Star Trek #7 - Marvel Comics

STAR TREK No. 7, October 1980

Chock-full of canny conundrums involving time travel and a fast-approaching cloud of deadly Vega radiation, this “first of two Star Trek comics written by Tom DeFalco” certainly seems to rather enthrallingly encapsulate the essence of Gene Roddenberry’s original science-fiction television series. For whilst the seventeen-page periodical’s plot rather abruptly ends with the U.S.S. Enterprise’s science officer simply activating a super-sophisticated machine capable of “channelling eons worth of reserved energy into one furious blast”, the lead up to the Vulcan’s world-saving action is littered with a plethora of mysterious occurrences; not least of which is the sculpting of three larger-than-life statues of Kirk, McCoy and Spock some “twenty-four thousand years” before they visited Andrea IX.

Indeed, “Tomorrow Or Yesterday” has just the sort of script which arguably would have well-served Desilu Productions Sixties’ show as an actual broadcastable episode, due to its excellent mixture of impending planetary doom, sense-shattering space-based action, and intriguing paradox that an extra-terrestrial species may well become so advanced that their race can actually transcend time itself; “Centuries ago they experienced the Vega-cloud… and our arrival… And so they prepared accordingly! For they knew that in this exact minute, at this precise second, I would pull this lever…”

Of course, that isn’t to say that the Inkpot Award-winner’s narrative for Issue Seven of “Star Trek” is entirely faultless, as Admiral Kirk’s blatant disregard for Mister Scott’s expert advice not to use the starship’s apparently unreliable transporters at the start of the story somewhat smacks of a contrivance solely designed to efficiently maroon the Starfleet officer on the planet’s surface whilst the Constitution-class vessel races off to disperse the imminent wave of “mutant energies”. But at least the manufactured moment gives the Chief Engineer an opportunity to “take the bridge” once again, and ensure his head-strong ‘captain’ must make a seemingly sincere apology not to “ever doubt your instincts again.”

Sadly however, Mike Nasser’s layouts for this comic are debatably a little less forgivable, and it is perhaps somewhat harshly clear just why this would be the only edition drawn by the “American-Israeli artist.” There’s undeniably no doubting the illustrator’s ability to imbue this book’s more adrenaline-fuelled sequences with plenty of dramatic dynamism, as witnessed by the panels depicting the Enterprise’s unsuccessful attempt to escape the lethal Vega-cloud. Yet the Detroit-born drawer’s somewhat scratchy-looking style, and disconcertingly designed bow-shouldered Andreans, may well not be to everyone’s liking.

Script: Tom DeFalco, Pencils: Mike Nasser, and Inks: Klaus Janson