Hey everyone! Happy Friday! Or whatever. I'm back for another comic book review. This time I'm going to talk about the last issue of Star Trek by DC Comics that my dad bought for me when I was a kid, Star Trek #75. So let's get into it.
From 1992 until 1995 my dad bought me issues of comic books based on Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation that were published by DC Comics. I had almost every issue from #31 to #75 of both series, plus some of the Annuals and one special from each series. And that's because the price of the comic went from $2.25 (Cdn) in 1992 to $3.50 (Cdn) in 1995 ($5.50 for this double sized issue). I know that doesn't sound like a huge increase in price within those three years, but my dad was buying me two issues per month AND my mom was also buying me issues of The Batman Adventures, an occasional issue of the regular Batman book, plus books in the Berenstain Bears series from the gift shop almost every time I was at the hospital for an appointment. And so my parents decided to stop buying me the two Star Trek comics, though there was only five issues left until DC lost the Star Trek license and it transferred over to Marvel.
The story is the Enterprise returns home from it's historic five year mission under the command of Captain James T. Kirk and as they're returning to Earth the crew witnesses an accident aboard a ship that's testing an experimental new warp drive system, which destroys the ship and kills everyone onboard. At the same time Kirk and his crew are informed that the Enterprise is scheduled for a major refit that will leave the ship out of commission for the next three years. While Kirk waits to hear from Starfleet about what's next for him, he spends time with Carol Marcus, who we met on screen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and tries to figure out whether Starfleet Command, or at least certain members of the admiralty, is trying to cover up what happened with the accident the crew of the Enterprise witnessed upon their return to Earth.
This issue is actually the third part in a three part story arc called "Star-Crossed", which chronicled Kirk's relationship with Carol Marcus through the years, from meeting at Starfleet Academy to Kirk returning home on the Enterprise after the ship's five year mission as shown on the TV show and being promoted to admiral. I had issues #73 and #74 when I was a kid, so that wasn't a huge deal. Also, this issue doesn't rely on the reader knowing what happened in the previous two issues as they aren't directly connected to one another since they take place in different periods of Kirk's life with the only connection being Kirk and Carol. However I feel like something is missing.
At one point Spock makes a reference to his parents's lives having been in danger and him making a decision based on emotion (his human half) rather than on logic (his Vulcan half) which resulted in the loss of life. There isn't a comic or novel that expands on this reference at all, so I don't know what exactly Spock is referring to unless there's a mission that happened offscreen where Sarek and Amanda are put in danger and Spock has to rescue them. I admit it's been a number of years since I read many of the TOS novels and a few of them I haven't read at all, but I have read most of the DC Comics run and I don't recall this event from the comics. It's weird to have this in the issue when there's no reference to it anywhere. Neither Memory Alpha nor Memory Beta (the canon and non-canon Star Trek Wikis) have any information on this event. My buddy, Aaron says it's probably some editorial mistake, but it's more likely something that Weinstein may have been working on, like a novel or even an issue of the comic that just didn't get published for whatever reason.
Aside from that this is an okay story. It reads fine if you haven't read issues 73 and 74 beforehand, because it has nothing to do with the previous two parts of this "arc". Not like the Tabukan Syndrome (issues 35-40) or Veritas (issues 30-33). The thing about this issue is that the circumstances surrounding the Enterprise's return home is different than they are in the novel The Lost Years which is one of my favourite Star Trek novels written for the TOS series.
The art is okay. Rachel Ketchum (the penciller) and Mark Heike (the inker) do a good job with backgrounds and ships and wide shots. But their character faces look weird. They kind of look like Shatner and the other actors (for the characters who had actors), but the way the faces are drawn make it look like the characters are always sad or really creepy looking. The cover art is pretty nice though. The cover artist isn't credited though, so I couldn't tell you who drew it.
Overall it's a decent issue, though still a bit on the weird side, since nothing really gets resolved and the comics don't come back to this again, as the book was cancelled with issue #80 along with Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'd recommend reading it if you want a quick, less complex version of what happened after the Enterprise returned home after it's five year mission had ended.
Alrighty that is gonna be it for me for today, but I'll be back next week for more posts here at the Review Basement. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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