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Tag: Louise Jones

Comic Treks: Star Trek (Marvel) #14 (June 1981)

Cover to Star Trek #14
Cover to Star Trek #14. Art by Ed Hannigan and James Sherman.

“We Are Dying, Egypt, Dying!” (22 pages)
Writer: Martin Pasko
Artists: Luke McDonnell & Gene Day
Letters: John Morelli
Colors: Carl Gafford
Editor: Louise Jones
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

Parallel civilizations became a Star Trek cliche during the run of the original show. Episodes like “Who Mourns for Adonais?” “A Piece of the Action,” “Patterns of Force,” “Bread and Circuses,” and “Spectre of the Gun” established the convention firmly within the Star Trek premise.

Of course, the reason for doing this was obvious: It saved the production lots of money. Any time they could use stock sets or costumes instead of making new ones, the show saved money. Within the limitations of 1960s TV production, the show did as much as it could with this trope to good effect — mostly.

One of the advantages of doing any sci-fi or fantasy TV or movie property as a comic has always been that those restrictions were nonexistent. It costs just as much to make a comic with new costumes as it did anything else. In fact, it was probably easier, given that there was no need for the artists to research something vaguely accurate. They could just make it up.

But here we go again, anyways. This time, it’s ancient Egypt, and this comic is lot more fun if you imagine the Star Trek crew is raiding the wardrobe and sets of the 1963 classic Cleopatra — perhaps to avenge Star Trek alumna Joan Collins’ losing out on the lead part to Elizabeth Taylor.

Kirk strikes a pose, but Spock is not impressed.

The story starts off simply. The USS Enterprise arrives for the first time at Zeta Reticuli II, and discovers a civilization similar to that of ancient Egypt on Earth. A meteoroid shower composed of siderites will bombard the planet within two days. Made mostly of iron, they will strike the planet’s surface with catastrophic effect. The crew needs to warn the inhabitants of their impending doom — and save them, if possible.

All this is established in only two pages. It seems like today’s comics would spend half an issue on that. As Bill Clinton sort of said, it’s about economy, stupid!

The rapid storytelling continues as Kirk leads a landing party and discovers a burial chamber with statues of Khnum, the Egyptian god of creation, and lots of mummies.

Star Trek #14, Page 3
Bones has been working out! Plus, some solid telling of a pretty strange story. And that odd bit of Kirk’s finger just barely breaking the panel border is distracting to people like me who notice such things.

Of course, there’s technology behind the ancient gods, in the form of a powerfield! And then a giant statue comes to life — that’s comics for you. Kirk stumbles and grabs Khnum’s scepter and it transforms him according to an ancient prophecy. Again — that’s comics for you. The statue zaps some security guards while Chekov rants in transliteration of his accent while he, Uhura and Sulu manage to destroy it. But then, the transformed Kirk shows up.

Star Trek #14, Page 6
Solid art on this page, though not really consistent with the overall Star Trek look.
I especially like the last two panels.

Back on the ship, Spock and Scotty are tracking the meteoroids, and check in with the overdue Kirk. The captain, alas, is possessed by an ancient spirit and now wears a nemes. Spock and Scott notice the change.

But not as much as they notice down on the planet. Kirk announces he’s Menteptah II, descendant of the pharoahs, and he will to save his people from the death that comes from the sky.

I can’t help but read this page and think of how great it would have been on the original series to have William Shatner play Kirk as King Tut from the Batman TV series, a la “The Enemy Within.” It would have been epic on TV. But here, it’s pretty meh.

Star Trek #14, Page 8
Luke McDonnell and Gene Day obviously like McCoy. They give him lots of visual attention.

Kirk confiscates the communicators, but misses one that Bones collected from the killed security guard. While Kirk destroys what he thinks are all the communicators, Spock is slowly reaching the conclusion he needs to beam down to find out what’s happening on the surface.

And then it starts to get both weird and predictable. Kirk prays to a statue of Khnum, which responds in a voice I personally hear as the same as that of the Guardian of Forever from “City on the Edge of Forever” when I read it. He explains, in pure Erich von Daniken mode, that the people of Zeta Reticuli II originated on Earth and traveled across the galaxy on a spaceship and would one day return to their homeworld. Of course, it also evokes Jack Kirby’s work on The Eternals, etc.

