Star Trek 760: Death of a Star

760. Death of a Star

PUBLICATION: Star Trek #30, Gold Key Comics, May 1975

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

STARDATE: 33:33.3 - Follows the last issue (#28).

PLOT: Investigating Isis, a star about to go nova, the crew finds life readings on the system's third planet. Hoping to save the poor souls stranded there, the landing party is instead herded by nature to a temple. There, an old woman is resigned to her fate. Spock and Kirk find truly trippy historical records that recount the planet's creation myth. Isis is an eye in a pyramid that seeded itself on the planet and gave birth to a cyclops race.
After making them build the temple, she returns to the sky leaving them all blind. These people have been dead and gone for 25 million years, but the old woman remembers them being there only moments ago. That's because she's actually the star made flesh, and before she explodes, she beams the landing party back to the safety of the Enterprise. Kirk promises to have a chat with our own sun one of these days.

CONTINUITY: Nurse Chapel finally gets her blond hair.

DIVERGENCES: The Enterprise-D goes to Isis III after the mind-numbing events of Too Short a Season, but it is clearly destroyed here.

PANEL OF THE DAY - Uhura gets an electric spanking
REVIEW: The contention that stars are living organisms is odd, but far from unknown in science fiction (Doctor Who did one of these last year, in fact). Where Death of a Star succeeds, I think, is in its surreal creation myth (misguided pun and all), lending an atmosphere of "important ideas" to the tale. Less interesting are ye olde attacking plants, but bits like Chapel being left with "Isis" and fainting from sunstroke are better uses of the goddess' powers.