those sensors.

They’re also getting some minor movement readings on the ground, but as Lt. Calder points out, that doesn’t on its own suggest life. Spock then says this is not a logical deduction because “Does movement itself signify life? Philosophers have not resolved that yet--” Uh...no? I’m pretty sure movement itself doesn’t signify life? Example: my ceiling fan’s moving right now and as far as I know, it’s not alive.

But never mind what the philosophers say, Kirk wants to know if there’s life on that there asteroid. “Prepare a landing party,” he says, “and hope that that volcano is inactive!” Kirk, you...you literally just said that volcano was inactive three panels ago.

Since they’re not picking up any life signs with the ship, Lt. Calder wants to take a shuttlecraft (or ‘shuttleship’ as she puts it) down so they can take “a larger bio-detection unit.” Kirk agrees, so off the landing party goes in the Galileo—Lt. Calder, Kirk, Spock, and two security guys. At least, Kirk says he’s taking two hands from security, but the two people we see in the Galileo are wearing yellow/green. Then again, the Galileo itself is also half-green, so I don’t know what’s going on.

They land on the asteroid, and Spock reports that the scanners show a life-supporting atmosphere. That seems like something you guys should have checked before you went down, but whatever. Of rather more immediate interest is that when Kirk looks out the door he sees an identical copy of the Galileo sitting nearby. (Which he refers to as a shuttlecraft. Three panels ago it was a shuttleship. Consistency!)

Naturally, it’s the two redshirts  goldshirts uh, greenshirts, who get sent out to investigate the other Galileo. But they’re interrupted by the volcano going off. An eruption interruption, you might say. So much for it being inactive! Great job on the sensors there guys.

Kirk tells the security duo to make for the duplicate Galileo, since they’re closer to it than the real one. So they hastily climb in, declaring that they’ll be safe inside. Yes, you’ll be safe from the lava, in the...metal shuttlecraft...that’s sitting on the ground...but hey, as long as you don’t directly touch the lava yourself, you’ll be fine, right? That’s how it works in video games, and video games have never led me wrong before!

The two ‘shirts do make it into the duplicate Galileo alright, but are immediately confronted with another problem:

[ID: Two Enterprise crewmembers in green shirts with spirals around their heads, while white balls of light connected with angled lines float in the background. The man, on the left, is saying, “Funny...feel dizzy--” while the woman, on the right, is clutching her shoulders with her hands and saying, “Head spinning...can’t...stand! What’s going--”]

Wow, feeling dizzy while sitting on top of a fresh lava flow from a nearby volcano? What could possibly cause that? Could it be from inhaling the ash and toxic gasses released by volcanic eruptions? Or maybe from the intense heat of being stuck in a small enclosed metal box sitting directly on top of that nice toasty lava, which could easily be upwards of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit? Nah. Nah, it couldn’t be. Must be something else.

Whatever’s stricken the security duo, they quickly pass out...but when Kirk calls a moment later to ask if they can get the duplicate Galileo moving (not even so much as a “hey are you guys alright” either—geez, Kirk), there’s now a duplicate security duo there as well to answer him. One of them tells him the ship is abandoned but all systems are go and they’re preparing to lift off.

The original Galileo, on the other hand, isn’t currently going anywhere, because “we have no ion power! Zero!” No, I don’t know what ion power is. But I hear shooting phasers at the engine works wonders. Anyway, that’s a pretty big problem because it means they can’t get away from the lava bearing down on them. I thought being in a shuttlecraft made you safe from the lava? Man, I’m confused.

“Stand by for the lava!” Kirk declares, a pretty difficult command to obey at the best of times.

The lava hits the craft. “Our internal temperature is rising sharply!” Spock tells everyone helpfully. “But it is possible that instead of being covered by the lava, we will be pushed by it! The surface below is glassy slick!” Sure, okay.

Luckily for them, the volcano soon stops pouring out lava, and the Galileo coasts off to clear ground. “Safe, Spock! Except for scorched paint!” Kirk declares. Wow. I guess those things have to be built to withstand planetary entry but still, that’s impressive. I wouldn’t advise touching the sides for a while, though.

But where’s the other Galileo gone? As everyone wisely sticks their heads out the door to check out all that awesome lava, Lt. Calder spots the duplicate—it’s flying into the cone of the volcano. Hm. That doesn’t seem like a great idea.

Kirk calls the security duo to say hey, what the fuck, why are you flying into a volcano, did you lose control of that thing? “No, captain!” one of the doppelgangers assures him. “Our scanners show entry into the cone is safe! We are sure reconnaissance there may help explain events here! Out!” Right, the cone of the volcano that erupted like ten minutes ago is...safe. Sure. That checks out.

The duplicate Galileo lands in the cone of the volcano which does, somehow, appear to be free of lava, but there are a bunch of weird lights hanging around up there. The doppelgangers carry the original security crew out of the craft, and then, um...this happens.

[ID: A comic book page with five panels. 1, top left: the doppelganger of the male security officer holding the unconscious original and saying into a communicator, “Security team to Captain Kirk! All in order! Will report back to base very shortly!...Out!” 2, top right: the shuttlecraft Galileo dissolving into more of the lines-and-lights while a narration box says, “Quickly, the Galileo’s double converts its form….” 3, middle left: the two doppelgangers watch a large amount of the lines-and-lights hovering above the unconscious security officers, with a narration box saying, “Then, the greater structure absorbs the lesser….” 4, middle right, upper: two indistinct figures descending the side of the volcano, with a narration box saying, “Minutes later, two figures emerge from the cone, starting down the now hardened, cool slope...” 5, middle right, lower: Spock, Calder and Kirk inside the Galileo. Kirk is saying, “Odd! My communicator is dead!” while Spock says, “No contact down here! None with the Enterprise above! Most illogical...and dangerous!”]

So the duplicate Galileo turns into lights, and then those lights get absorbed by the bigger group of lights that was already there. Okay. Gotta be honest here, I had to re-read this page way too many times to figure out what was going on there. Inasmuch as that qualifies as figuring out what was going on, anyway. Meanwhile, Spock’s over there misusing the word ‘illogical’ again.

Kirk and Calder go to talk to those two figures, while meanwhile, up on the Enterprise, Scotty’s wondering what’s going on. They saw two shuttlecrafts down there, and now there’s no communications. Also, y’know, a volcano went off, but he doesn’t seem bothered by that. It all seems pretty dodgy, so he has Sulu take the conn while he and McCoy beam down to go see what’s up. Why take McCoy? I dunno. Why not take McCoy, I guess?

The doppelgangers tell Kirk they didn’t see anything unusual up in the volcano, just “a lava pit which caused the eruption, but it was cool enough inside!” A lava pit that’s cool seems rather unusual to me (temperature-wise; figuratively speaking, all lava is cool) but Kirk and Calder don’t get the chance to ask any follow-up questions anyway because this happens:

[ID: Kirk and Calder watching the two doppelganger security officers turning into lines-and-lights. Kirk is saying, “But what about the duplicate of the Galileo—say!” while Calder is saying, “A protein molecule chain! But why—what?”]

I’m not sure which reaction seems more unrealistic here: Calder immediately identifying a bunch of weird lights as a protein molecule chain, or Kirk just going “Say!”

Kirk and Calder feel weak and pass out, and then...

[ID: Two panels. Upper panel: lines-and-lights forming into the vague shapes of Kirk and Calder. Lower panel: The doppelgangers of Calder, Kirk and one of the security officers, with the security officer saying, “One is left!” and Kirk saying, “We can trick him easily! Come!” Meanwhile the real Kirk is laying unconscious on the ground, with a green shirt.]

So I guess the lights formed into doppelgangers of Kirk and Calder after they passed out, but...man, that sure could have been drawn a little clearer, huh. Also, apparently fainting made Kirk’s shirt change color.

Inside the Galileo, Spock’s check of the circuits has told him that the power drain afflicting the shuttle is being caused by some external force—something on the asteroid. Duhn duhn duhn! Before he can pursue this, Kirk and the rest come back, but either they’ve all suddenly transported into a green void (it’d make about as much sense as anything in this story, really) or someone forgot to draw the background.

[ID: Spock saying, “What did you learn, captain?” to doppelgangers of Kirk, Calder and a security officer, with Kirk replying, “Come out and we’ll tell you, Mr. Spock! Come!” All of them are floating in a vague green background with no features except a couple of diagonal lines cutting down across it.]

Spock asks what’s been causing all these shenanigans and doppel!Kirk tells him, “It’s rather difficult to explain...an unusual concept!”

Then Spock feels dizzy too.

[ID: Spock holding a hand to his head and saying, “Funny...feel dizzy!”]

Has anyone ever reacted to being dizzy by going “Funny...feel dizzy!” I mean, I feel dizzy all the dang time, and so far it has never once caused me to temporarily lose my grasp of personal pronouns and sentence construction. Being on tumblr too long sometimes does that, but never feeling dizzy.

Anyway, after passing through the green void, then a purple void, and then a pink void, evidently Spock somehow wound up outside, because he promptly runs back to the Galileo.

[ID: Spock running towards the Galileo, hands outstretched above him, thinking, “Energy drain..from me...from ion power...communicators...got to get away from...them!” while someone off-panel says, “Mr. Spock, where--”]

QUICK DEPLOY EMERGENCY JAZZ HANDS

While he’s doing that, Scotty and McCoy beam down nearby. Scotty’s glad to see the rest of the landing party apparently alive and well, but McCoy wants to know where Spock is. Yes, you read that right: McCoy wants to know where Spock is. I dunno, maybe he thought of a really good zinger on the way down and wants to use it as soon as possible.