Star Trek #14, Page 10
Very strange for Star Trek, but I rather like the inking on this page. It’s very 1970s, Terry Austin stuff.

So it turns out Khnum has chosen Kirk to lead the people of Zeta Reticuli II back to Earth. And if it hadn’t started to unravel by now, the story is definitely unraveling now. Spock gets through to the communicator McCoy took from the security and receives a call for help. So of course, McCoy gets caught and Spock beams down to the planet to help — all by himself.

Meanwhile, Kirk takes Uhura as his “queen.” This is not explained. But they take the now-captured McCoy to join the other landing party members, who are laying on stone slabs with intravenous contraptions that infuse them all with the “Elixir of Obedience.”

Right.

Star Trek #14, Page 14
Comics are sometimes produced in a rush that doesn’t bring out the best work from creators. This page might qualify, based on that terrible version of the Enterprise in panel two and what seems like off anatomy in panel four.

Spock arrives and hears from Scotty that a beam from the pyramid is shrinking the Enterprise, but not its crew. That means everything’s becoming more intimate by the second — and Kirk’s not there to enjoy it! Also, wouldn’t the air pressure increase to the point that people would be crushed?

Spock and Kirk fight it out, while McCoy slips free and makes the ensorcelled Uhura take him to his medical kit — so he can giver her a shot of cordrazine that returns her to normal. Of course, there’s only one drug anyone remembers from Star Trek, and that’s cordrazine. Thank you, Harlan Ellison.

Cramming this much story on one page is a sure sign of an overstuffed plot.

Spock breaks free of Kirk’s death grip long enough to grab a phaser and take out the statue of Khnum. Kirk’s now free, but the ship is still shrinking, and McCoy has freed the rest of the landing party.

At this point, not much sense remains of the plot. Whatever decent ideas it once may have contained are now just tossed out for any reason that will wrap this up by page 22.

Star Trek #14, Page 19
Bring out your dead!

It’s mummy time. The mummies were actual aliens in suspended animation and they come to life to attack the infidel invaders. This scene reminds me of a much better comic, X-Men #56 (May 1969), the first issue of that series with art by the great Neal Adams.

Giants on one side, a shrinking ship on the other! Who doesn’t love this?

Of course, Spock looks at the alien technology and figures out how to reverse the ray affecting the Enterprise, while Kirk “reprises” his role as Menteptah II to get the mummies to stand down.

At long last, page 22 arrives. The landing party beams up, the Enterprise destroys the approaching asteroids and a lame joke from McCoy at Spock’s expense wraps up yet another weak issue of Star Trek.

Star Trek #14, Page 22
At least the Enterprise isn’t massively deformed on this page.

This issue sports a letters column, with several missives complimenting the improved artwork on issue #11, and more than a few complaining about the high prevalence of Star Trek cliches in each issue. (They’re not going to find much improvement by this issue.) There’s no reply from editor Louise Jones, who bows out with this issue to focus on more successful Marvel titles, like The Uncanny X-Men and Star Wars.

Comic Treks: Star Trek (Marvel) #7 (Oct. 1980)

Cover to Star Trek #7 (Oct. 1980), by Michael Nasser.

“Tomorrow or Yesterday” (17 pages)
Scripter: Tom DeFalco
Penciler: Mike Nasser
Inker: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Ray Burzon
Colorist: Carl Gafford
Editor: Louise Jones
Editor in chief: Jim Shooter
Cover: Mike Nasser

There’s a lot to like in this issue, which reads like a comic-book equivalent of a TV episode. It’s all done in one, and has all the basics of a standard TV story, with an A plot involving Kirk, Spock and McCoy on the planet, and a complementary B plot with Scotty and the ship.

Tom DeFalco does a nice job on the scripting end. This reads very much like a classic TV episode, even if it doesn’t always make a ton of sense. The pencils by Mike Nasser (now known as Mike Netzer), opens up the panels to tell the story and brings some dynamism an visual splash to the proceedings. Klaus Janson’s inks give Nasser’s pencils continuity with the previous issues, while the colors and letters are suitably well done enough to not be noticeable. There’s no fancy use of color holds here — just solid work.

