Star Trek 752: Siege in Superspace

752. Siege in Superspace

PUBLICATION: Star Trek #22, Gold Key Comics, January 1974

CREATORS: Unknown (writer), Alberto Giolitti (artist)

STARDATE: 36:24.3 - Follows issue #20.

PLOT: The Enterprise is sucked into a black hole and lands in "superspace", apparently what universes are suspended in. On a nearby planet, they find an underground society who turned their backs on weapons when their one super-weapon went crazy and started destroying everything. That machine mind is still animating vegetation (especially machine-faced treants) who follow the crew and girl du jour Rhuna down to the city. Weaponless, the inhabitants start dying with very little dignity:
Kirk discovers her bracelet holds the machine mind, simply thought to be a trinket. He zaps it, stopping the living weapons and then shoots it out at a supernova to create the extra energy that opens up a new black hole through which they escape. In the coda, Kirk thinks it's really too bad he couldn't get in Rhuna's pants.

CONTINUITY: The Enterprise's destination is Draconis, which might refer to a variety of locations using that word in the Trek universe.

DIVERGENCES: Kirk has never heard of a black hole (even a scientifically inaccurate black hole like this one). Uhura is just a touch too white.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Star Trek meets James Bond
REVIEW: What works in this story is the visuals. Giolitti goes wild with superspace and the planet's architecture, and the tree-monsters (and their fiery death throes) are striking. But it's also a story with a LOT of exposition, with little reason to be set in another dimension, and pretty terrible solutions to the problems (the over-obvious, over-fortuitous bracelet and the silly techobabble of the supernova). Pretty pictures, but that's it.