854. Vicious Circle!PUBLICATION: Star Trek #33, DC Comics, December 1986
CREATORS: Len Wein (writer), Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran (artists)
STARDATE: 8906.3 (follows the last issue) and 3114.1 (directly after Tomorrow Is Yesterday)
PLOT: Excelsior comes across the Enterprise from 20 years in the past, appearing by virtue of a time travel accident. The paradox threatens to destroy the entire universe, so with the help of Spock's USS Surak, the crews of the Excelsior and Enterprise race to the Guardian of Forever where our Vulcans turn the entire world into a time portal, sending the Enterprise back to its point of origin. Time is reset and neither crew has any memory of these events. In the present, Uhura receives a garbled call from the USS Surak...
CONTINUITY: The TOS-era ship and crew are slingshoting back from the events of Tomorrow Is Yesterday (the last page reprises the last scene of that episode). The younger crew includes Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand (and the sexy voice Enterprise computer), but not Chekov. The Guardian of Forever is of course from The City on the Edge of Forever.
DIVERGENCES: None. It's like none of it ever happened.
PANEL OF THE DAY - Saavik, only looking for an excuse to sleep with young Kirk.
REVIEW: A romp to celebrate Star Trek's 20th anniversary, which makes fun use of the TOS-era Enterprise, but doesn't quite know what to substantively do with them. Each character gets a nice moment, often when meeting their own selves, but these scenes aren't hung on a particularly strong plot. It's a good thing the art is so good at doing talking heads. Still, I should mention the Uhuras talking about career paths, younger Kirk dreaming of admiralty, and older Kirk bumping into Yeoman Rand. Characters are so liberal with information that might pollute the timeline that you just know the reset button will have to be pressed. I do wish the older crew had been allowed to remember the incident though. What's missing is an actual lasting impact on SOME character.
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