Solid scripting by Tom DeFalco on this splash page. The title is pretty much lifted from the original series episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” which was one of the better first-season shows.

So this one starts off with the Enterprise heading to a section of the galaxy threatened by a cloud of Vega radiation. Kirk is to find and help any threatened populated planets by evacuating the threatened populations until the cloud passes. This is all conveyed rather nicely via “Captain’s Log” narration captions on the splash page, setting up the story quickly and clearly.

Page two is a good example of how this comic recreates the feel of the original show. Nasser starts with a large, irregularly shaped panel that gives a good view of the bridge crew and their urgency in discovering a small group of 200 intelligent life forms living on Andrea IV, right in the path of the Vega cloud We get a nice closeup of Kirk as he delivers a line that would come straight of the show and is easy to hear being spoken by William Shatner.

Page 2. A good example of how to hook your readers with solid layouts and scripting.

Pages three and four get the plot going even more quickly, with more transporter shenanigans (acknowledged this time with footnote from Louise Jones), and taking the transporter off the board as a deus ex machina solution to the crew’s problems.

Then things get weird, as the aliens show up and state they have been awaiting the Enterprise’s arrival for a very long time. I really dig Nasser’s design of the alien for its unusual graphic look, even as it’s unclear how a thing like that could move about in any useful way. I have to say it’s a nice lettering effect to give the Andreans a script style in their dialog balloons.

Again, Nasser does a fine job keeping things dynamic with good layouts and a really interesting alien design of the type you could only do in the comics at this time.

Pages six and seven are both very solid, with the former revealing that the Andreans have build massive statues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy that is a great shocker and would be an ideal spot for a commercial break if this was a TV episode. Page seven fades back in with Spock revealing the statues to have been built some 24,000 years ago. It’s a great panel that actually shows the characters — something the small-box layouts seen so far in the series have been unable to deliver. Kirk asks the lead Andrean what’s going on, but he’s about to “step beyond.”

Another nice page with interesting layouts in service to a good story point. I like the alien hand breaking the panel and the reaction shots of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
Coming back from the commercial break, Nasser again gives us a nice big look at the heroes with that lead establishing panel. The dialog moves things along well, too. This stands out in contrast to the extremely boxy layouts and small drawings seen so far in the series of the lead characters, who are really the main draw to all of this stuff.

Now we spend a couple pages on plot, with McCoy explaining the Andreans are dying, and the Andreans denying any danger from the Vega radiation — because they know that Kirk et. al are “the protectors.” Kirk and company do their best to persuade the Andreans to evacuate, but they refuse because of their complete belief in the belief that the protectors will be save them. Spock comes up with a long-shot possible solution in which very precise phaser strikes by the Enterprise could disperse the Vega radiation. Kirk says they’ll go for it, but the transporter is still out. So Kirk orders Scotty to disperse the cloud and come back.

I really like this layout, with the mirrored effect in panels 1 and 3 at the top of the page, with Kirk’s changing expression, and then again at the bottom. I should say that Janson’s inks are, as always, very polished.

Unable to help Scotty, Kirk follows a hunch of Spock’s that leads them to discover a massive solar collector, which their Andrean host tells them is one of many on the planet. Again, taking a page from TV pacing, McCoy tells Kirk he’s made a major discovery without explaining what it is.

Meanwhile, Scotty leads the crew as they try to disperse the Vega radiation, which doesn’t work and strands the Enterprise without warp capability and they put everything they’ve got into the deflectors to try to shield themselves from the approaching cloud. Back on the planet, McCoy tells Kirk that one of the Andreans is evolving at a fantastic rate, which is what the aliens mean by “stepping beyond.” A doorway in the base of the giant statues opens to admit the transitioning alien, and Kirk, Spock and McCoy follow.

Another nice example of showing the characters up close and large as a way to bring some dynamism to the proceedings. By the way, Scotty injured his hands in the earlier transporter accident.

Here we get some more interesting art, as the passage reveals a massive underground complex. Spock mind melds with the Andrean, and gets enough information from it to relay that this species is always in evolutionary flux and can see all periods of time simultaneously. They prepared for the Vega cloud accordingly by building the solar collectors to amass the energy needed to disperse the cloud, and knew that Spock would figure all this out in time to push the activation button and save the day for the Andreans and the Enterprise.