Scotty wonders if Spock is in the Galileo, but as the two of them turn towards it, the doppelgangers draw their phasers and yell at them not to go in the shuttlecraft. Scotty draws his phaser in response, telling McCoy to draw his as well. The phasers are still pink, in case you were wondering. Well, pink-ish. Magenta?

So, turns out the cover was a bit misleading; it’s actually Scotty there telling McCoy to shoot, not Spock. But if you looked at that cover and thought, “Oh man, what I really want to see in a Star Trek comic is some really awkward dialogue for McCoy,” don’t worry! That part wasn’t misleading. This comic has you covered.

[ID: Scotty and McCoy, facing the doppelgangers of Calder, Kirk, and the security officers; Kirk is shooting his phaser at them. Scotty is saying, “They’re firing at us! Their phasers are on setting 1! Set yours for stun--” and McCoy is saying, “Me, shoot at my captain?”]

Part One ends on that dreadfully gripping cliffhanger. I won’t keep you in suspense. Let’s get to part two.

[ID: The splash page for part two. A narration box in the top right says “Captain’s Log, Star Date...32:21:9. From the moment our party landed on the supposedly lifeless asteroid, our lives have been under an unexpected threat! Some as yet unexplained life-form drains us of strength, makes a mockery of our form and turns us against each other!” In the foreground on the right is the Galileo with Spock leaning out of the door and saying, “Scotty...do not let emotions confuse...you...fire at Kirk...and Calder...you must SHOOT!” On the left, Scotty and McCoy are facing the four doppelgangers; Scotty is saying, “Use your phaser, McCoy! Spock must know what it’s about—terrible as it seems!”]

I have no idea who’s giving that captain’s log, since Kirk is currently laying unconscious in the dirt somewhere around here. I also don’t know if either Scotty or McCoy actually fire their phasers, because the art cuts straight to doppel!Kirk and Calder dissolving back into light, followed by the fake security duo. Scotty helpfully lays it out for us.

[ID: Scotty and McCoy watching the lines-and-lights sinking into the cold lava. Scotty is saying, “It gets more puzzling by the minute! Four humans turn into “things” and now the “things” seem to be dissolving into the lava field!”]

Baffled by all this (understandably, so am I) McCoy and Scotty head for the Galileo to see if Spock has any answers. Said Spock is currently kneeling on the floor but says he’ll be restored to his full strength in a moment. When Scotty asks what’s going on, Spock says, “An energy drain, but I was less vulnerable than the others because--”

We never find out why Spock was less vulnerable than the others (how convenient) because suddenly the volcano starts throwing up rocks. That’s bad news for Kirk and Calder, who are still laying out there in the open somewhere, so McCoy runs out to get them. Or possibly he just teleports over there, I’m not sure, all I know is one panel they’re all in the Galileo and the next panel he’s over there with Kirk and Calder, who are slowly starting to come around.

They make it back to the protection of the Galileo just in time for the last of the rocks to fall on it instead of them. Then the rockfall stops, leaving the Galileo a bit dented but otherwise fine. Well, that page’s worth of action definitely contributed some valuable to the story.

Of course, while the Galileo might be intact, it’s still inoperable due to that whole power-drain thing. Spock reckons the key to all this lies up in that volcano crater, so he gets Scotty—whose communicator still works, presumably either because he’s not been down there long enough for it to be drained or because Scotty himself is an ambient power source—to call up the Enterprise with a request.

[ID: Uhura listening to a speaker saying, “Scotty to Enterprise! If you read me, beam down a fully-equipped video-camera-robot!” to which Uhura says, “They must want to inspect something they’re afraid to face themselves!”]

Dang, Uhura, okay. Just...lay that right out there.

Meanwhile, Calder is speculating that they’re dealing with “some parasitic life-form that drains life powers from humans!” Kirk asks Spock if he agrees and Spock says they need more concrete evidence before theorizing. Right, it’s too early to theorize that the thing that’s been draining everyone’s energy might be a thing that drains energy. I’m starting to suspect that Spock just reflexively disagrees with anything Calder says.

The robot and its accompanying TV monitor then show up and man, you’d think that the freedom of a comic book format would allow them to depict some Star Trek tech that looked less incredibly and intrinsically 60s but, uh...nope, just doubled down on that, I guess.

[ID: Kirk and Calder looking at a human-shaped gray robot, accompanied by a rounded orange TV with large antenna. Kirk is saying, “Here’s the robot! Let’s have it explore the crater’s interior!” and Calder is saying, “Right! This asteroid’s secret lies in there!”]

So the robot that has no reason at all to be shaped like a human but is for some reason goes up to investigate the crater, relaying video to the TV, while Kirk and Spock helpfully tell each other what they’re looking at. As the robot enters the crater they see a ruined spacecraft of some sort, and then a couple of skeletons with the ragged remains of clothing still clinging to them. Cool! Then they see the lights again, and then the screen goes blank. Spock tries to recall the robot, but up in the crater we see this happening:

[ID: A doppelganger of the TV robot being formed out of lines-and-lights. A narration box reads, “Inside the crater, a mocking duplication of the now power-drained robot takes place...”]

oh, now you give us a narration box to tell us what’s happening

The robot comes back, and everyone helpfully gathers around outside to watch so they can all faint en masse when it turns out that, oh, what a surprise, the returning robot is actually another duplicate. Luckily Spock (who, remember, is less vulnerable than the others because--) hangs on long enough to call up to the Enterprise using...either his communicator that’s magically now working again, or Scotty’s communicator which he magically acquired at some point that we never saw, take your pick.

On the Enterprise some greenshirt tells Uhura they’re receiving a very feeble signal, and she tells him to turn on the sound-booster, because I guess Uhura’s delegating her job now. Spock tells them to fire a stream of negative ions into the volcano’s crater, so they circle back around over the crater and shoot it with the ion-beam dispenser that the Enterprise apparently has. This causes the lights to glow more brightly for a moment before fading until the weird thing is left looking like just a bunch of q-tips stuck together. But like, really big q-tips.

The real security team, still laying up there in the crater, finally get enough strength back to wake up and skedaddle out of there. Upon making it back down, though, they run into a spot of confusion, what with the four crewmembers laying unconscious on the ground and the four identical crewmembers standing over them.

[ID: The shocked security officers watching a double of Kirk, wearing an orange shirt, standing over the unconscious bodies of the real Enterprise crew. The narration box says, “As they hurry back to the Galileo...” while the double of Kirk says, “Shoot them! They are dangerous doubles!”]

dude your case for that would be better if your shirt wasn’t the wrong color

Spock tells them to shoot the people standing up, which they do, presumably accepting his authority on the grounds of being the only one around who doesn’t have a double. The doppelgangers turn back into lights and disappear into the lava, where Spock says they should be temporarily immobilized. One of the security duo reminds him about that robot that’s hanging around here somewhere.

[ID: Kirk holding a hand to his head while Spock kneels next to him, glancing over his shoulder at the TV robot and saying, “The ROBOT! I almost forgot! BLAST IT!”]

“there’s no need to swear, Mr. Spock” “I MEANT SHOOT IT”

Oh, how suspenseful, how will they handle this—I’m kidding, they just shoot it too. Everyone then heads back to the Galileo, where Kirk notes that “The ion power’s restored! Another mystery—like why you weren’t doubled, Spock!” Spock says he wasn’t doubled because he’s a Vulcan and his internal structures are different, so that slowed the process. Oh sure, that thing can duplicate a shuttlecraft and a robot just fine, but I mean, Vulcans, Vulcans are way different. As I’m sure you know, taxonomically speaking, humans are more closely related to shuttlecraft than they are to Vulcans. And no, Spock has nothing to say about the first mystery of why the shuttlecraft’s power is back on.

As they fly back to the Enterprise, Spock and Calder explain—and I use the term loosely—what that thing’s whole deal was. “This shape is very similar to our protein molecule chain!” Calder explains. “That is our basic life-building unit!”

Here’s a rendering of a protein structure, in case you were wondering (hemoglobin, specifically).

[ID: A computer rendering of several red and blue chains of curls inter-meshed with thinner curling red and blue lines and small branching structures of green, red and blue lines.]

Looks identical to me!

Spock explains that, as Calder speculated earlier, this particular protein molecule chain is a parasitic life-form that drains energy from everything. The central ‘life-core’ in the volcano sends out “smaller molecule chains—those duplicate any mechanical or human energy source, drain its energy, and return to feed the CENTRAL core!” Ah yes, the molecule chains. The chains that were easily big enough to be seen by the naked eye. Those molecule chains. Sent out by the protein molecule chain that’s...the size of a volcano crater...look, I’m a humanities major and even I know this is nonsense.

Calder reckons the thing goes into hibernation to save energy since it’s the only life form on the asteroid, but that the signs of movement the Enterprise detected could be its way of luring in passing energy sources. Because it’s a protein molecule chain that’s smart enough to understand that passing starships might be scanning for life, I guess…? Alright, never mind that, how did Spock defeat it? Simple, he says: the thing had absorbed the shuttlecraft’s power source, which was positive ions, so he had it hit with negative ions.

...you know, fine. Fine. Whatever. Let’s just go.

Kirk closes out with a captain’s log: “In accordance with Federation by-laws, we did not destroy the life-form on Tactis II...but even now, the life-form is probably active again! It will be seeking other energy sources! Be warned!”

Oh, sure, Federation by-laws. Now you care about Federation by-laws. You weren’t real fussed about Federation by-laws when it came to starting a civil war, or disrupting a clone society so badly the whole planet blew up, but this, this is serious. A bunch of weird lights on an asteroid that eat everyone who comes close? That’s something worth preserving!

