Star Trek 753: Child's Play

753. Child's Play

PUBLICATION: Star Trek #23, Gold Key Comics, March 1974

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

STARDATE: 17:23.4 - Follows issue #21 (Season 3).

PLOT: Kirk beams down to a planet run by kids, where anyone over 13 dies from a plague, and now the landing party is infected too. Sound familiar? While the Enterprise flies off to get a missing ingredient to the cure, Kirk gets caught up in harmless wargames with opposing child factions. Meanwhile, the Enterprise avoids a meteor and Spock and McCoy cudgel some cavemen silly. They get back in time to save the landing party and promise medicine for everyone.

CONTINUITY: First appearance of Nurse Chapel in the comics (albeit as a redhead). Child's Play uses the same exact premise Miri does.

DIVERGENCES: The colorist still can't quite believe there would be black people on a starship.

PANEL OF THE DAY - What the hell does that mean?
REVIEW: While I've usually found good things to say about past issues, this is a truly awful comic. The plot is recycled from a classic TOS episode (thankfully without "bonk bonk on the head"). The dangers are episodic and unrelated to each other. In Kirk's case, they're just a runaround with knights and castles and no real danger. There's a big scene where Kirk has to fire on a child, but it's all a game and there are no consequences. Chapel finds a second cure that's missing another ingredient, but that ingredient isn't any more available, so that's two more wasted panels. A big waste of time. Definitely one to skip.