Star Trek 775: Mr. Oracle

775. Mr. Oracle

PUBLICATION: Star Trek #46, Gold Key Comics, August 1977

CREATORS: Unknown (writer), Alden McWilliams (artist)

STARDATE: Unknown - Follows the last issue (#44).

PLOT: The Enterprise visits a primitive planet orbiting a star about to go nova and are quickly captured by locals. Put in a cell, Spock quickly deciphers a mathematical puzzle left on the wall, which opens a door to a super-civilized society. Because of his smarts, he is destined to become "Wotam" to these people, the receptacle of all their knowledge as they migrate to a new world. See, they've lost all scientific knowledge because they have a great big computer to do the thinking for them. Anyway, they upload all its data into Spock, who grows a few hat sizes and turns on his crewmates. They eventually get the better of him and convince him to mindmeld the data into three locals, enabling them to leave and start fresh.

CONTINUITY: None.

DIVERGENCES: The comic has some odd ideas about warp drive, like that it makes everyone sick.

PANEL OF THE DAY - There's no business like show business.
REVIEW: This issue seems to start rather educationally, with interesting info on the etymology of the word "nova" and the math puzzle, but we're soon into "Spock's Brain" territory as Spock walks around like a Brazilian carnival participant shouting orders at yellow midgets. I'm kind of surprised Kirk didn't blow up the computer.

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