So they fly off, having determined that against all odds, Tactis II is a threat to the Federation. Great. Now we’ve got to check all these other asteroids too.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek GK #27: Ice Journey

Our story begins with Kirk lamenting that they appear to have caused a civil war, possibly because the mere sight of those yellow suits drove people to violence. “This isn’t war,” the woman on the right helpfully tells us, “it’s madness!” It’s quite reasonable for her to be shocked, of course, since after all wars are usually very organized and polite affairs.

[ID: A comic splash page featuring three people in tight-fitting off-yellow jumpsuits on an icy planet while a group of blue humanoids with turtle-like shells fights a group of red humanoids in turtle-like shells in the background. The figure on the far left is saying, “I don’t believe it! We’re responsible for creating civil war in this planet! It’s impossible! The figure in the center is saying, “Illogical, Captain, not impossible!” The figure on the right is saying, “This isn’t war, it’s madness!”]

So last time they blew up a planet and this time they’ve started a civil war. I think I’m starting to see a pattern here.

The opening captain’s log tells us that the Enterprise is going to the planet Floe 1 to do a ‘special survey assignment.’ Scotty is apprehensive.

[ID: Scotty and Sulu facing each other in profile. Scotty is saying, “Darn right ye are—it’s hard enough to imagine being down there, our bones shivering away in the coldest planet of the federation!”]

Don’t worry Scotty, McCoy’s not even in this issue.

Kirk tells Scotty not to fret because he doesn’t have to do anything; only Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Krisp (whoever she is) are going down to the planet, and Kirk doesn’t anticipate any trouble because the Floe people are peaceful and cooperative—at least, according to the Federation annals. But Spock thinks there must be something up because “if there weren’t anything irregular about this planet, it would be highly illogical for the Federation to waste our time on a mere population survey...” Spock, buddy, I don’t know how to tell you this, but the Federation makes you run stupider errands than this all the time. Remember when you had to take your entire ship to go make sure two people got a routine checkup? Yeah.

The three of them suit up in their special ‘anti-freeze uniforms.’ Dr. Krisp reminds Kirk that if they breathe through their mouths or noses “the rapid condensation of our breaths in the atmosphere will choke us, so they’re to communicate through telepathy. Wait. What? TELEPATHY? WHEN DID THAT BECOME AN OPTION??

[ID: Spock zipping up his jumpsuit with a weirdly smug look on his face and saying, “Really?”]

ya rly

Spock thinks this is odd because their ‘screentest’ (what? Did they audition these people for a movie?) showed that the Floe people have a very similar metabolism to Earth people, also known as ‘humans’. Dr. Krisp says that’s one of the oddities that made her want to join the landing party. Oh, well, that explains everything, then.

[ID: Spock, Kirk and Krisp walking on to the bridge in their jumpsuits. Scotty, sitting in the captain’s chair, is saying, “Well! Look at this elegant trio! It makes me want to play bagpipes, it does!”]

thanks Scotty

Boy, that bridge sure doesn’t look like it does in the show. I’ll give them one thing, though: those sheer dorkiness of those outfits definitely is authentic to the show.

Sulu says the Floe people are expecting them and Kirk is all ready to depart, but the rest of the landing party reminds him to first grab some phasers and...tele-radios…?

[ID: Two comic panels. 1: Spock holding out two pink phasers and saying, “Right, Captain, but let’s not forget about these phasers...” 2. Dr. Krisp holding out two green devices and saying, “Or these tele-radios...who knows, if all goes well, maybe Scotty can beam down some background music and make the job less boring...”]

I guess all the communicators were broken. And presumably all the regular phasers, which is why they have to take the bright pink ones.

So they beam down to the ice.

[ID: Spock standing on an icefield, looking at his feet and saying, “I must say, these feet-binders are exceptionally well-built, Dr. Krisp...Earth people can be exceptionally practical at times...” In the background Kirk is looking at some domes rising out of the ice while Dr. Krisp turns back to Spock and says, “I told the engineer we were going on a special mission, not ice-skating...”]

yeah but on Earth we usually call them ‘shoes’

So much for communicating through telepathy. Or maybe they are? Maybe that explains how people are able to regularly talk with their mouths closed in these comics. Anyway, one would have thought that the extremely practical Earth people might have included some face masks with those suits, considering that apparently breathing out is deadly on this planet, but whatever.

There seems to be no one there at first, but then they start hearing some weird noises (like ‘fraaash’ and ‘fzoooom’) and suddenly the delegation appears nearby. They look like, well.

[ID: Kirk facing two approaching figures, who are humanoid with red scaly skin, sharply domed heads, and turtle-like shells over their chests, wearing no clothing except for a belt with a gun holster on the foremost one. Kirk is saying, “Thank you, delegate! I must say I wasn’t entirely prepared for...” and the foremost turtle-man says, “Meeting people who look like your Earth turtles?”]

For an extremely loose definition of ‘turtle’, sure.

Another turtle person approaches and welcomes Spock and Krisp (Kirk, apparently, is not welcome). “My name is Amara,” she says. “Delegate I, Sunaro, is my counter-leader...I believe you have met him...” Yeah, uh, we met him five seconds ago. Right here. You were there.

Apparently in the turtle system of government there are two parties, represented by Amara and Sunaro, but they’re both in power at once. “She does nothing without consulting me and I do nothing without consulting her...” Sunaro explains. And you actually manage to get things done that way? Wow, these people really ARE alien. I mean, the turtle thing is whatever, but that is unbelievable.

Spock wants to get going to the city to find out more about these weird turts and their weird government. Kirk asks if they’re not already in the city, but it turns out that the weird dome things standing around aren’t a part of the city—they contain the city, which is completely covered. As they approach one of these domes a chute opens out, which appears to be on fire. Then something weird happens.

[ID: Two turtle people stand in the flames gushing out of a chute in a wall, their shells melting off their torsos. Offscreen two people are saying, “So that’s it! They’re cracking their shells! That’s what the noise is all about!” and “Yes, now I see it! They have adapted to their rapidly changing atmospheric condition by sprouting protective shells whenever they are exposed to it...” A third person standing in the corner of the frame says, “And cracking them open whenever they enter a temperature which is right for their metabolism!”]

Dunno how well you can be protected from deadly cold by a shell that only covers your torso, but whatever. Kirk asks if this means the turts have “beaten time...or at least adapted to their environment with the same incredible velocity that their atmosphere appears to have changed?” Evidently so, Spock says, because “according to my calculations, this planet circles away from its sun and towards glaciation at the rate of an Earth century a year!” Wait, what? What does that even mean? Does Spock think Earth moves further away from the sun every hundred years?

Dr. Krisp says that the thing that puzzles her (...only one?) is that “even in the most advanced civilizations only a few beings manage to adapt completely! The rest either perish or...” Or what? Don’t leave us hanging here.

Spock wonders to himself just how many of the turts actually survived, and if this is really why the Federation wanted them to do a population survey. But at that point the turts turn the tables, training guns on the crew and saying that it looks like their mission won’t be pleasant after all because “your two learned colleagues have spoiled the fun.” I don’t know how they read Spock’s thought bubble. Maybe his telepathy was too loud. Anyway, Kirk gets grabbed by Sunaro while Amara shoots at the ground under Spock and Dr. Krisp, causing them to fall while Spock exclaims that his phaser is dead. Man, I knew we shouldn’t have brought the pink phasers.

Up on the ship a helmsman who might or might not be Sulu, it’s a little hard to tell, says he thinks he heard someone “beep on the radio” but now it’s gone. Scotty and Uhura both figure they should wait a while and not jump to any conclusions, though—no need to worry, the landing party will call if they need something. I mean, there’s never been a time when a landing party needed to contact the Enterprise and wasn’t able to.

But then Kirk does call them up. Sulu (it’s almost certainly Sulu this time) asks how things are going and Kirk says oh, they’re going fine, just dandy, there’s definitely not four turtle men pointing guns at me right now. “I’m afraid the survey will take longer than expected,” he says. “We’re going to need Lieutenant Uhuru to come down and lend a hand...err...” GUYS HER NAME IS UHURA HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THAT RIGHT COME ON.

Kirk gives some bullshit about needing Uhura to come help him communicate with the leaders. The bridge crew find this a bit suspicious. Or, as Sulu puts it, “Gee, the captain seems awfully repetitious and long-winded...I wonder what he is trying to tell us!” Yes. Well put. Anyway, Uhura figures Kirk might need help, so she’s going to, uh, march right down there, alone, directly into whatever might be going on, without any information. Great plan.

Down on the planet, Sunaro tells Kirk that, “You will have your court stenographer, Uhura, take down the report as we have dictated it to you! If you play your part right, no one will be hurt and your friends will be released! Otherwise, I’m afraid you will find the alternative most unpleasant!” Wait wait wait you think Uhura is WHAT

Kirk wants to know why they’re doing all this since the Enterprise came in peace, and Sunaro tells him “Peace is the idealist’s word for nonsense!” Right. Sure. Anyway, apparently they were once a happy people admired all over the solar system even though they spent their time herding goats in their underwear.

[ID: A beige-skinned and shell-less turtle person wearing boots and a loincloth sits in a grass field next to some goat-like creatures while another turtle-person waves at them. The narration box reads, “Our grass was green, our people industrious, our bodies perfect! Floe I was the most beautiful planet in existence when we joined the Federation! And then came a fate so unexpected...a curse...I believe Mr. Spock and Dr. Krisp are catching a glimpse of it right now!”]

think you might be overselling things a bit here

Meanwhile, Spock and Dr. Krisp have been cast into Hell, I guess. Cool.

