These Were the Voyages, pt. 4

Let's have a look at the adaptation of the DC comics adaptation of:

I won't bother recounting the plot - y'all know the plot - so let's just riff on some things. I love Search for Spock, still, after all these years. If you don't, this adaptation likely won't sway you in any one direction. Unless comics adaptations annoy you, in which case, likely negatively. 

The DC gang were working from the shooting script, so several scenes that were ad-libbed or added during production don't make it into the adaptation, such as during the McCoy jailbreak scene, where Uhura turns the tables on Mr. Adventure (Joysticks' Scott McGinnis) or when Sulu manhandles the security guy ("Don't call me Tiny.") 

In general, the secondary cast has been underutilized in the DC series so far.

A couple of scenes related to David's death are different. In the film, Kirk stumbles upon learning the news and falls out of his chair. The stumble was not planned, but Nimoy thought it worked well so they kept it in. And on the surface, Kirk silently walks to his son's corpse and removes his coat to drape it over him, especially dramatic with the crackling flames and shadows of the disintegrating Genesis planet and silent close-ups from friends. 

The comic adds all this other stuff.

The movie ends with "The Adventure Continues," the comic:

That's close, but what Edith Keeler said was "You? At his side, as if you've always been there and always will." Hey, it was both a pre-internet age and a pre-easy-home-collection-of-Trek-tapes age, so let's be forgiving. Still, was this in the script? I can't imagine it was. Someone ask Marv Wolfman or Mike Barr someday if you see either of them. At a convention of course, not while they're out eating dinner or going to the bathroom or anything please.

No Miguel Ferrer for that matter. Captain Styles will return as a foil for Kirk in issues to come.

Oh and one more, there's no "Good Morning, Captain" when the Excelsior breaks down. I always loved that.

That's all she wrote, pretty much. At the ending Fal-Tor-Pan ceremony, though, there's a conspicuous close-up of some young Vulcan who speaks to Spock as he's carried by her. 

I sense this was something meant to be followed up on, whether in the movies or comic I don't know, although I guess if it comes up in the comic I'll find out sooner or later, but never was. I watched the sequence in Search for Spock, and if this was following a storyboard, I don't think I saw a corresponding shot. Possibly on the cutting room floor. Or possibly I just missed something somewhere in the comic. (One more thing to bug Marv or Mike about at a convention! Tell them Dog Star Omnibus sent you.

Some Leftover
Screencaps:

Me so, so logical, Saavik.
Oh and say hello to Robin Curtis' likeness, now taking over in the comics. 

Next: the series swerves to align with the events of TSFS, pt. III with a multi-part mirror universe saga. 

These Were the Voyages, pt. 3

I mentioned this story in the first of these posts. For years I had a vague memory of a Saavik origin story I read someplace but could never find mention of it anywhere. I re-read the novelizations of TWOK and TSFS, thinking what I half-remembered reading would be in there, but no luck. I looked through a few of the Saavik-appearing Pocket Books, but nothing rang a bell in there either. It was tough because the only details I could remember were “Saavik origin story” and (if pressed) “something about Xon, maybe? I don’t know.” (For many years, even knowing who Xon was marked you as a certain "belt" of Trekkie. Alas, no more.) I remembered her being half-Romulan, and that is mentioned, if memory serves, in the novelizations, but that was it.

Well, whaddya know? Here it is in Star Trek #7 and 8, published August and November, 1984. I love when that happens.

The two-parter opens with Enterprise's science officer trying to hide the symptoms of her Vulcan blood fever. 

Pon Farr! It's not just for dudes.

Kirk and Bones, having some small experience in this aspect of Vulcan biology, assure Saavik she can count on them, and divert course for Vulcan. Saavik tells them about her childhood as a Romulan street urchin, orphaned and left to die in an abandoned colony, her half-Vulcan nature making her unwanted. She was found by Starfleet, more specifically Spock, who brought her home to Vulcan and adopted her into his family. Sarek and Amanda raised her and in her time of joining she was betrothed to Xon, the Vulcan created for the aborted Phase II project.

Unfortunately, Xon – whose Pon Farr is tempered by Saavik being his second bonding and is therefore not as intense – is in deep space on a secret assignment for the Vulcan Science Council: creating super-soldiers!

This whole part is a little hazy, but yeah, Vulcan and Romulus are working together on some kind of super-soldier project, but it’s gotten out of hand. When Xon objects, the Romulans turn on him and torture him.

Xon's pretty ripped!
And the Romulans have apparently joined Marvel's Serpent Society. 

