Star Trek: Early Voyages #1 is such a unique Star Trek comic because it expands upon what we were given in the first Star Trek: The Original Series pilot "The Cage" in terms of Captain Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 (no bloody A, B, C, or D) but it's also what the second TOS pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" might've been like if Jeffrey Hunter had been available to play Pike going forward. It's also very well written. I love the Star Trek comics that DC Comics put out from 1984 until 1995 or 1996, as well as Marvel's early Star Trek comics from 1981 until 1984, but none of the comics from either of those runs can hold a candle to how good this issue is.
The issue opens with the Enterprise investigating the disappearance of several smaller ships which then turned up undamaged, but their crews missing as if they'd been yanked off the ships in the middle of doing whatever they were doing. Then this organic starship attacks the Enterprise, disabling it's primary systems and captures Captain Pike. Throughout the issue, flashbacks of Pike getting command of the Enterprise from Robert April, the first captain of the ship, who was still non-canon at the time this issue came out because Star Trek: The Animated Series was still considered to be non-canon and April had never been mentioned in an episode of the live action shows or in any of the movies. There are also flashbacks to how Pike recruited some of his officers such as Spock, Number One, and some of the other members of the bridge crew. Which is cool, since the only ones who are canon are Lieutenant Tyler, Chief Pitcairn and Doctor Boyce.
This issue is so solidly written. I'm not familiar with Ian Edginton's work but Dan Abnett helped to revamp the Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel in 2008, and has written some well known runs on various Marvel books since then. While I've never read any of Abnett's work before, I have heard people talking about it positively, so to find out that he cowrote a Star Trek series for Marvel is weird, but makes so much sense given what he would do for Marvel ten years later. Reading it feels like an episode of Star Trek if it was written and produced in 1997. To be clear it doesn't feel like an episode of Star Trek: Voyager or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine it does feel like an episode of TOS if TOS had been produced in the late '90s instead of the mid to late '60s. Or if a Captain Pike TV series was made in the late '90s. The organic ship actually looks like it could've been from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation though, just because that show did have a lot of large space traveling sentient lifeforms that couldnt've been done on TOS in the '60s.
Speaking of the alien creatures, using organic ships, they're almost like an organic version of the Borg. Which is kind of lazy writing, but also a good way for it to be the Borg without trying to incorporate the Borg into the 23rd Century. Not that it matters since this comic isn't canon so if they did use the Borg it wouldn't wreck continuity like having the Ferengi show up on Star Trek: Enterprise did in 2002, even with their lame attempts at covering it up so that the first appearance of the Ferengi in the season 1 TNG episode, "The Last Outpost" remained intact. It's weird because it works, but at the same time it's also something that I would cry foul on in comics like this.
Unlike on the TV show and the Kelvin timeline movies, the Spock of this time period, in this comic anyway, is much more confident and sure of himself than we would see him in any other novel or comic set during this period. It's not quite how we got him in "The Cage" but it also isn't how we got him in TOS proper either. Especially since he was still a cadet when Pike recruited him to be an intern in the science department on the Enterprise. I also love how Pike referred to him as Acting Ensign Spock, similar to how Picard gave Wesley Crusher the rank of Acting Ensign on TNG. Though, unlike with Spock in this comic, Wesley was an Acting Ensign BEFORE he was even a cadet, so maybe not QUITE like that.
My favourite part is at the beginning of the issue where the crew is on the Bridge and Number One issues an order that Pike was trying to issue as well, and became embarrassed, because it was a reminder that she wasn't in command of a ship yet, though she would've been had she not taken Pike's offer to become the first officer of the Enterprise. And then later when Pike is kidnapped directly from the Bridge, Doctor Boyce informs her that until they find Pike, she's the captain. Which is similar to how every officer to take over on the Bridge became the captain in the 2009 Star Trek movie. But it works here, because Number One is the first officer and would end up becoming the captain if Pike wasn't recovered.
The artwork in this issue is so much better than it ever was in the Star Trek comics published by DC. It's fully detailed without any panels feeling like they're blank or difficult to figure out where a particular character is supposed to be. These aren't artists that I'm familiar with or that I've ever heard of but according to Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki, Patrick Zircher, the penciler has worked for both DC and Marvel while the inker, Greg Adams is an artist who worked for Marvel. So that's cool. Neither of them have done art on books that I've read, but they're really good and fit perfectly with Star Trek. The way they draw the Enterprise is absolutely gorgeous.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall this was an excellent start to a Star Trek comic book series that I don't know very much about. Aside from two issues of the Star Trek: Voyager comic book series that was being published at this point, I missed out on the entire line of Marvel Star Trek comics published in the late '90s. But when I came across this issue at a comic book store that Brad and I went to back in March, right before the pandemic shut everything down, I bought it, because I never come across it at the comic book sales or comic book/geek conventions and events that Brad and I were going to all the time. So of course I pounced on it. This issue has the tone and character development that I'm really hoping Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Captain Pike series, has. But, even though they've said they're returning to Star Trek's roots, which this issue is pulling from, they're probably going to continue with their modern interpretation of Star Trek. Either way, this issue is awesome and if you can track it down at a convention or the back issue bins of a comic book store, do so, because it's amazing. I'm giving Star Trek: Early Voyages #1 10/10 stars.
Memory Alpha Links: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Flesh_of_My_Flesh
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