[ID: Narration box: “Elsewhere, deep in the Floe city...” Spock and Dr. Krisp in a transparent cell are being lowered into a sea of flames full of blue turtle-people reaching their hands up and making sounds like “Urrrgh!” “Ooh!” “Oohm!” and “Aaaah!” Spock is saying, “So this was the future of the Floe I mutants! A world of mad, jailed people!” and Dr. Krisp is saying, “At the moment, Mr. Spock, we are no freer than they are! In fact, we are caged animals in their zoo!”]

So it’s part two, Uhura’s been captured along with Kirk (and boy is she giving him a dirty look) while Spock and Krisp have descended into an inferno full of blue turtle-people.

[ID: A comic splash page divided diagonally. In the top half, Kirk and Uhura are sitting in manacled to chairs, being watched over by two armed turtle-men. The narration box reads, “Captain’s Log: Star Date 20:27.5. Lieutenant Uhura and I are being held prisoners by the two leaders of Floe I—Dr. Krisp and Mr. Spock have vanished! It is clear that Amara and Sunaro intend to do away with the crew and me as soon as Lieutenant Uhura writes a false report about their mad society for the Federation...my only hope is that we manage to fool these tyrants and come out alive...I have lost all communication with the Enterprise!” In the lower half, Spock and Dr. Krisp are standing in their cell looking out at the blue-turtle people. Dr. Krisp is saying, “These people are burning up!...And still, they’re alive!” while Spock says, “I would be hard-pressed to define what life is under these conditions, Dr. Krisp!”]

As you can see, Uhura’s back to being white in this story. Actually I had a look through both my books and it appears that the only story in which she has an accurate skin tone (well, as accurate as anyone gets to be in these comics) is the last one we covered, The Perfect Dream. I don’t know if they hired a colorist with some integrity for just that one issue or what.

Down below, Spock and Dr. Krisp get cast into the flames.

[ID: Spock and Dr. Krisp slide down into the flames, surrounded by turtle-people. Spock is saying, “Watch out for those flames, Dr. Krisp! What’s death to us is evidently life to them!” Dr. Krips is saying, “I believe that’s just what their leader and counter-leader have in mind for us...we’re being burned at the stake for knowing too much, just like it happened on Earth, light years ago!”]

Light years ago?

[ID: A screenshot from the end of the battle in a Pokemon game, in which a boy in camping gear is saying, “Light-years isn’t time...it measures distance!”]

The blue turts tell Spock and Dr. Krisp that despite spending all their time flailing around and reaching out desperately they are perfectly normal people who are not to be feared. Apparently the red turts won’t give them the ‘mutation-speeding serum’ so “all [their] body fluids are freezing inside [them],” because they turned out blue and not red. And then they all got put into a giant chamber of fire.

[ID: Dr. Krisp wading through the fire and thinking, “Just as I thought! These people are really no different from Sunaro, Amara and their crowd! They are simply being punished because their bodies mutate into a different color!” In the foreground Spock is saying, “Dr. Krisp! Come here, I believe I’ve made a most interesting discovery!”]

you know I think this might be an allegory for something but it’s so subtle I just can’t tell

For all that talk about “what’s life to them is death to us” Spock and Dr. Krisp seem to be pretty not bothered by walking around in a blazing inferno. Spock soon discovers a giant computer screen in the midst of the flames which he thinks is controlling the blue turts. “They’re being killed slowly to set an example to others who do not follow their leaders’ orders!” he says. In my experience computers don’t work too well when they’re in the middle of a sea of fire, but I guess the turts are just advanced that way. Why they’re apparently recording the proceedings with a giant computer instead of, say, a camera is another question.

Spock and Dr. Krisp are like “yeah we should probably try to get out of here” but are interrupted by the cries of parents whose daughter has just died, which really shouldn’t be funny, and yet.

[ID: Spock saying, “I believe I have a way of...” as he and Dr. Krisp turn to see two turtle people standing and kneeling over the body of a third, saying, “AHHHHHHH! HELP! HELP! It’s Jdula—our youngest daughter—the metabolic imbalance has finally destroyed her...perhaps she’ll be happier now!” and “Her suffering has stopped...but ours has been doubled!”]

So...the turts mutated into red turts and blue turts. The red turts invented a mutation-speeder serum that allows them to adapt to the freezing conditions. Without this serum they’ll suffer a metabolic imbalance that will kill them, which seems to be a separate problem from just dying because it’s really cold. The red turts went all Star-Bellied Sneetches and declared that the blue turts were inferior so instead of getting the serum they were stuck in a giant room of fire, which is either killing them or keeping them alive until the metabolic imbalance kills them, or maybe both. And somehow their clothes haven’t caught on fire. Okay.

Spock and Dr. Krisp figure the best way to help the blue turts is to get them the serum, so they ask if anyone knows where it is. One blue turt tells them it won’t do any good because many of their people have already died trying to find it, then another one says that the Federation visitors might be their only hope except it’s probably impossible anyway, then another one says that they’ll tell them where the serum is on the condition that they set the blue turts free and then leave the planet forever, and Spock muses that it’s tricky because the Federation wouldn’t want them to be instruments of vengeance. All that happens in one panel, by the way.

Meanwhile, Kirk is being forced to give his report while Court Stenographer Uhura transmits it. “And so based on our thorough analysis,” he says, “we are forced to conclude that the Floe 1 planet adheres to the peaceful laws, er, uh...of the Federation and that in their er, uh...counter democracy everyone is treated, er, ah...”

Sunaro thinks this is suspicious and warns Kirk not to try any tricks, but Uhura reassures him.

[ID: Uhura saying, “It’s the captain’s normal speech pattern, honorable Sunaro...especially when he’s talking into a machine...”]

wow just come straight for William Shatner’s life there, damn

Turns out Kirk was stalling (oh so subtly) to give Uhura time to scramble the message. She succeeded, but unfortunately the turts have caught on.

[ID: Uhura standing next to Kirk, who is seated at a desk holding a transmitter, while Amara and Sunaro approach them along with a third turtle-man. Amara is saying, “Captain, I’m afraid our sensors indicated that your message has not been getting through and therefore...” Sunaro, drawing his gun, continues, “And therefore I’m afraid we’ll have to exterminate you, or rather, melt you!”]

Sunaro remembers just in time that ‘exterminate’ belongs to another sci-fi series.

Y’know, I’m not sure if I’m more concerned by the fact that the turtle woman has breasts or the fact that all the turtle men are wearing nothing but tight black briefs and boots.

Well, Kirk and Uhura aren’t going out without a fight scene. A terrible, terrible fight scene.

[ID: Kirk and Uhura punching Amara and Sunaro, who exclaim, “Arrgh!” and “Ouch!” while Kirk says, “There you scoundrels!”]

Before things can get any worse—if that’s possible—Spock and Dr. Krisp burst in, holding a strange disc pointed at the turts. “Not so fast, you ruthless dictators!” Spock declares. “Release the captain and the lieutenant or I shall drain the serum out of you and leave you to freeze like you have left your people in the Blue Chamber!”

It seems this disc they’ve found neutralizes the serum, causing the turts to begin to freeze to death. The...mutation-speeder serum. So...what, do they un-mutate? Also, how does a glowy disc act as an antidote to an internal serum? Also, what is happening?

With the turts forced to stand down, Spock explains to Kirk that despite being the minority of the population, the red turts control the entire planet. Any blue turts who rebel are sent to be tortured in the Blue Chamber, while the rest are slaves. Apparently the blue turts gave Spock and Dr. Krisp this disc (how Spock and Dr. Krisp then got out of the Blue Chamber is not explained). The reason the blue turts haven’t used the discs themselves is because without the serum, anyone who escapes the Blue Chamber immediately dies of frostbite. So...the Blue Chamber is where the blue turts are sent to be tortured and die to serve as an example to the rest...and it’s also what keeps them alive? Do the red turts think it’s not effective enough if the blue turts die too quickly, or did they just set the whole place on fire just to be extra mean?

Spock explains how he used Logic to find the room they’re in, which is apparently directly above where the serum is produced. Dr. Krisp explains that, “The discs were easy to obtain—the red Floe 1 citizens did not count on the fact that the blue Floe 1 prisoners discovered the disc arsenal lay hidden behind a panel right in the Blue Chamber--” So they...put the weapons that are deadly to them...in the room where all the prisoners who have a lot of motive to kill them are kept...prisoners who could use those weapons without fear because they don’t have the serum themselves. Right. I’m starting to see why these guys are going extinct.

But then! Sunaro and Amara do...something.

[ID: A narration box says, “Suddenly...” Amara and Sunaro are standing next to a control panel at the back of the room. The other three landing party members are arrayed around Uhura, who is lit up and exclaiming, “They’ve got me stuck to a live wire! He...help...awh...” Spock is saying, “Stand back, captain! They’ve taken control of the panels!” while Kirk says, “Hold it Sunaro! Turn the life-current back on or I’ll fire!”]

Even with everyone shouting narration about it I have no idea what’s going on in this panel.

They enter a stand-off, with Kirk demanding they let Uhura go or his report to the Federation will be very cross. Amara says okay, they’ll all be released, and opens a trap door underneath them. Why...why was that even there?

But Amara’s incredibly genius move only results in the crew landing exactly where they wanted to go anyway: the serum chamber.

