An ongoing discussion of how the comics provide prequels, sequels, and tie-ins to the Star Trek episodes and films, soon to be a book from BearManor Media. Click here to view an archive of this article series.
65: Marvel Comics, 1997–1998
Back when DC Comics published stories based on The Original Series and The Next Generation, Malibu Publishing simultaneously offered new tales for Deep Space Nine. So when Voyager hit the airwaves, readers wondered which company would continue the voyages of Kathryn Janeway and her intrepid crew. Malibu beat out DC in its bid for a Voyager license, then announced plans to adapt the show’s pilot, “Caretaker”—which never saw the light of day. Paramount ultimately denied Malibu the license, then both DC and Malibu abruptly left the playing field when Paramount launched its own comics line as an imprint of Marvel Comics.
Marvel’s prior Star Trek series, published after The Motion Picture, had fizzled after eighteen not-so-well-received issues, so the decision to give the license back raised a few Vulcan eyebrows. The publisher added a whopping 92 issues to the franchise during a mere three years, however, including a monthly title starring Janeway’s crew. Despite its engaging stories, the Voyager comic lasted only fifteen monthly issues, followed by the four-issue miniseries Splashdown. But at nineteen total issues, it’s tied with Starfleet Academy as Marvel’s longest-running Trek line, with each title surpassing the TMP-era comic by one chapter. This week, we’ll exit the Delta Quadrant with issues #10–15 and Splashdown, all written by Laurie Sutton, with artwork by Jesus Redondo, Sergio Melia, Terry Pallot, and Al Milgrom.
Issue #10 presents a sequel of sorts to episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, with the Battle of Wolf 359 as the narrative glue. Six years after that battle (or five, as the comic is inconsistent on this point—though either way, the number doesn’t jibe with the onscreen chronology), a spatial rift projects a mirage of the conflict across the galaxy. This causes the Voyager crew to suddenly see the USS Melbourne (Admiral Hanson’s ship from “The Best of Both Worlds”), the USS Saratoga (Ben Sisko’s vessel in “Emissary”), and the USS Roosevelt (on which Riley Frazier served in “Unity” before being assimilated) fighting a losing battle against a Borg cube.
Janeway, who certainly wouldn’t have needed her morning coffee to come wide awake after seeing something like that, rescues survivors whose escape pods the rift has deposited in the Delta Quadrant. For years, they’d endured a hellish nightmare inside the anomaly, and their return to normal space and their fellow Starfleet officers is cause for celebration. This being Star Trek, the celebration proves short-lived, for their bodies have become inextricably linked to the rift, causing it to start pulling them back in.
Rather than endanger the Voyager by remaining aboard, the survivors all return to the rift. Among them is Athena Rand, a descendant of The Original Series‘ Janice Rand, with whom Tuvok served aboard the Excelsior in “Flashback.” Athena’s nephew is recurring comic cast member Josh Rand, a Voyager transporter chief (just like his ancestor), making the refugees’ departure even more tragic… though none of the characters, including Josh, ever mention it again. Moments after they return to the rift, spaceships from the Elessian Empire attack in a cliffhanger that sets the stage for all-out war.
But wait! It’s a highly effective fake-out on Sutton’s part, as Janeway and Elessian leader Idana become fast friends in issues #11–13. The crews bond over their mutual enmity with the Borg, and Idana makes Janeway her “battle sister,” because even in space, everyone needs a BFF. How refreshing to meet aliens who aren’t looking for a fight, aren’t hiding ulterior motives to reveal in act four, and are exactly what they appear to be. In Star Trek, that’s practically unheard of. The Elessians’ ships may be formidable, but they’re friendly, welcoming, and fun at parties. The real danger is waiting in the wings.
Idana’s and Janeway’s crews respond to a distress call and end up trapped by a massive generational vessel thousands of years old, containing artificial habitats for species culled from around the galaxy. Robot drones bring them to the sentient ship’s A.I., which roams space gathering specimens for its collection—a frequent Star Trek trope going all the way back to “The Cage,” and one utilized often in the comics. The crew dubs the vessel “Leviathan,” recalling the mythical giant serpents of the Bible.
