Black Holes and Revelations

This month is going to be a busy one at work- my PT told me on Thursday that I need to attend an extra parents night. I co-teach with a colleague, 50-50, but he's taken over a second S3 class and since they're always split by surnames A-M, then N-Z, over two successive weeks, I'm working both nights. That's four eleven-hour days this month.

Therefore, I've fallen behind with preparing for a post on the 2012 IDW Dr. Who/Star Trek crossover.
Here's one I prepared earlier, instead. 

I've had a taste for Star Trek in graphic novel and prose form recently and I bought the Key Collection volume 3 because there were two stories I recalled which didn't seem to have been reprinted in UK annuals. I expect I saw them in a high school friend's collection. 

Of course, many of these early 70s adventures were written by comics legends Arnold Drake or Len Wein although often they bear little resemblance to the tv series. But that adds to their charm, for me.This tpb features January 1974's Siege in Superspace which includes this dialogue:

Spock: " Have you ever heard of a black hole, Captain?"

Kirk: " I'm afraid not, Mr. Spock! Please explain!"

 Perhaps James T is confused by the terminology because in Star Trek's nineteenth episode in January 1967 (Tomorrow is Yesterday), the Enterprise is thrown back in time by an encounter with a "black star".

 A black hole is the plot device threatening Gallifrey in The Three Doctors (Dec 72-Jan 73) and I have a vague memory of Syd Jordan's depiction of the dreadful maw of a black hole in the Daily Express strip Jeff Hawke (Feb-Apr 1974's First Person Plural). As we saw in a previous post, Space:1999 had its share of time-and-space warps including the eponymous Black Sun of its tenth broadcast episode.

In 1979's Star Trek The Motion Picture, an engine malfunction creates a "wormhole" which drags in the Enterprise like the black holes and suns previously depicted  ( Isaac Asimov allegedly said it should be more correctly named a "temporal tunnel"). It seems the terminology is finally locked down around 1980 with the release of Disney's The Black Hole-  nightmarish sci-fi for kids.

Travelling through warps in space-time can lead to Hell in Disneyworld but in Star Trek, history or even parallel universes are accessible. Star Trek The Mirror Universe is a collection of Mike W. Barr's story arc from 1984-85  which uses the second season episode Mirror Mirror as a springboard. Deep Space Nine would make even more use of the concept in the 90s.

The serial concerns a fully fledged invasion from the Mirror Universe. Mirror counterparts of the deceased David Marcus and Marlena from the 60s episode are involved with an underground movement. Mirror Saavik attempts a deception and Mirror Spock vs. reborn Spock is a highlight of the story. Worf-prototype Konom undergoes the Mind-Sifter ordeal and an alliance of the Klingons and Romulans helps to turn the tide of the invasion attempt. Certain elements of the series, then, seem to prefigure the world of Star Trek The Next Generation.

New Frontiers concludes with Kirk's reputation restored by a journalist ( pace Lou Reed, those were different times!) and he takes command of the flashy Excelsior. Spock is posted on a science vessel called the Surak. This is a thoroughly entertaining read although it is contradicted by later DC canon, from about Final Frontier onwards. For example, here the Klingon homeworld isn't called Kronos (or even Kling as in TNG) but Kash. Speaking of which, Voyager's third season episode Flashback shows that, around the evacuation of Kronos Undiscovered Country, Sulu, Janice Rand and Tuvok also serve on the Excelsior.

Next time, I plan to look at the Eleventh Doctor's adventures with the Borg and in future I will also look at the return of the Redjac entity, created by Robert Bloch, in the TNG comics. But just before I finish today, a quick word about two recent BBC audios for Doctor Who.

Nev Fountain's Flight of the Sun God is a reading by Nicola Bryant and is set in old Sixie's era. A Space Executive with a pharaoh fixation directs his funeral space ship into a sun while his staff mutate into replica Egyptian gods. This script has a touch of Douglas Adams but also the queasy, morbid sensibility of 1985-87 Who.  While it reminds me a little of the Rudy Zoom stories in DWM, it's an entertaining listen. Quite a change for this range lately. (5/5 Talmars)

The Scent of Blood is by Andrew Lane- I can't tell if he's the Andy Lane who wrote All-Consuming Fire, Original Sin and A Thousand Tiny Wings but I suspect he is. This is a bait-and-switch story about Gallifrey's ancient vampire enemies in Victorian Edinburgh. There's a new, minimalist arrangement of the DW theme, which I enjoyed and hope to hear again. As the reader, Dan Starkey does an uncanny impression of Paul McGann- the vowels and stresses are so lifelike, it's remarkable. It's an enjoyable listen too, if a bit more "trad" ( 4/5 Talmars). These could be Dr. Jodie stories very easily. Why aren't they Thirteenth Doctor stories? Her absence is keenly felt.

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