[ID: A page showing a large stone room with high dais next to a staircase in the background, while in the foreground there is some strange machinery and two red turtle-people bathing in stone tubs Blue turtle people are walking around carrying vats and attending to the machines while Amara, Sunaro and their goon descend the stairs. The Enterprise crew have landed on the dais. The narration box reads “And as Amara releases Lt. Uhura, the floor under them caves in and they find themselves in the serum laboratory...” Spock or possibly Kirk is saying, “So this is it! An ingenious people, the Floe I...” while Dr. Krisp says, “The serum is given them through osmosis, by a simple process through their skins—by just bathing!”]

‘Ingenious’ is not the word I would use to describe these people.

Amara and Sunaro come downstairs and ask Kirk what he plans to do now (I guess they’ve just given up on stopping him). Kirk wants them to free all the blue turts and give the serum to everyone, which of course they refuse to do, because the blue turts are so inferior they’d just wreck everything. So Dr. Krisp (I think—it’s a little hard to tell with everyone wearing those suits) yells out to the blue turts that they bring a message from the turts in the Blue Chamber: they need the serum to survive. One would...sort of think the blue turts would know that already.

But apparently all that the blue turts needed to spark a rebellion was a message from a random person telling them something they should have already been well aware of, because they yell out that this is what they’ve been waiting for, and start smashing the vats of serum and attacking the red turts. As the brawl spills out across the city, the landing party sneak out and beam back to the Enterprise.

Back on the ship, Scotty (who was apparently just about to send backup) asks why the heck Kirk just left the turts down there in the middle of a civil war. “As you know, it’s against the laws of the Federation to interfere with any planet we set out to explore,” Kirk explains. Yeah, it’s perfectly fine to start a civil war, but stopping one? Out of the question.

As Kirk continues, though, it wasn’t just that old Prime Directive thing that made them leave. He explains that Floe 1 is doomed anyway—it’s moving away from its sun quicker than the turts can produce the serum, and will soon end “in ice and then nothingness.” The turts, red and blue, all knew that they had only a few days left to live, and could have been saved if they had asked the Federation for help earlier. But the red turts were more concerned with going down in history as an ideal people, hence wanting the last report to the Federation to be about how great they were. An entire species too busy fighting each other and trying to advance their own interests to avert death by climate disaster? Ha ha, that would never happen. This sci-fi stuff, so implausible.

Scotty can’t understand why the turts would spend their last few days fighting a war when they know they’re all going to die soon anyway. Spock explains.

[ID: Spock saying to Scotty, “I believe Earth people have a word for it, Scotty, a word missing in the Vulcan dictionary—that word is hope!”]

“It’s a word which does not appear in the Vulcan dictionary, which is why I just used it in a context that frankly makes no sense.”

Thus ends another story of the GK Enterprise crew screwing up an entire planet. The Wacky Aliens Who Hate Each Other For Being Different Colors plot might have worked a little better if they hadn’t made the entire human cast white. Including Uhura. I think I still would’ve been just as confused at the end of it, though.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Gold Key #26: The Perfect Dream

Our issue begins with a bang. A planet-sized bang, to be precise.

[ID: A comic splash page showing a ringed planet exploding in space. The title in the upper left corner reads Star Trek—THE PERFECT DREAM Part 1. Narration box one: “Federation board of inquiry: Stardate 30:20:4! Investigation into possible Federation involvement in annihiliation of neutral planet body! Recorders log: Testimony of Captain James T Kirk...” Second narration box: “Members of the board, the issues at point are of delicate diplomatic balance! Therefore, so that you may understand the Enterprise’s position, I must carefully reconstruct the events that took place upon Rifas-L...”]

Evidently Kirk is in some trouble about this, since he’s explaining it to a Federation committee. Y’know, they’re supposed to seek out new life and new civilizations, not blow them to smithereens. Bit of a faux-pas, that.

In flashback, Kirk describes how they found this weird planet, or at least something that looked like a planet, but was a bit lacking in some typical planet characteristics. Such as being in a solar system. Or being in orbit. Instead it’s just moving across space in a straight line, Great A’Tuin style, with all its light and heat apparently being provided by its rings.

Well, what’s a crew to do when confronted by a mystery planet but beam down to it and check out what’s going on. Kirk beams down with Spock, Sulu, Chapel, a redshirt, and...Uhuru?

[ID: A landing party consisting of [left to right] Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, a balding redshirt man, and Nurse Chapel, partway through beaming into a grassy space with some trees and rocks at the edges. Kirk’s narration: “The landing party I took down with me for observation purposes included Spock, Helmsman Sulu, Medical Officer Chapel, Communications Lieutenant Uhuru [sic] and Security Officer Manning!”]

As they start to look around the landscape, Kirk reminds everyone to be careful since they don’t   know much about their surroundings, and Spock is like “lol humans can’t just appreciate something beautiful can they.” Immediately after he says this, the group is attacked by a wild mountain lion. Let that be a lesson to you, Spock.

[ID: Four square panels arranged in two rows of two. First panel, Uhura is saying, “Captain—it’s beautiful! I’ve never seen anything like it!” while Kirk, in the foreground, says, “Yes, stunning! Still, all the beauty could be hiding something—be alert!” Second panel, Spock, Kirk and Uhura are on the ground while the viewpoint shows a beige mountain lion-like creature poised in a tree branch above them. Spock: “Captain, I fail to grasp why humans cannot face beauty without doubting or destroying it...or both!” Third panel, the creature pounces onto the redshirt man with a “RRRROOOWWRR!” Sulu, in the foreground, is saying, “Manning! Captain! A carnivore attacking Manning!” while from offscreen Kirk says, “Set phaser on stun, Sulu, fire on my command!” Fourth panel, Sulu and Kirk fire their phasers onto the creature with a shout of “Now!” from Kirk, knocking the creature off of Manning.]

As if alien mountain lions weren’t bad enough, a giant flock of SPIES OF SARUMAN black birds also shows up. Uhura is somehow able to identify them as ‘like Earth ravens, but carnivorous’ from a distance.

Luckily, before our hapless crew can get Hitchcock’d, they’re rescued by a crowd of...Japanese people…? They yell at the Enterprise crew to drop to the ground while they take care of the birds.

[ID: Three people in samurai-like armor and one in a short tunic fighting off birds and lion-creatures with katanas. In the foreground Sulu is saying, “Captain, I’m not quite sure of what I’m seeing! If I’m not mistaken, they’re using a variation of samurai technique used in ancient Japan!” and Kirk is replying, “Whatever it is, it’s working!”]

Ah yes, the ancient Samurai technique of ‘hitting birds with swords.’

Once all the birds have been driven off, the newcomers politely invite the crew back to their city, where they can treat their injuries with healing balm. Chapel gets unnecessarily hostile about this and snaps that, “I’m quite sure I have the proper supplies to care for my own patients, thank you!” Calm down there, Chris, they don’t know you’re a doctor.

So the crew take a hike back to this city with the mysterious Anachronism People. On the way, Spock and Kirk note that there are farmlands nearby, but they’re only cultivating wild growth instead of developed land, which they find odd since a planet this plentiful isn’t where they would expect to find nomadic farming. After all they’ve been there like, a whole five minutes, which is definitely enough time to do an in-depth analysis on local agriculture possibilities.

But the farming ruminations will have to wait, because they soon arrive at the city.

[ID: A large panel showing the Enterprise crew along with their armored guides approaching a Japanese-styled city by a river. In the background are indistinct shapes of buildings beyond an arched bridge over the river, with mountains in the distance; in the foreground is a while building with red roofs, where a woman in a short pink tunic is standing on the steps saying, “Welcome, travelers! I am Oshino of the Third Dan! This the imperial city of Shondo Ho! Come! We have quarters waiting—Yamoto saw your arrival!” Uhura is saying to Kirk, “Captain, it—it’s perfect! It’s like those enchanted cities I vid-sorbed as a child!”]

Like the what that you what now

Oshino introduces them to a guy called Ekoe of the First Dan, who’s supposed to ‘see to their needs,’ which he does precisely none of in this story but never mind that. Once installed in some guest rooms, Kirk and Spock talk over the situation. Spock thinks this is all weird because the people seem to be living in total perfect harmony with their surroundings, which he’s quite sure humans aren’t capable of. Really? That’s what you find weird about all this?

Kirk has a slightly more salient point: he’s noticed that of all the people they’ve seen so far, he’s only seen six distinct faces. It’s rude to call out the artist like that, Kirk. Anyway Kirk says he’d think maybe that meant everyone around here is an android, but they all show up on the scanners as human. Hm.

Oshino shows the group around the city some. Uhura notes that they all seem very relaxed and not rushed, and asks what their lifespan is. At this Oshino acts confused and says she doesn’t understand what this ‘lifespan’ thing is because they are ‘of Yamoto and the moment.’ Ekoe jumps in and says that maybe they should be thinking more about what happened before and what will happen after, for which he gets chastised for asking questions he’s not supposed to be asking. How, exactly, these people have managed to build up a society with agriculture and a developed city when they have no concept of past or future is...well, that’s, uh, that’s quite something.

But apparently asking “what happened before right now” is a hanging offense around here, because Oshino rats Ekoe out for incorrect thinking to some guy she calls ‘clan father’ who says that Ekoe’s going to have to be ‘dealt with’ for that. But not right away. We can have some dramatic passage of time first.

[ID: Sulu talking to Oshino, an Asian woman wearing a short pink tunic with flowers in her hair, inside a building with yellow walls. The narration box reads, “Oshino tended to spend more time with Sulu. Because of the similarities of their cultures there seemed to be intellectual identification between them!” Sulu is saying, “Can you tell me anything of your history—your planet’s development?” Oshino says, “History? I don’t understand! I—I...lakes?”]