Among the habitats are two inhabited by Jem’Hadar and Vidiians—but not like those shown on television. Leviathan’s Jem’Hadar were collected as specimens before the Dominion enslaved their people and made them dependent on Ketracel-white (per “The Abandoned”), while the Vidiians were brought aboard before the deadly plague infected their homeworld’s population (see “Phage”). It’s a shame the story didn’t run longer, as it would have been fascinating to learn more about these pre-White and pre-Phage cultures, each of which appears in only a few panels.
The solution to this problem involves a clever and unexpected callback to The Original Series‘ “Dagger of the Mind.” The Doctor customizes a neural neutralizer (Tristan Adams’ treatment and torture device) to tranquilize Leviathan’s brain so Voyager and Idana’s fleet can escape, but this causes the habitats to fail. To save the inhabitants, B’Elanna Torres repairs the A.I., then Leviathan lets the ships depart, deeming them undesirable for its collection (riffing once more on “The Cage”).
The story’s final moments are the most tantalizing. As Leviathan departs, Torres scans records she’d copied from the vessel’s memory banks and finds footage of Ilia and Will Decker merging with V’Ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), suggesting a connection between V’Ger and the sentient vessel. A recounting of these events at the start of issue #13 confirms this, in fact, describing Leviathan as “the next step in the evolution of life from the machine planet where the V’Ger probe came from.” Now there’s a plot point it would have been great to see explored.
Issue #13 presents chapter five of Marvel’s “Telepathy War” crossover, though with the Voyager stranded in another quadrant, the “Telepathy War” tie-in takes up only a few pages toward the end. The Voyager trades for components at a colony in the clouds, whose inhabitants use flying mounts to mine elements via ingestion; Paris’s mount bolts, conveniently exposing a secret pirate operation. None of that has anything to do with “Telepathy War,” but for a brief moment, Kes receives telepathic impressions of the Talosians (“The Cage” again) battling Jem’Hadar, along with a premonition of Species 8472 attacking the Borg and the Voyager in “Scorpion.”
What’s significant about Kes’s visions is that they set up not only “Scorpion” but “The Gift”—and for good reason, as Sutton had to accommodate an onscreen cast change. Actress Jennifer Lien departed Voyager following three seasons of portraying the young Ocampa, and replacing her was Jeri Ryan as liberated Borg Seven of Nine, who stole the show for the remaining four seasons before returning two decades later to steal the show on Star Trek: Picard. Expect to see her join the casts of Discovery, Lower Decks, and the new Saved By the Bell revival, where she will no doubt engage in frequent show-stealing.
Seven makes her comic book debut in issues #14–15, as Janeway’s crew comes to grips with the loss of an old friend while integrating the former drone into their motley band as a new one. The Voyager responds to a distress call from a being known as both Catira and Katirus. The beautiful Orsorian, who can change genders as needed, seduces the men and women of the crew pheromonally, causing them to become aroused to the point of irrationality—Janeway and Torres even fight over Katirus. Seven, however, remains immune to their charms.
Catira/Katirus forcibly seduces Tuvok and Janeway to absorb their energies; the comic does not explicitly state this, but it very much appears they’re both raped! Using antigens in Seven’s bloodstream, the Doctor synthesizes a cure for the pheromones, nullifying the Orsorian threat. It’s thought-provoking, featuring disturbing visuals and an appearance by recurring TV character Vorik, but viewed through the more enlightened lens of 2020, the premise is, well, a bit problematic… and not just because of all the rape taking place. Catira/Katirus changes gender to seduce their prey. To entrap men, they become female, whereas for women, they become male. The male pheromones work on all (non-Borg) females, and vice versa; that’s how it always works, we’re told.
See the problem here? Human sexuality and gender represent a spectrum—we’re not all just male or female and we’re certainly not all heterosexuals. Yet the story entirely overlooks the queer community, assuming everyone to be straight and cisgender. Would Catira’s pheromones work on Hugh Culber? Would Katirus’s work on Jett Reno? Who would have influence over Adira and Gray Tal? How would they affect bisexuals, since the influence works only male-to-female and female-to-male? What about asexual people? And how about Trills? Seven herself was revealed to be queer in “Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2″—most likely bisexual, given her romances with men—so it’s interesting that neither Catira nor Katirus has any effect on her.