So here’s the underground complex under the statues, as well as Spock’s mind meld. I like the extreme perspective in panel 1 to give this a sense of scale. The rest of it’s a bit compressed, but still clear.

The tale ends with a cryptic, almost pun-like observation from Spock about how he would love to ponder this paradox “… if only I had the time.”

The story concludes with more nice layouts. I like that panel of Spock for its expressiveness and the steady point of view of the final three panels playing against the pun-like concluding dialog.

All in all, a decent issue. You know this because the obvious criticisms are all more about the story itself than how it was executed. The book looks good — or as good as a comic like this could look in 1980 — and the story does evoke the style of the old TV show. But like too many episodes, the aliens are never fleshed out or made to be interesting in any way, even though we’re told that their intelligence far outstrips even Spock’s. The Vega cloud also is really not developed as a specific idea that has any kind of scientific credibility.

There’s a letter’s page in this issue, though no great revelations this time from editor Louise Jones. She does say that every issue of the comic is scrutinized and approved by Gene Roddenberry, and gives co-plotting credit on issue #5 to Denny O’Neil.

I think if Marvel had started off the comic with an issue like this one it would have earned more attention from fans. But coming out as it did in the summer of 1980, its thunder was stolen by the excitement among sci-fi fans surrounding The Empire Strikes Back, and by the Dark Phoenix saga in X-Men among comics readers and Marvel fans.

This issue was later reprinted in Marvel’s second paperback collection of Star Trek comics, the first having collected the movie adaptation. It also included issues #11 and #12, so I’ll talk about that after getting through the original issues in the run.

Comic Treks: Star Trek (Marvel) #4 (July 1980)

Star Trek (Marvel) #4 (July 1980). Cover by Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson.

“The Haunting of Thallus!” (17 pages)
Cover:
Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson (signed)
Script/Edits: Marv Wolfman
Pencils: Dave Cockrum
Inks: Klaus Janson
Colors: Carl Gafford
Letters: Jim Novak
Consulting Editor: Jim Shooter

Marvel’s first original Star Trek story is action packed, full of surprises and features much improved art from the movie adaptation. So, of course, this was writer and editor Marv Wolfman’s last issue on the title, which from this point on struggled to find a consistent creative team or direction for itself despite contributions from numerous talented creators.

Raytag escapes as soon as he’s beamed aboard.

Storywise, this issue starts off with a rare teaser splash page of the Enterprise encountering a haunted house in space. The actual story starts on page two, with Kirk and Spock receiving a new mission from Admiral Fitzpatrick (no clue why they didn’t use Admiral Nogura, already established as Kirk’s superior officer) to transport a “totally insane!” prisoner back to the prison he escaped from on the planet Thallus. Overly humble Regulan Ambassador R’kgg is to accompany them on this mission, which goes off the rails as soon as the prisoner, Raytag M’gora, is beamed aboard and escapes.

All this happens by the end of page three, so the pacing is already much ramped up from the sullen pace of the movie and its adaptation.

A nice example of the improved writing and art in Star Trek #4.

The next three pages feature the Enterprise crew trying to recapture Maytag, who’s escaped into the engine pylon structures and fended off attempts by security and Kirk to stop him. Since Raytag is like a bat and “sees” with sonar, they broadcast a “sonic backlash” to distract him long enough for Spock to deliver a nerve pitch.

Crewmembers “forming friendships”.

That taken care of, the Enterprise then receives new rendezvous coordinates from Thallus and obligingly changes course. Meanwhile, a pair of crewmen “forming friendships” in their cabin are attacked by and fend off a werewolf, and Chekov and Sulu see a ghost on the recreation deck.

Raytag tries to convince Kirk not to return him to Thallus and suggests that the Enterprise will become as trapped as he will be. Approaching the rendezvous, Dracula appears on the bridge and trounces a couple of guards before turning into a bat and vanishing into the turboshaft. He’s next spotted on C-Deck where a crewman fired at Dracula and Ambassador R’kgg is found dead with puncture wounds on his neck.

This is classic Cockrum — the woman’s pose, the alien, and the circular inset. Nice stuff.