Luckily, Saavik – “out of her mind with the blood fever!” as Kirk recounts helpfully; he knows it's called Plak Tow, why's he pretending? While we're here, the scene in Free Enterprise where Mark gets caught up in summarizing "Amok Time" and an exasperated Robert cuts him off ("I am perfectly aware of the events in "Amok Time...!") forever cracks me up – steals a ship and goes after Xon, saving him from death and the galaxy from the super soldiers. The Enterprise pursues and saves everyone. The pursuing Romulans are destroyed in a nebula that Kirk uses to his advantage, as he often does.

Saavik and Xon are left to get on with it, then. 

And then it’s back to Vulcan for Xon.

Well! Not bad. It’s interesting how elements of this origin were lifted or altered for other characters in the franchise (Ensign Ro, Sybok, Discovery, etc. although it’s well known that Sarek is the Kevin Bacon of Vulcan degrees of separation, Discovery or no Discovery). 

Pon Farr was of course returned to in Voyager, twice. So far in eight issues we've revisited "Amok Time," "The Savage Curtain," "Errand of Mercy," "A Taste of Armageddon," and "The Omega Glory."

LEFTOVER PICTURES

"Out of her mind with the BLOOD FEVER!" is worth the price of admission right there. 

"I am PERFECTLY AWARE of the plot of "Amok Time"...!"

Oh David - so eager to die. 

NEXT:

The adaptation of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

These Were the Voyages, pt. 2

Last time we looked at the first four issues of DC’s 1st go at a Star Trek series. This time: issues 5 and 6, two standalone stories that serve as a coda to the Excalibans/ Organians story.

In issue 5 ("Mortal Gods," written by Mike W. Barr, illustrated by Tom Sutton and Sal Amendola) the Enterprise is dispatched to look for the USS Valor, believed to have been destroyed in the recent hostilities with the Klingons. They follow the trail of clues to a world of feudal rat-people, where the Valor’s former Captain, Hodges, rules as a god. 

But the Prime Directive! (And didn't this just happen, like, last week?) His arrival planetside was taken as an omen and avoided a devastating civil war. He married the daughter of one general (Lorac) and made the other (Ballor) his top man. Rat-man. Whatever. Ballor, however, is biding his time and awaiting for more visitors from beyond so he can arm his side with phasers and renew the war. The ruse is discovered, but not before Hodges’ wife, Lylla, gets the old intercepted dagger through the chest.

Arm, excuse me. She loses a lot of blood either way.

McCoy saves Lylla by taking her back to the ship, and Konom – with some help from the Enterprise – pretends to be a god calling his child home, and Hodges (along with Lyla) leave.

The end. It’s okay, not bad, nothing to write home about. Some of the illustration felt a little rushed, or that the colors (by Michele Wolfman) were covering for unfinished breakdowns. 

Issue 6 ("Who is... Enigma?" written by Mike W. Barr, illustrated by Tom Sutton and Ricardo Vilagran) starts off interesting, as the Enterprise is ferrying none other than Robert Fox (that popinjay, you remember him) to the peace conference on the planet Babel with the Klingons. Complications quickly arise: (1) the ambassador’s estranged daughter is some kind of revolutionary for one of the factions, and (2) Enigma, a shape-shifting assassin working for the Orion Victory League, (a Rigellian decapod, according to McCoy, but it's unclear if that's just one of the forms taken or the original one. Either way he learned his cellular metamorphosis from the natives of Antos IV, just like Garth of Izar) has infiltrated first the Enterprise and then the site of the negotiations. Mission? Kill Robert Fox. Problem? See title. It could be anyone!

Kirk employ some Magnum P.I. style logic here...

Well, it was the 80s.
(Thanks to David Deeble for the image.)

Oh, uh, never mind. "Carry on, Mr. Saavik."
Also: foreshadowing...!

We know there's only one real way to suss out alien imposters on Kirk's watch. 
(Incidentally, the fold of the comic makes this look like some kind of slurpee collector's cup or something. Alas.)

Ultimately, after obligatory Kirk vs. Kirk fisticuffs, the accords are signed, and father are daughter are reunited to try and work things out.

Like issue #5, it’s okay. The renegade Starfleet captain who marries the general’s daughter trope is made somewhat more interesting by her being a rat princess, I suppose, but neither Hodges’ story nor Robert Fox’s last (perhaps) diplomatic triumph is anything to really write him about. On the last page Kirk pushes for a reconciliation between Hanoi Fox and her father, which is nice, I guess, but it's all fairly underdeveloped/ too crammed.

That said, both would have been better than average TOS Season Three episodes, perhaps.

LEFTOVER SCREENCAPS

Konom continues to be used pretty well.

That awkward moment in any marriage.
I like McCoy looking on, too, rocking that crazy collar.

Can't recall if I brought up Sherwood or not; she's another of the new cast members. They seem to keep bringing her up, so I'd better mention her. You'd figure I'd do so with a screencap of her and not Saavik. Nope!

I can completely hear this screencap. #TOS4EVA

NEXT TIME: 

The Origin of Saavik!