Star Trek #13 - Marvel Comics

STAR TREK No. 13, April 1981

Essentially reading like Gene Roddenberry’s (original) science fiction franchise meets “Planet Of The Apes”, Martin Pasko’s script for Issue Thirteen of “Star Trek” probably pleased most of its readers with its elaborate blend of space battles, pulse-pounding phaser-action and mysterious murders. Indeed, coupled with the inclusion of some seriously war-like Klingons, who’ll apparently stop at nothing to conquer “the resort planet Hephaestus in the Kyros System”, as well as Joanna McCoy’s imminent marriage to a terminally ill Vulcan, and it’s hard to imagine what else the Montreal-born writer could crowbar into the space of just twenty-two pages.

Sadly though, the actual storyline holding all these dynamic elements together doesn’t debatably withstand that much scrutinization, starting with the Canadian screenwriter’s disconcerting depiction of the Klingons. True, having somehow found out that the Hephaestus primates actually obtain their intelligence as a result of a computer-chip being surgically implanted into the base of their skulls when infants, it certainly seems to make sense that the warrior species would secretly hope to negate the Treaty of Organia by destroying the ape-people’s manufacturing facility and then subsume the ‘doltish’ simians into the Klingon Empire. But it seems hard to believe that at the very cusp of victory, Kagg’s crew would suddenly decide “to back off” because the battle cruiser Kluggoth’s second-in-command inexplicably decides his leader is “an evidently-insane commander.”

Similarly as disappointing is Pasko’s handling of “Bones”. Any viewer who has watched the Sixties’ television show would be well aware of the physician’s love-hate relationship with Mister Spock, so his evident anguish at discovering that his estranged daughter plans to wed the wholly unemotional Suvak is perfectly palatable. However, despite the pair’s clear differences concerning Leonard’s divorce, it is hard to imagine such an endearingly caring character as the one actor DeForest Kelley portrayed, subsequently physically assaulting her when his daughter later questions his commitment to her mother; “He’s a Vulcan, blast it! He has no feelings! He can’t love you -- Can’t be a real husband to you…”

Perhaps therefore this Twenty-Third Century odyssey’s real draw lies within the layouts of Joe Brozowski, Tom Palmer and “D. Hands”, who do a good job in capturing the feel of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” with their pencilling of both the new-look Klingons and Robert Fletcher’s updated Starfleet uniforms. In addition, whenever a punch is thrown, or a phaser fired, the action depicted within the panel definitely adds an extra “Whump” or “Ztt!” to the proceedings.

Writer: Martin Pasko, and Artists: Joe Brozowski, Tom Palmer and D. Hands