Instead of a comic based in Scotland, this time it’s a famous Scot. The world’s finest science fiction chief engineer is Montgomery Scott in Star Trek, also known as “Scotty”.
Gold Key started publishing Star Trek comics while the television
show was still in its first run on-air. In early stories, Scotty
was apparently drawn without any photo reference, and so it looks nothing like actor James Doohan.
Later on the likeness is there, but it comes and goes. The series was collected
into trade paperbacks, and these panels come from the first four…
Gold Key continued putting out Star Trek comics through the
1970s, presumably feeding fans starved of new episodes of the show.
In 1979, with Star Trek: the Motion Picture imminent,
Marvel stepped in and picked up the licence. They started with an adaptation of
that movie, written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Dave Cockrum and Klaus Janson…
By 1984, DC had the rights and
were putting out stories based in the time after Star Trek 2: The Wrath of
Khan. No Mr. Spock in evidence then. Here is Scotty in his working
environment, hurriedly working away on impossible tasks to ridiculous deadlines
set by Captain Kirk. As in the show and movies, Scotty is often shown in this
predicament…
Interestingly enough, this is the angle at which the panel was printed. Written by Mike W.Barr and drawn by Tom
Sutton.
The same team adapted Star Trek
3: The Search for Spock…
In 1986, Barr and artist Dan
Jurgens produced a flashback story detailing the final days of the
Enterprise’s “five year mission” (never shown on screen due to the series’
cancellation). It utilised elements from the first movie, such as the revamped
uniforms…
In 1989, fan favourite writer
Peter David is writing, and James Fry is drawing. This page is from the adaptation
of Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier…
1991 was Star Trek’s 25th
anniversary. DC put together a special issue with a 40 page story written by
Howard Weinstein and drawn by Gordon Purcell…
That year also saw the release of
the sixth Star Trek movie, the last to feature the series cast. The countdown
to the end of new comics moving these characters' adventures along in real time
had surely began.
Writer Chris Claremont, fresh
from his expulsion from the X-Men series, and artist Adam Hughes, just off a
well-liked run on Justice League worked together on Debt of Honor. It was a
one-off story published with higher production values than standard comic books.
It followed the Enterprise crew throughout their career, including Scotty…
And it finally came around in
1995. The final story treating the original crew as an ongoing concern. It was
the end of an era.
Scotty and the Star Trek crew
have continued to appear in comics since then. I’ve seen a couple of series in
the shops – Star Trek: Year Four; stories from an imagined fourth season, and
comics based on the cast of the 2009 movie.
The comics that hold my affections though are the ones
that came out contemporaneous to the TV show and movies.
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