771. World Against TimePUBLICATION: Star Trek #42, Gold Key Comics, January 1977
CREATORS: Unknown (writer), Alden McWilliams (artist)
STARDATE: 19:29.06 - Follows the last issue.
PLOT: The crew of the Enterprise visit a planet of giant children and befriend some rather large babies until they come to blows with older children and Scotty mistakenly gives the emperor a spanking.
Turns out they've been de-aging for the past 40 days after an earthquake uncovered an odd radiation source. It's up to Spock and Scotty to go plant explosive charges in the offending cave before the radioactivity makes everyone pop out of existence entirely. In the words of the anonymous writer, as soon as they approach the cave, they are "in a race against their own childhood".
They succeed and McCoy administers a cure, but the population of Planet 137 (catchy!) choose to grow up all over again.CONTINUITY: None.
DIVERGENCES: The universal translator is telepathic and can only work on speech coming from living minds. I think there's ample evidence that this isn't true.
PANEL OF THE DAY - An awkward thought
REVIEW: Less Rascals than Miri, this issue scores points by not being overly silly with its premise, and though the science is ridiculous to be sure, at least the de-aging effects aren't magically reversed at the end. There's an attempt to use anthropology to understand the culture, and... who am I kidding? Baby Spock. Baby Scotty. 'nuff said.
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