To Boldly Go ... Somewhere

Gold Key Star Trek collections 2 -- These are just fun collections!

I remember seeing some of these comics when I was younger, but for whatever reason never actually read one. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have tried, were it possible for me to, as I've always been a fan of TOS. (That's The Original Series for any non-Trekkies reading.) Maybe the books I saw were always in places where they weren't actually for sale.

Whatever the reason, I was always curious about them. As I got older and started collecting comics, Gold Key issues were rare and often expensive when copies could be found.

For those who don't know, Gold Key/Dell included some great original comic titles like Turok, Son of Stone, but the publishing company was best known for its licensed characters based off of popular television properties. Many of the early creators who worked on these books were foreigners, however, often painfully unfamiliar with the television shows the comics were supposed to be based on.

American fans of Star Trek's initial three-year run were likely puzzled by these books about a Starship Enterprise that had fire and exhaust shooting out the back end of its warp nacelles and shuttlecraft bay and that could physically land on planets the crew encountered. Inside the Enterprise, Capt. James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy didn't always act exactly "in character," but much worse were the blond-haired engineer Mr. Scott and the often excitable Mr. Spock whose pointed Vulcan ears seemed to have grown to twice — or even three times — their normal size.

Hearing stories about these strange characterizations made me leery of spending too much money on something I might not really care for, but my curiosity for these books remained. Several years ago, Checker Book Publishing collected these stories in some nice trade paperback collections. The nice collected price prompted me to finally decide to give these stories a try, and I'm glad I did.

Many of the early stories, while not quite featuring the starship crew I was familiar with, still were quite engaging and creative. In addition, the learning curve of the creators was faster than one might have expected. Changes began to be made to add other familiar characters like Uhura and Sulu, and Mrs. Spock and Scott slowly began to morph closer to their on-screen portrayals. Also, the popularity of both the show and this comic book series led to American creators more familiar with the franchise being hired to write the stories.

Even by the end of this second collection, these stories seem to be about some parallel dimension or alternate universe version of the familiar characters, but let's face it —- parallel dimensions and alternate universes are not so much of a stretch for anyone who's been reading comics or science fiction for any length of time. And the quality of these stories makes them well worth the cost of these nice trades. Beam aboard; you'll be glad you did.