Star Trek Early Voyages chronicled Captain Pike’s Enterprise first
By Mike Poteet
We still don’t know exactly when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will debut. But until it does, we can revisit a previous Star Trek series—a comic book series—that also chronicled Christopher Pike’s command of the U.S.S. Enterprise: Star Trek Early Voyages.
During Marvel Comics’ brief, second go-round as the Star Trek comics license holder, British comic book writers and frequent collaborators Dan Abnett and Ian Edginton started filling in the story gap between the first and second pilot episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.
For 17 fast-paced, entertaining, and innovative issues between February 1997 and June 1998, Edginton and Abnett, with a team of talented graphic artists, immersed Star Trek fans in a whole new “old” era of the Enterprise.
Giving Captain Pike a diverse, dynamic crew
From issue #1, it’s clear Abnett and Edginton know and love their source material. Although some nits can be picked—and readers who wrote into the letters page picked them—the writers brought the Christopher Pike era to life seemingly effortlessly.
Most of the crew we met in “The Cage” are here: Captain Pike, Number One, a young Spock, Dr. Boyce (as letter writers noted, he looks less like John Hoyt and more like Reed “Mr. Fantastic” Richards due to likeness legalities), and helmsman Joe Tyler. Yeoman Colt transfers aboard following the death of Pike’s previous yeoman on Rigel VII, a tale revealed in full in issue #3.
The book’s creative team also introduced some welcome diversity into Pike’s crew, just as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds appears set to do.
We meet two new women, navigator Sita Mohindas and head nurse Gabrielle Carlotti. We find Moves-With-Burning-Grace, a man of Maasai descent, as Chief Engineer. And we get to know communications officer Nano, who hails from a brand-new alien race, the Lirin. His people’s reclusive nature and perfectly balanced social structure are the focus of issue #9.
Issue #4 contains a two-page “sketchbook” showcasing the character designs of penciler Patrick Zircher. These portraits show how perfectly Zircher captured the essential aesthetic of “The Cage” while making characters old and new feel active and vibrant.
Zircher drew most of the issues. Michael Collins drew issues #9-12, largely sticking with the style Ziercher established. Javier Pulido penciled the last two, taking the look in a slightly more stylized direction with sharper angles and a flatter texture.
Overall, the series is a visual delight, its panels and pages full of bold lines, energetic action, and bold colors from inkers Greg Adams (issues #1-12) and Steve Moncuse (issues #13-17).