Star Trek 757: Ice Journey

757. Ice Journey

PUBLICATION: Star Trek #27, Gold Key Comics, November 1974

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

STARDATE: 20:27.3 - Follows issue #25.

PLOT: The Enterprise is ordered to survey the Federation's coldest planet, Floe I. They find shocking pink, bipartisan turtle people who shed their shells when they get back to the warmer air of their underground city. The landing party asks too many questions and is captured, some of them thrown into a firepit with blue-skinned Floes, punished for their coloration. Spock and Krisp learn of the Floe's Apartheid regime and how the blue skins have been denied a "speeder serum" that would allow them to survive the cold temperatures. Meanwhile, Kirk and Uhura have a bit of business where they're buying time or maybe sending an encoded message, hard to say. Spock and Krisp break out, menace the co-leaders of Floe, who in turn allow them to see the serum factory, where civil war breaks out. The crew escapes and justify their Prime Directive blunder by the fact that Floe will soon be dead anyway because it's continually moving away from its sun. In a final twist(?), the survey is revealed as a last-ditch attempt by the Floes to have themselves remembered as a perfect society before they go.

CONTINUITY: Dr. Krisp is back (issue #19)! This time, she holds it together and doesn't need to get slapped by Kirk.

DIVERGENCES: Uhuru and Uhura are used interchangeably. See REVIEW for this issue's scientific balderdash.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Look kids! Comics!
REVIEW: Pure nonsense. And I don't mean that in a good way. First, the science doesn't make any sense. We have planets careening away from their stars, aliens described as almost human but drawn as reptiles, people standing in fire with no ill effects (Spock and Krisp take "heating tablets"), and talk of the landing party communicating telepathically because they can't inhale the freezing atmosphere (but the speech bubbles make it unclear if people can read each others' thoughts). The plot is a confusing, illogical mess as well. If the aliens wanted to be well remembered, why do they attack the landing party as soon as it arrives? I'm not sure I understand Kirk's time-wasting gambit, or how Spock and Krisp escape, or whether Floe society is living a super speed or not, or what the aliens' motivation is during the climax. And what a talky! There's entirely too much exposition, none of it making sense, bla bla bla. I knew we were in trouble as soon as the shocking pink aliens came out of the ice, frankly.