LAKES?

Oh yeah, sure, Sulu’s from 23rd century Earth and she’s from an alien planet vaguely emulating ancient Japan, but their cultures are just alike!

Turns out this whole ‘lakes’ thing is Oshino getting a vision of something happening previously—aka ‘remembering’--specifically a bunch of people rising out of lakes. Huh. Weird. She shrugs this off and asks Sulu to tell her more about where he came from, so he tells her about concepts like ‘night’ and ‘stars’ and ‘other planets’. I’d fear for the Prime Directive, but I think that got busted quite a while back.

Meanwhile, Spock sees Ekoe constructing a cute little model house, but when asked about it Ekoe says that obviously he couldn’t be constructing anything because he’s a First Dan and his functions don’t allow for that. Then he destroys it in a rage. A...weird rage.

[ID: Ekoe, an Asian man in a belted green tunic with a green wrap tied around his hair, sitting at a table and angrily knocking apart a model house, saying, “What is this? This is merely a semi-quadrainial, psi-sided convertional nothing!” Behind him, Spock is standing with one hand thoughtfully on his chin, thinking, “Curious! Ekoe is unlike anyone we’ve met here...”]

A semi-what what-sided convertional what now?

Spock notes that Ekoe stands out around here, not just because he speaks in weird gibberish, but because he alone seems to be unsatisfied with his role in life and is questioning the whole society. When questioned Ekoe reveals that he also has the magical skill of ‘seeing the past’ but his memories don’t make any more sense than the lake thing.

Kirk takes Uhura and Sulu out to scout around for a bit. And he’s giving a captain’s log...during a flashback? Sure, okay.

[ID: Kirk, in the foreground, and Sulu and Uhura in the background, exploring a grassy wooded landscape. The narration box reads, “Stardate 30:19:15...continuing with our data collecting on Rifas-L...We have set out to explore surrounding wild areas!” Kirk is saying, “Sulu, I want samples of that glowing ore over there sent up to the Enterprise for analysis!” and Sulu replies, “Aye aye, Captain!”]

Sulu, I wouldn’t get too close to that glowing ore if I were you.

While poking around, Uhura notes that nearly all of the flora around here has food value, which allows for the prosperity the local people enjoy. Kirk also mentions that he hasn’t seen a single child anywhere around, causing Uhura to posit the existence of some kind of child storage institution.

Spock, meanwhile, is off somewhere else, wiping out the local wildlife.

[ID: Spock standing in grass, shooting his phaser at a lion-creature leaping towards him while another one snarls in the foreground. Spock is thinking, “The ferocity of those creatures would seem to contradict the environment of this world! However, I have a theory...I believe they’re guarding something!”]

Leaving a trail of dead carnivores in his wake, Spock eventually happens onto an isolated building which is giving off weird ‘life force emanations,’ so naturally he goes inside to take a look. Evidently someone went to the trouble of getting a bunch of lions to guard the place, but didn’t think to put a lock on the door.

Back in the city, Kirk is talking about wrapping up this whole venture soon, when Ekoe comes in with another model house and asks if the Federation might have a place for him (and his little houses) somewhere, because he doesn’t fit in around here. Before Kirk can respond to this, a bunch of armed guys (whom Ekoe refers to as ‘collectors from the Garden of Eternity’) burst in to arrest him. Turns out Ekoe doesn’t fit in so much that he’s going to be executed for being a ‘mental deviant.’ The crew tries to save Ekoe, but sadly they’ve misplaced all their phasers—apparently--because they’re forced to resort to whacking the armored guards with their bare hands, which doesn’t work out so well.

[ID: Sulu ridiculously chopping a man in samurai-like armor with the back of his hand while exclaiming, “She’s right, Captain! We’ve got to stop them long enough to make them listen!” In the background, Uhura is pushing over another man in armor.]

Eventually Oshino bursts in and gets huffy at them for interfering in something they know nothing about, and tells them that if they don’t stop fighting they’ll get executed too. So the Enterprise crew just has absolutely no choice but to watch Ekoe, along with some other ‘deviants’ and the elderly, get hauled onto an execution platform and, well, executed.

[ID: Three figures, one of them Ekoe, holding their hands up and crying, “Noooooooo!” while being incinerated with “swurrrrrrrr! Ziiiiiiiiittt! Ziiiiitt!” sounds.]

swurr ziit ziit indeed

Poor Ekoe! We hardly knew ye, and yer little houses. Also that execution platform seems mighty high-tech for this society. Does anyone make a note of that? Of course not.

Well, so much for this whole ‘perfect society’ thing. Uhura tries to explain to a confused Oshino why they disapprove of killing the unusual and elderly, prompting Oshino to have another attack of memory. This is observed by the clan father (I think—it’s pretty hard to tell who anyone is in this art style), who notes that Oshino is starting to get all deviant-y too.

Meanwhile, Spock, exploring the mysterious building, makes a shocking discovery—a cloning lab! That’s right, the identical people with no children are all clones! Man, who could’ve guessed.

While he’s looking around, he’s interrupted by Yamoto himself, who introduces himself as the creator and overlord of this world, which actually isn’t a planet but a giant spaceship (there are a surprising amount of those knocking around the galaxy). Evidently this is all just some big socio-scientific project of his, the reasons for which we are left in the dark about. He just wanted to make a planet, I guess. Anyway, he shows Spock around, talking about how he’s genetically programmed all these clones into three perfect ‘classes.’ Then he zaps Spock with a paralysis ray and says he’s gonna take samples from him to make a whole new, even better class of clones. I dunno how well an entire society of Spocks would function, but I guess Yamoto hasn’t known him very long.

Back in the city, the guards have burst into the room once again, this time to take away Oshino and those dang Federation newcomers who have been causing unrest. Fortunately this time Kirk and his crew have their phasers on hand and are able to take them all out in about two seconds. Kirk tries to call up Spock but can’t get an answer, so he proclaims that they’re going to find Spock—going to, one might even say, search for Spock—and then get the hell off this weird not-planet. Oh, and Oshino can come too if she wants.

Oshino thinks Spock might have gone to the ‘Palace of Life’ so she leads the crew there, taking out yet more lions on the way. Geez, those things must be respawning somewhere. In the lab, Yamoto has successfully taken all the cell samples he needs, so now it’s time to get rid of Spock. Luckily for Spock, Yamoto is distracted in the nick of time.

[ID: Spock laying on a table looking up at Yamoto, a man wearing a green tunic with very large yellow sleeves and a black flat cap, holding a phaser. Narration: “Suddenly...” Yamoto: “Intruders!” Spock, thinking: “He’s distractred—my Vulcan healing abilities have overcome the paralysis! I must act now!” A screen in the background is flashing and going, “woo-ah woo-ah woo-ah.”]

WOO-AH WOO-AH WOO-AH

The crew have found the Palace of Life and make their way inside, where they discover the Terrible Secret. Oshino reacts...not super well.

[ID: Oshino attacking and destroying machinery with one hand. Sulu, behind her, is saying, “Captain! She’s berserk! She’s tearing the place apart!” Kirk, looking offscreen, is saying, “We’ve got bigger worries right now! Look!”]

Yamoto sends some security robots after the intruders, but they’re easily dispatched. Spock shows up and suggests they perform an expeditious retreat—but before they can, Oshino grabs Sulu’s phaser and runs off deeper into the compound on a quest for vengeance. Kirk is reluctant to let her go, but she blocks the doorway behind her (with a bunch of giant boulders that conveniently fall from the ceiling), so they have no choice but to leave her behind. They run outside, where the collectors have caught up to them, but a quick beam-up solves that problem.

The Enterprise runs away, and Kirk narrates to the board what he thinks happened next: Oshino found Yamoto, kills him, and then presses a button that makes the whole not-planet blow up. Yeah, just one button. Evidently this place was designed by Dr. Doofensmirtz.

Kirk tells the board that clearly, Federation intervention can’t be responsible for what happened to the not-planet, even though Federation intervention was directly responsible for what happened, because it would have happened eventually anyway. The board is like “cool” so everyone leaves, but on the way out they’re interrupted by a space janitor.

[ID: Two panels. In the first, a man in a blue shirt and green cap is approaching Kirk, Spock, Uhura and Sulu as they exit a room, holding out a small model building to them and saying, “Captain Kirk, will you look at this! The space scooper picked it up as it was cleaning up Rifas-L...survived the holocaust like a straw in a tornado! You wouldn’t know what it is, would you?” Spock replies, “I think I can answer you, sir!” In the second panel, Spock, in the foreground, says, “It’s quite probably a semi-quadrainial, psi-sided, convertional nothing!” while the man looks shocked in the background. THE END is written in the lower right corner.]

Space...scooper?

I’m not sure if Spock’s end comment there is supposed to in some way be meaningful or pithy but it...it...yeah. One would expect something like “oh, a fragment of a civilization now lost, the last remnant of a man who had great hopes and dreams but is now gone and remembered by almost no one, let’s keep it as a reminder of this great tragedy” but no, Spock just smirks and spouts out a comment that seems snarky but doesn’t actually mean anything and walks off. At the risk of actually seriously analyzing these comics—most certainly a hopeless venture—this is a strong example of how shallow the writing in them is. There’s a sense to me here of someone trying to mimic good writing without any idea of how it actually works, so instead of actual emotional beats you just get this sort of weird nonsense. “Oh, it’s really clever to end a story with a smart call-back, right? This is clever, right? Right?”