The Enterprise arrives at its rendezvous to find the floating haunted house teased on page one. Raytag warns Kirk that he and his crew are now also prisoners of Thallus.

There’s more action on this page than in all of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Beaming over, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a couple of crew members (they don’t wear red shirts anymore, but they’re definitely in the same category) find an elaborate reproduction of a haunted house with spider webs, dust and a storm brewing outside. They hear a scream and rush in to find Frankenstein’s monster choking a young woman. Kirk knocks it out the window and a whole slew of horror monsters appear around them. Among them is a critter who looks an awful lot like Marvel’s Man-Thing.

Check out Man-Thing at right in the bottom panel.

The girl says they’ve been holding her prisoner here as long as she can remember. Bones suggests they bail, but then a a crew of Klingons appear and its commander saying there is no escape.

The last page shows a Klingon ship arriving to inform the Enterprise it has entered Klingon space and its landing party has been captured. Meanwhile, Raytag laughs at this madness as he sits in the brig.

This issue features a letters page that provides some hints at what’s going on with the publishing of the title. First, it lists not Marv Wolfman as editor, but Louise Jones. There are few responses to letters, but she does explain in in answer to a letter from Sim Parks of Swansea, S.C., a bit about the rights situation vis a vis the original series.

More adaptations of novels and short stories aren’t in the cards right now, Sim, mainly because Marvel only has the rights to adapt the movie and do new material based the movie. As yet, we have no rights involving the TV shows or other Star Trek material. Nevertheless, we hope to do stories that you enjoy … even if they are brand new. Let us know if we’re on the right track, okay?

Louise Jones, Star Trek: The Letters Page, Star Trek (1980) #4.

Wolfman’s story echoes a tactic the original series used to save money: set the story somewhere that looks a lot like a standing set you’d find on a TV studio lot in the late 20th century. Wolfman does a good job of packing a lot of story into this issue and using the dialog effectively to indicate character and make clear who’s who and what they’re doing. The mystery connecting the haunted house, the Klingons and Raytag is built up well enough to be a convincing reason for a Trek fan to come back and see how it plays out in the next issue.

For the art, this story plays so much better to Cockrum’s strengths as an artist. Most fans recall him for his amazing character designs, but he also had a real flair for action sequences that really shows here. Assuming he and Wolfman worked Marvel-style, the top-notch pacing of the story and the effective storytelling that gets a lot of information across comes down to Cockrum’s pencils. More of Cockrum’s flair comes through Janson’s inks, which works to the benefit of the story, even if I still think it’s a less-than-ideal match that fails to convey the sleek, modern look of the movie.

The cover, however, is not effective at conveying the story inside as a Star Trek story. The Enterprise is small and obscured through a window, while Kirk and McCoy have their backs to the camera. Spock looks good, but he’s too small and the jokey nature of the image not something that would have appealed as much to Trek fans, I think. It looks like a rejected monster comic cover that had a couple Trek elements pasted in to work for this series.

This issue was the unexpected final issue for Wolfman, who did not return to plot the conclusion in issue #5. As mentioned previously, Wolfman had been editor in chief at Marvel for a short while around 1975-76, and when he passed that title on he carved out a writer-editor deal that allowed him to run the projects he worked on himself with little or no oversight. That approach changed when Jim Shooter took over as editor in chief in 1978. Shooter realized that the single editor approach for a line of comics as numerous as Marvel’s was unworkable and began hiring a team of editors to each work on a reasonable number of titles. He also did not think writers should edit themselves, and refused to renew the writer-artist deals. As they expired, the writers who had them — Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Gerry Conway and now Wolfman — all left Marvel for DC Comics.

Wolfman’s departure from Marvel was bad news for Star Trek, but very quickly resulted in him pairing with artist George Perez to create The New Teen Titans, one of the most iconic, best-selling and critically acclaimed superhero titles of the 1980s. So that worked out.

New Shooter hires Louise Jones and Denny O’Neil stepped in to fill the gap on issue #5, with Jones taking over Star Trek as her own title the following issue. It’s interesting to note that Jones, who was then very new to Marvel, was at the same time taking over X-Men from editor Jim Salicrup amid the climax of the Dark Phoenix saga under somewhat tense conditions. Not sure that it had an effect on Star Trek going forward, but it sure didn’t help.

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