Shortly after the comic’s cancelation, Voyager returned in Splashdown, which continued the monthly title’s narrative. This ambitiously written, gorgeously illustrated miniseries explores what happens when a starship crew has no choice but to crash into an ocean. James Kirk’s Enterprise had survived submersion in the British Trek strips and would do so again onscreen in Star Trek Into Darkness, but Splashdown marked the first time most fans had seen a Starfleet vessel underwater.
Janeway’s ship, desperately depleted of resources, enters a planetary wasteland with little hope of replenishing its fuel. Alien drones swarm the starship, depleting it even more. A signal leads the Voyager to a world covered in oceans, where the drone-besieged vessel dives into the atmosphere, skips across the ocean’s surface, and sinks, flooding the engineering deck. It’s spectacular. Seven is injured while battling an aquatic serpent, while Torres struggles to restore force fields as the rising pressure threatens to kill everyone. Vorik again lends a hand in these efforts, though he has little screen-time—this is undeniably a “Seven and Torres” spotlight.
It’s exciting and lavishly drawn, and an engaging set of scenes involve Tuvok leading a shuttle team to locate the drones’ power source, then finding ancient pyramids along the ocean floor. In one structure, his team encounters an alien prospector who tricks them into triggering a security system, then locks them in a crypt. This individual has illegally horded treasures from around the quadrant, including the mummies of Vhnori corpses, which Harry Kim recognizes from having encountered that species in “Emanations.”
An alien portal provides instant travel to complexes on hundreds of worlds, including Earth, rather like Iconian technology (“Contagion”), though no one mentions it. All hope of using the portal to return home is dashed, however, when an erupting volcano collapses the pyramid (of course it does… otherwise, the comic and the show would be done), then the crew uses the volcanic geothermal energy to continue on their journey. As they leave, Chakotay tosses his combadge through the portal as an afterthought, never knowing it ends up in Egypt’s Giza pyramids in the year 2863.
That setting places the Giza coda during the lifetime of Captain Braxton, the commander of the timeships Aeon and Relativity (Voyager‘s “Future’s End” and “Relativity”). At the time of Splashdown‘s publication, Marvel had plans to publish additional Voyager tales. The combadge arriving in Braxton’s younger years may well have set up a miniseries involving the time traveler, perhaps explaining how Janeway’s crew ended up on his radar in the first place. In fact, a blonde-haired character at the Giza site could pass for a young version of actor Allan G. Royal, and he even sports a blue jacket like Braxton’s.
It’s likely we’ll never know for sure, for the loss of Marvel’s license precluded any such tales from materializing. Next week, we’ll finish Marvel’s tenure with a look back at the company’s various Star Trek specials and one-shots—including guest appearances by a certain team of Spandex-clad superheroes. After that? WildStorm takes the stage.
Looking for more information about Star Trek comics? Check out these resources:
- My ongoing column for Titan Books’ Star Trek Explorer magazine
- The Complete Star Trek Comics Index, curated by yours truly
- The Star Trek Comics Checklist, by Mark Martinez
- The Wixiban Star Trek Collectables Portal, by Colin Merry
- New Life and New Civilizations: Exploring Star Trek Comics, by Joseph F. Berenato (Sequart, 2014)
- Star Trek: A Comics History, by Alan J. Porter (Hermes Press, 2009)
- The Star Trek Comics Weekly page on Facebook
Rich Handley has written, co-written, co-edited, or contributed to dozens of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about Planet of the Apes, Watchmen, Back to the Future, Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Stargate, Dark Shadows, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, Red Dwarf, Blade Runner, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman, the Joker, classic monsters, and more. He has also been a magazine writer and editor for nearly three decades. Rich edited Eaglemoss’s Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection, and he currently writes articles for Titan’s Star Trek Explorer magazine, as well as books for an as-yet-unannounced role-playing game. Learn more about Rich and his work at richhandley.com.
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