Star Trek - The Key Collection Volume Two!

Following the cancellation of the series, fans of Star Trek were left with few venues to get a new fix from this new obsession. And the new go-to was Gold Key Comics and the series which had stumbled along with a hit and miss schedule but had settled down into a regular quarterly schedule. The art was locked down by the reliable Alberto Giolitti and his studio while the writing was handed off to an up coming light in the comic book world -- Len Wein. Wein was writing for DC's supernatural books at the time too, and it was only a few months away from the first appearance of Swamp Thing by Wein and Berni Wrightson in the pages of House of Secrets.

The first story in this collection features a gaggle of Earth-type historical figures such as George Washington, Nero, Napolean, and Ben Frankllin among many others, all androids created by an Earth man named Lazarus. It seems he's travelled across deep space and has created famous figures from Earth's history to populate his new world. And he's up for some change of pace and wants to study Vulcan history and to do that he needs Spock's brain. Poor old Spock has a hard time holding onto that brain of his.

It seems there's a for real genie in the next issue but as is usually the case it's the super-scientific manifestation of an evil warlord who tries to manipulate the crew of the Enterprise to locate and help him defeat his enemies.

The Enterprise crew cannot trust their eyes when a malevolent alien takes advantage of a dangerous cargo aboard the ship to give them hallucinations. Mr. Spock in particular is taken on quite the psychedelic head trip.

Captain Kirk and Spock and the crew have to take on pirates in space, and these are just the kind of pirates you'd expect, but instead of a creaking ship they have a shiny space ship (though they look about the same).

The Enterprise is taken over by a mysterious stranger who allows the ship and crew to travel to the far reaches of the galaxy where they find a once elegant paradise having come under some stress.

Captain Kirk is the focus when after an attack by a monster, he's taken back aboard ship and shows some decidedly changed personality traits. He becomes a tyrant and violent toward the crew who have to consider the ultimate defiance of authority.

Limbo is the weird place they travel to next and they find many stranded space ships from across many centuries and their crews still alive. But the Klingons are there too and all too ready to make a fight of it.

Finally in this volume the Enterprise crew comes up against a otherworldly version of the old Inquisition, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy barely survive.

(This trippy page by Giolitti's group reminds me of Sam Glanzman's later Hercules pages.)

This issue is notable in that to my eye it's the first to have a proper likeness of Scotty, who up this time had been blond most of the time. In fact the faces of the crew are quite well done generally and it's clear that Giolitti's studio has gotten some solid reference at last, or maybe they've seen a show or two or three by this time. References are made in some of the stories to Tribbles, and other creatures from the TV series. The Enterprise too has ceased to have flames come out of the nacelles as was the case in nearly all the issues to this point. Rock solid stuff and more and more like episodes of the series.

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