972. The AlonePUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #62, DC Comics, August 1994
CREATORS: Kevin Ryan (writer), Rod Whigham and Arne Starr (artists)
STARDATE: 5992.4 (towards end of 5-year mission, between #16 and Annual #5; framing sequence follows last issue)
PLOT: The Enterprise explores planet Veneu II and finds a deserted facility with spacetime portals that can look at the sector's past. Without warning, a Wumpar ship attacks and in the melee, though most of the landing party is beamed up to the ship, Kirk is transported 300 years in the past to an unknown planet. He spends months surviving there, looking for signs of intelligence. Meanwhile, only hours pass for the Enterprise, as Spock negotiates a peace with the Wumpar who help him try to track down the captain...
CONTINUITY: Kirk's survival training comes from both Ben Finney (Court-Martial) and his time on Miramanee's planet (The Paradise Syndrome).
DIVERGENCES: None.
PANEL OF THE DAY - The legend is true.
REVIEW: The first of two parts by guest writer Kevin Ryan (who also wrote the Voyager episode Resistance), it starts out as your usual 5-year mission comic book story with the crew inspecting a highly advanced, but apparently dead civilization, but with Kirk's time-tossed dilemma, it gets more interesting. Sure, it's derivative of All Our Yesterdays, but Kirk is epic in his survival skills in large part thanks to Whigham's high-octane art (which certainly helps the ship-to-ship action). Sometimes a bit TOO high-octane.
What is that tree MADE OF? Hey, if you're looking for Kirk getting alien bear skins with stone knives, this is it. As for the Wumpar, I was thinking some of the primitive life-forms looked a little like them, but 300 years is scarcely enough time to evolve, is it? Not a lot of suspense in a cliffhanger in which Spock HAS found Kirk on the spacetime scanners, but we'll see where it goes.
Comments