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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Star Trek - The Key Collection Volume One!

For me it might have well started with Star Trek. I'm just a bit young to have been a booster from the get-go of that seminal sci-fi show, but I do have snippets of memories of waiting up to catch episodes in what was the third season, alas the final one as well. Star Trek then went away or seemed to do so. It was still on my scope because I read comics and on the stands from time time were Star Trek comics from Gold Key. Now while I loved Turok Son of the Stone and cottoned to but often ignored Magnus Robot Fighter, I tended to shy away from most all licensed comics from Gold Key, especially those with photo covers. For some reason I don't remember I was dismissive of photo covers back then, as if they were a cheap way to go about business or something.

Well I didn't dive into Star Trek until things were brewing in the fan base which resulted in the creation of a cartoon version from Filmation. The reruns were around by that time and I'd seen many if not most of the shows. And we all thought the screaming for a new show or a movie or something was just pissing in the wind. That is until Star Wars dropped like a bomb on the pop culture world and it was all on again. But all that time Gold Key had been chugging away and had kept the Star Trek standard up, along with the prose adaptations by James Blish and other bits of stuff here and there.

The first Gold Key issue was way back in 1967 and the show was not a known quantity to the folks putting it out. Clearly watching old Star Trek shows is interesting, especially if you do as I'm currently doing, watching them in production order. The first season wheezes and squeaks and finally like a jalopy begins to thrum along. When Gold Key got the franchise though there was one thing about Star Trek that was dominating the conversations about the show and that was the devilish look and distinctively cold demeanor of Mister Spock. Spock is all over the covers, being featured, even alone on some. In the first issue drawn by Nevio Zaccara the Enterprise crew goes to "Planet K-G" which stands for "Kelly Green". It's a planet of intelligent plants and the crew is barely able to get away from the Triffid-like creatures and their spawn.

The second issue which came out six months later or so is also drawn by Zaccara, has Kirk and Spock and the rest falling victim to a wily criminal who along with many of his species are imprisoned on asteroids which randomly explode. Of course they seek to use the Enterprise to escape but in the end they are overcome and alas their deadly sentences are carried out. This is the last issue that show Yeoman Rand in any capacity that I can detect. She was of course an early character and Kirk love interest on the show but was unceremoniously phased out in the first dozen episodes or so.

The next issue of the Gold Key run has an outstanding cover and Spock's domination of the brand is all too evident. This issue comes at the end of 1968 and has the crew try to help a culture in which its own technology has overwhelmed it with a program of building which never strops. Alberto Giolitti takes on the art chores and his muscular and direct style is one I find very attractive.

The Enterprise itself is featured on the next issue coming in the summer of 1969 and the Enterprise crew is confronted with the challenge of surviving on "Metamorpha" a planet that's landscape changes perpetually. The writer for all these adventures was Dick Wood and large he concocts robust adventures that move at a rapid clip. The characterizations are off here and there with Kirk coming across as very aggressive at times. Always Spock is the lead to solve the issues at hand. McCoy is around and looks about right though is personality is pretty bland. Scotty is there, but is some blonde guy and it takes the comic a long time to get this right.

More of the same on "The Ghost Planet" when the Enterprise crew is confronted with saving a culture from itself because as soon as they rescue the population from deadly radiation they want to go back to war for the express benefit of two leaders, both named "Justin" for some reason. There's little mention or use of what was to become the "Primary Directive" to not interfere in cultures, and to be honest it's not mentioned in the early episodes of the show either.

Under a cover with only Mister Spock featured which dropped on the stands in the winter of 1969 the crew finds another problem to solve when two planets are racing towards each other and their eventual demise. It requires lots of savvy to find the fix but they do thanks to the smarts of Spock of course.

My favorite cover of the run is on the seventh issue and again Spock is featured though both McCoy and Kirk get aboard. This issue has an evil dictator from Earth using alien technology and what appears to be magic to wreck monuments on Earth like the Eiffel Tower and the Sphinx. He is of course defeated but only when Spock uses Vulcan "voodoo" to overcome him.

This collection wraps with a story that was dated September 1970 and this time the crew of the Enterprise faces a threat which sees some of them turned into teenagers and younger. They quickly discover the enemy but it takes a while to defeat him. While she had appeared in the background of one cover before, almost to small to see, this is the first cover on which Uhura can be recognized reallyt, though she's not in the comic itself. Sulu had been around but not at all featured. And that wraps up the early Gold Key run, at least in this Checker volume. The show had been off the air for a year by the time this issue hit the stands and a long period of time was coming when pretty much only Gold Key was going to be telling new Star Trek tales. And for that they would bring in a new writer, someone you likely know.

More next week.

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Dick Tracy - The Collins Casefiles!

Dick Tracy is one of those venerable comics strips with a grand history of success which unfortunately has also had some extended periods of mediocre production. Chester Gould's hard-nosed detective has often been uninspiring, but then suddenly all that changes. Recently Joe Staton took over the artistic reins of the strip immediately making it one I crave to see.

Likewise years ago Max Allan Collins, now a crime writer of no small distinction had a run at writing the series. Checker Publishing put out some of the Collins run, featuring art by Rick Fletcher, several years ago in a trio of trade paperbacks. The prices on these were not nearly worth the quality or quantity of material each volume offered. But recently I found them all for a fraction of their cover price and dragged them home. At a combined price lower than the cost of a single volume, I'm willing to take a chance on some later Dick Tracy adventures.

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