I do love the space janitor’s mustache and look of comical surprise there though. And the idea that a straw surviving a hurricane is anything like a tiny model house surviving AN EXPLODING PLANET.

So that’s the end of that story. It’s probably racist? But to be honest I’m so confused at this point I wouldn’t even know where to start on that one. The moral of the story is, uh...don’t...make clones? Sure. Let’s go with that.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Gold Key #25: Dwarf Planet

Happy New Year everyone! 

Next episode still isn’t coming until the seventh, but while I was re-organizing my excessive amount of books I came across something and thought, hey, this might make for a fun holiday treat. Besides, I felt bad leaving you guys on a cliffhanger for so long. 

So this...

[ID: A photograph of a copy of Star Trek The Key Collection: Volume 4, with a cover showing Kirk, Spock and McCoy against a background of stars, with Sulu and Scotty in insets.] 

...this is one of my Gold Key comic collections. 

The Gold Key comics were the first Star Trek comics ever made, running for sixty-one issues from 1969-1979. What I have here are volumes three and four of a five-book collection of the comics put out back in 2004-2006, which actually only goes up to #43—the last two books were planned but never published.

Myself, I first found volume four here at a used bookstore not too long after I had first gotten into Star Trek. (I found volume three at another store quite awhile later. I apologize for not starting at the beginning here, but this is what I have. There’s no continuity anyway so don’t worry about that.) I was very much not prepared for what I was about to find inside.

For the thing about these comics is that they are incredibly and hilariously bad. The plots themselves wouldn’t always be out of place for Trek, but the combo of dodgy art, weird dialogue, and overall off-ness that gives the sense that the writers were working off a Wikipedia article about Star Trek instead of ever actually having seen the show, all adds up to a final product that doesn’t resemble Star Trek so much as a weird fever-dream version of Star Trek from an alternate dimension.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look.

[Image Description: A comic splash page titled STAR TREK: DWARF PLANET Part 1 showing Scotty, wearing a blue and white polka-dot loincloth, throwing rocks at a slimy green thing while saying, “What kind o’way is this for a lad like me to be dyin’--trampled by a hairy-legged—MICROBE!” The narration box at the top of the page says “Come along with the crew of the starship Enterprise as they race to solve the mystery of a world in which all life is rapidly shrinking to—oblivion!”]

Our issue for today, Dwarf Planet, opens with a splash page of Scotty in a spotted loincloth throwing rocks at a microbe, which I think gives you a pretty good idea of what we’re in for here.

[ID: A dark green Enterprise shuttle, landing on an empty airfield with a green field in the distance. The narration box reads, “Captain’s Log, Star Date 19:24:8—Lt. Uhura, Chief Comm-officer, has detected intelligent radio signals from the little explored area of space, sector 199-D!” Inside the ship Kirk is saying, “You were right, Lt. Uhura! There is advanced life on this planet! Mr. Spock and I will investigate!” while Uhura says, “With the captain’s permission, I’d like to accompany you!”]

The story itself, however, begins with an Enterprise shuttle—newly painted green, apparently—landing on this planet to investigate some intelligent radio signals. I don’t know why Uhura waited until they actually got down to the planet surface before asking if she could come with.

Anyway, they find a fully-built city, but it’s completely deserted, no one around. The only living thing are some bushes that turn out, upon closer examination, to actually be miniature trees. Kirk thinks this is weird, which is a bit judgmental of him. Maybe people on this planet just like their bonsai.

The mystery deepens when they find another city within a mile of the first—also abandoned, and much smaller than the first one. And I don’t mean smaller in terms of zoning. I mean the buildings are about two or three feet tall. Uhura speculates that there may have been multiple intelligent species of different sizes living on the planet, but there’s no sign of any of them now.

Kirk then recommends they split up, gang. He heads off into the countryside, where he finds a tiny rocketship that he assumes is a toy belonging to a child. Except it promptly flies off and returns with a bunch more ships, which trap Kirk with a net. He helpfully narrates all this as it’s happening.

[ID: A page of four panels showing Kirk being surrounded by small rockets which are firing weighted ropes at him, slowly driving him to the ground. First panel: “They’ve opened fire! Shooting heavy stranded wire!” Second panel: “They’re forming a net over me! I’m being captured by a pack of toy rockets!” Third panel: “Can’t break these things! And they’re pulling me down! ARRRRGGGGH!” Fourth panel: “One of them is landing! If I could only get my hands on the child who’s controlling these fantastic toys!”]

Thanks Kirk.

It’s not until the rockets land and open that Kirk finally realizes they’re not toys being operated by a child, but real miniature rockets being flown by tiny people, who shoot Kirk in the face with some paralyzing gas before he can get a message out over the communicator. One of the tiny people—speaking through an unexplained device on his forehead—introduces himself as General Kwy. I have no idea how to pronounce that.

[ID: Two panels showing Kirk laying on the ground while a small bald man in a red tunic and black pants stands on his chest. In the first panel he is saying, “You would like to say ‘I come to planet Kujal in peace! Why do you treat me so?’ Because you are a giant! And where one has come, others will follow!” In the second panel he says, “My people will become slaves to yours! Household pets or worse—sideshow freaks! Not while I live, giant! Never!”]

General Kwy has some weirdly detailed predictions about what’s going to happen if his people are discovered by ‘giants’ and he’s not having it. So he brings out a couple cranes to load Kirk onto a board, Gulliver’s Travels style,  and has him wheeled off to a third, even smaller, city.

[ID: Kirk laying on a wooden wheeled board in front of a dais covered cloth, where a woman sits on a gold chair next to General Kwy. The general is saying, “Madame President, I’ve brought the giant prisoner mentioned in my report!” Kirk is thinking, “A woman leader! A more advanced world than many!”]

Kirk is brought in front of Madame President, which Kirk reminds us is So Advanced. Madame President is a little nicer than General Kwy and orders Kirk to be de-paralyzed, but then reveals that Spock and Uhura have been captured also. And stowed under the bunting on the dais. No, I don’t know why.

Madame President lays down some backstory: there was only ever one species of people on the planet, which was once human-sized. They “were a happy world until sudden explosions rocked [their] sun with fantastic intensity.” Don’t you hate it when that happens?

[ID: A panel with a narration box saying, “But, in time, these ceased and life resumed as before! Until, one day...” Below, someone in a gray robe is approaching a woman sitting at an oversized table, talking into a large rotary phone. The person in the robe is saying, “We are growing smaller with every passing day!” The woman is saying, “Yes! It’s true! Others report the same! But why?”]

Yes! It’s true! Others are reporting the same, right now, on my giant rotary phone.

The shrinking kept happening, causing the next generation to have to build an entirely new city, and the next generation to do the same. Eventually they figured out that because of the sun explosions “some new radio waves have caused all living cells to shrink.” Sure. Anyway, looks like now their civilization is doomed because eventually they’re going to shrink out of existence. Bummer.

Uhura points out that the Enterprise could very easily move them all to another planet, but Madame President gives the standard answer for why we can never just use the easy solution, which is “no we love our planet so much we’re all gonna stay here even if it kills us.”

General Kwy wants to have the three of them executed straight away, but Madame President belays that and lets them all go sit and eat tiny food and talk while she figures out what to do with them.

[ID: Spock, Kirk and Uhura sitting among the small buildings eating and talking. Narration: “Later, as crowds watch from a distance...” Uhura: “How could they think of altering their sun even if they had the ships to reach it?” Spock: “Quite impossible! All the harnessed power of the inhabited worlds of the universe could not destroy—or even alter—a star!”]

All that harnessed power of the inhabited worlds couldn’t alter a star! It takes inexplicable space explosions to do that.

Since altering the star is out of the question, Kirk proposes making some kind of antidote or shielding to deal with the shrink rays. But to do that, they’d have to fly close to the sun to gather samples of the rays. I don’t know how you capture samples of radio waves but he seems confident. Little does he know, however, that the general has an “audio-magnifier” trained on the trio to eavesdrop on their plans, because just listening would be too easy.

Madame President is okay with this plan. Suspiciously, so is General Kwy, though he proposes that they leave a hostage to guarantee they don’t just escape. Which doesn’t work super well when the people in question have remote teleportation technology, but he doesn’t know that.

[ID: A very pale-looking Uhura leaning over Madame President and saying, “In that case, Madame President, I volunteer to be the hostage!” Madame President is saying, “I was hoping the woman among you would show that courage! Congratulations, Lieutenant!”]

As a woman, I was hoping the woman among you would show courage! Here on my advanced world, we like it when women show courage. Have I mentioned I’m a woman recently?

Uhura is often—though not always—quite distressingly pale in these comics. With the way it varies I’m not sure whether it was intentional whitewashing or just bad coloring. Or some awful combination of both, maybe.

With Uhura staying behind, Kirk and Spock prepare to leave, although not before General Kwy stops them to give them a container of fruit as a gift. Absolutely no one bothers to check that the box does indeed contain fruit. Surprise! It doesn’t. It contains a couple of stowaway soldiers assigned to sabotage the mission. Because Kwy still thinks the humans want to make slaves of them all. Or something.

Part Two begins with the Enterprise approaching the sun, as Kirk says that they have no way of knowing whether the ship’s anti-radio shielding will stop them all from getting shrunk. That seems like something they should really have made sure of before doing this. Oh well, too late now.

As they get close to the sun, Sulu tries to raise the radio energy analyzer dish—it’s a thing, apparently—but it won’t go up. Apparently there’s a mechanical problem that necessitates someone go outside and unjam the thing. Even in the future, someone still has to occasionally go personally hit things until they work again.

