Star Trek 973: The Alone Part Two

973. The Alone Part Two

PUBLICATION: Star Trek v.2 #63, DC Comics, September 1994

CREATORS: Kevin Ryan (writer), Rod Whigham and Arne Starr (artists)

STARDATE: 8826.2 (framing sequence, follows the last issue while main story is at the end of the 5-year mission)

PLOT: Spock is recalled to starbase before he can find Captain Kirk's whereabouts back in time, so he decides to take the scenic route and visit every system in the area for signs of him lost on a planet out there. The Wumpar choose to help, especially after the Enterprise helps them fight off their Drasalle enemies who have been hunting them to extinction. 300 years in the past, Kirk fights alien bears, adopts one, builds a cabin and tools, and completes the massive endeavor of making an Enterprise "A" big enough to see from orbit before dying of old age. Spock slingshots to the past, and using Kirk's memoirs written on leaves, finds his captain only a day after being stranded. The ship uses its tractor beam to recreate the sign that led them there to prevent a paradox. In the present day, the Enterprise returns to the planet to visit their Wumpar allies who have settled it and named cities after Spock and Kirk.

CONTINUITY: Kirk names his pet Gary after Gary Mitchell (Where No Man Has Gone Before). Kirk learned metal-working from Tyree (A Private Little War).

DIVERGENCES: Spock claims that the entire crew but him is human, though the previous issue showed an alien transporter chief, and by this post-TAS time, the Enterprise is usually pictured with aliens aboard.

PANEL OF THE DAY - The era of paper is truly at an end.
REVIEW: A truly epic, and yet very personal, time travel story. Kirk is an almost ridiculously competent survivalist, but that fits in with his legend. The longer it goes, the more you start thinking of it as crazy fanwank to explain away Shatner looking older than Kirk is supposed to be in the movies, but it's thankfully undone. And yet, Kirk still has to live knowing about the life he had there in another reality, thanks to those memoirs. The present, with Spock and the Wumpar, is also well-served, reaffirming the Federation's principles. A welcome change of pace from Weinstein's faction vs. faction, "political" stories.