Luckily, Scotty’s on the case, showing up all dressed in special anti-radio foil before Kirk even has a chance to give any orders. Kirk is a little miffed about this since he’s supposed to be the captain and all but Scotty doesn’t have any time for that.

Scotty struggles with the radar dish while everyone stands around watching and making helpful comments.

[ID: Four panels showing Scotty struggling to lift a radar dish on the top of the ship while Kirk, Spock and McCoy watch on a viewscreen. In the first panel, Scotty is thinking, “But it must be doin’ the job—or those rays would be shrinkin’ me already! Now to get the dish up into position! UGGGGGH!” Second panel, Kirk: “It’s jammed all right! Look at him struggling! I wish we could communicate with him!” Spock: “Our radio signals can’t get through that foil, either, of course!” Third panel, narration, as Scotty raises the dish with a ‘whooosh!’ and ‘klang!’: “Finally, with one mighty effort...” Kirk, from offscreen: “He made it! Nice work! Even you have to admit it, Bones!” McCoy, from offscreen: “Why, Captain? He’ll be telling us all about it for months! Ha-ha-ha!” Fourth panel, showing Scotty collapsed on the top of the ship, McCoy: “Hold it! Something’s wrong! He’s collapsed!” Kirk: “Emergency! Break out another foil outergear! I’m going after him!”]

I wasn’t aware that Scotty and Bones had any particular rivalry, but this writer seems to think otherwise. 

Anyway, as you can see, Scotty promptly collapses, and since as we know there are only about ten people on the whole Enterprise Kirk has to personally go out after him. Instead of Scotty, though, he finds an empty suit.

[ID: Kirk, wearing a foil spacesuit and holding up another spacesuit, seemingly empty, while McCoy looks on and Spock leans over the suit with his hand to his ear. Kirk: “This is exactly what I found! But how could--” Spock: “Shhhhhh! Listen! Do you hear it?”]

I don’t know why, but that picture of Spock with his hand to his ear is cracking me up.

As you can probably guess if you’ve been paying any amount of attention to anything, Scotty done got shrunk. Apparently the radar dish tore a hole in the protective foil. Don’t design your radar dishes with sharp edges, folks. Since Scotty was so close to the sun at the time, he got a heckton of radiation (that’s a scientific term), so he’s still shrinking. In fact, Spock speculates that Scotty might quickly be reduced to microscopic size, meaning that “the very bacteria in the air will menace him as much as a prehistoric mammoth would us!”

An odd choice of metaphor, but we can’t have Scotty be menaced by mammoth bacteria, so they rig up a sterilized environment for him.

[ID: First panel, Spock and Kirk are looking at a glass dome with a tube going into it. Narration: “Full technical facilities of the starship are put to work on the problem and shortly...” Spock: “Under that dome is a complete antiseptic atmosphere! The ‘breather’ tube circulates sterilized air!” Kirk: “A microbless world! That should do it!” Second panel, McCoy is holding up a miniature Scotty wearing a blue handkerchief around his waist. McCoy: “I’ll say one thing, Scotty—that kerchief looks better wrapped around you than it ever did in my pocket!” Scotty: “And what’ll I be wearin’ next—a speck o’ dust for a fur coat?”]

This one’s for you, Scones shippers. I...guess. (???)

Luckily for Scotty it doesn’t take long to identify the mysterious radio energy, as someone helpfully announces over the intercom.

[ID: First panel, McCoy is standing next to the dome and looking off to side, listening to an announcement from the intercom. Narration: “Painful minutes tick away as Scotty continues shrinking..” Intercom: “Attention! We have identified the mystery radio energy!” McCoy: “Did you hear, Scotty? We’re half-way home!” Second panel, McCoy is looking into the dome, now empty with the handkerchief huddled at the bottom. Narration: “And then the dread moment...” McCoy: “He’s gone! Yet I know he’s still in there—too small for the eye to see!”]

Unluckily for Scotty, the two little soldiers have arrived on the scene, and take the opportunity to fire on the breather tube. McCoy quickly captures them and puts them away in convenient storage box, which is just an empty box with ‘storage’ written on it.

[ID: McCoy putting two miniature soldiers into a box labeled ‘Storage.’ McCoy: “We’ll settle with you later!”]

He seals the tube with a bandage, but it’s too late—down in the land of microbes, a germ has gotten in.

[ID: First panel, Scotty is facing off against a large green eyeless worm-like thing. Scotty: “Glory be! A microscopic monster! Some germ that broke through the sealed system!” Monster: “EEEYAWWWRRRR!” Second panel, the monster lashes out its tongue at Scotty, who narrowly dodges under it. Scotty: “Missed me! But how long can I keep this little dance goin’?” Monster: “UNNGAWWRRR!”]

Sure, that’s what germs look like. Why not.

As promised by the splash page, Scotty has to engage in some germ warfare, using some microscopic dirt boulders that also got in as ammunition. It’s thrilling. Truly.

With the germ monster defeated, Scotty gets retrieved by McCoy, who’s wearing some sweet micro-specs.

[ID: First panel, Scotty is being lifted by a thin pointed silver rod. Scotty: “I’m caught! Feel like a whale being harpooned! No—more like a sardine! But what’s doin’ it?” Second panel, Spock looks on as McCoy, wearing goggles with a giant scope in one eye, lifts the rod. Narration: “And, in the world of ‘giants’...” Spock: “Are you sure you’ve got him, doctor?” McCoy: “Yes! I can see him clearly through these micro-specs! He’s struggling like a demon!”]

They stick him under the newly invented anti-shrink ray, which hasn’t been tested because there’s NO TIME, but it works because of course it does. Everyone’s very happy about this.

[ID: The Enterprise flying away from the sun with a ‘fwooosh!’ while people onboard exclaim “Hurrah!” “Yahoooo!” and “Eeeyowwww!”]

Eeyowwww, indeed.

[ID: First panel, Spock and Kirk watching a small Scotty gesturing. Spock: “Listen! He’s trying to tell us something!” Kirk: “The first report by a human returned from the land of microbes!” Second panel, Scotty: “--I said, ‘Get me some clothes, mon! I’m poppin’ out of this silly thing!” Spock: “Ha-ha-ha!” Kirk: “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”]

Ha-ha-ha-ha. Yes, that’s Spock laughing. I guess “Spock doesn’t laugh” wasn’t covered in the, I’m guessing, three sentence summary of Star Trek that the writers of this had to go on.

Anyway, they go back to the planet and tell Madame President that they’re going to deliver the anti-shrink rays so the population can be restored to proper size, although ‘proper size’ is not the size they’ve been used to being all their lives so one wonders if they really want that, but, eh, who cares. With General Kwy’s treachery exposed, Madame President has concocted a special punishment for him: he’ll be the last one on the whole world returned to full size. That’ll show him.

A happy ending (?), but of course we have to wrap up with something pithy.

[ID: Kirk sitting in the captain’s chair while Scotty and Spock stand nearby. Scotty: “--And I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll never make fun of another man’s size again!” Spock: “Experience is a great teacher!” Kirk: “Teacher? This kind of experience is a full professor!”]

Well, they tried.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Hey all,

December’s been a much busier month than I was expecting (this seems to happen every December, tbh, and you’d think I’d have learned by now but apparently not) and I haven’t been able to get nearly as much done as I was hoping on the next recap. I’m going to get a Gold Key recap up soonish to make up for that, probably in the last week of December-- I was really hoping to be able to post it before Christmas at this point I don’t think I’m going to be able to pull that off.

I’m very sorry for the delay. But you have this to look forward to:

[ID: A Gold Key Star Trek comic panel showing Kirk with a large white ring appearing around his neck in a flash of light, as he stands at the bottom of a chamber above which two surprised human-looking figures in robes are looking down. Next to Kirk, an alien with mottled orange skin and a long pointed tail, wearing tall gray boots, a purple headband and a kind of purple leotard-like item, is leaping into the air with the aid of a little propeller built into his leotard. The alien figure is yelling,”Humanoids! We will not be prisoners of your like! Do you hear me...?” Kirk is yelling, “Admiral!” ]

In the meantime I’m going to be taking a bit of a break here for the next week or so to do family stuff, though I’ll probably still find time to post a few more elf on the shelf memes.

Thank you all so much for the continued readership. If you celebrate any winter holidays I hope they’re very happy ones.

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

I seem to have gained a few followers after the last few posts. Hello!

If you’re new here, an introduction: I’m Rev, and this is my Star Trek recap blog. Primarily, I do writeups of TOS episodes, working my way through the show in airing order for no particular reason other than it seemed like fun, and then things got out of hand. The last one up was Court Martial, with Return of the Archons coming up soon (hopefully). Sometimes I also do recaps of the old Star Trek Gold Key comics.

The recaps are all tagged under episode title and name (ie ‘1.1 The Man Trap’) as well as under ‘recap tag’ but since finding things via tag is an erratic process at best with tumblr, there’s an index at the top of the main page with links to everything posted so far, as well as an about page if you want more information about how I do things.

Doing information posts like the last few is actually not something I’ve really done before on this blog, but I enjoyed doing them. I don’t have any particular plans for another one atm, but I’m amenable to ideas.

The recaps are currently coming out rather slowly due to various things going on on my end. I’m hoping to have Return of the Archons out sometime next week, but if I can’t manage that I will--barring sudden calamity--post another GK recap. In the meantime, I try to keep a queue going of Star Trek memes and pics and so forth. Which did, er, lapse the past couple of days after I got distracted by the info posts, but it’s good to go again now for a few days at least.

That’s about it, I think. Enjoy! Or don’t. It’s up to you. Live your own life.