Sunday, August 14, 2011

Because Kirk was Soooooooo worried about PR!

Back to my interupted survey of Gold Key's original Star Trek comics from 1968, we have the absolute gem, "Day of the Inquisitors."

...

No, really.

So, teasers aside, we open with a captain's log. Before I can even find out what Kirk's on about now, there is something to be dealt with.

The Public Relations officer.

...

When, exactly, between killing his best friend, teaching psychotic children not to beat their wives, driving Greek gods to suicide, killing Jack the Ripper, and other assorted insanity did the man care about PR? Or the media, or the reaction of Earth, or the reaction of his boss? In fact, now that I think of it, Enterprise has way too much of that, particularly at the beginning. I've never really focused on that and now it'll drive me crazy for the next six months.

I haven't finished the first sentence yet. This does not bode well.

So they do manage to make things happen, like the word Federation and the concept of joining said Federaton, but there is no concept of the council, it's just, ooh, first contact, come join the party! At least it's effort. Most of those rules were implied in the 60s, anyway. Now, if it was Picard's Enterprise, we would have a huge problem.

But it's not.

The real trouble starts when they get to the city looking for supplies. Instead of anything sane, the conclusion is that the best thing to do is, in fact, knock out the guards to get in, as far as I can tell, because they're there and Kirk likes to hit things. Even Spock joins in the smackaroo for some reason I'm not too clear on.

Kill kill kill.

And that leads, for some reason I'm not super clear on, to this-

Kirk: Someday, Spock, you'll underestimate an enemy... and you won't live to regret it!

Spock: Impossible, Captain! Regret is an emotion, and I have no emotions.

Excuse me?

YES YOU DO, THEY SAID SO IN, JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:

"The Naked Time"
"Amok Time"
"This Side of Paradise" a.k.a "The Way of the Spores" which is a very Doctor Who like title.
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" a.k.a "In Thy Image" in which Spock laughs, screams, and cries.
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" in which he has a touching death scene.
Actually, the last two weren't written yet, scratch them. Oh! "The Immunity Syndrome"! See?

So they get into the city and promptly decide to beat up more people, because, as Fakeway said in "Living Witness", "it's the Starfleet way..."

SIGH.

But you know, that's not even my real problem. See, Spock didn't pick that fight. It was Kirk. Silly Kirk. Silly, silly Kirk who lets the monk looking dudes he was soooo eager to beat to a pulp run away while he rescues their prisoner. So let me get this straight. We crash, knock out the city guard instead of asking for supplies, sneak into said city, find some monk looking dudes with a prisoner, free the prisoner from the clutches of what is presumably the legal planetary government, and then let the monk dudes get away?

Yeah.

Yeah.

For super real.

How effing dumb can you get?

The tale that follows tells us, though, that the monks - inquisitors, really - are very very bad. Plus, they dress like the KKK.

So, anyway, back on the Enterprise, Uhura is wearing forest green and no one is worried that flames appear to be shooting out both the nacelles and shuttlebay. This may have to do with the "planetary disaster in sector sigma". That they have to go fix right now. Scotty refuses. We don't know what this disaster is. Two planets could be colliding.

Or, the King's cat could be up a tree.

We. Dont . Know. And he doesn't bother to check, just assumes that whatever it is, Kirk is more important.

To Be Continued because I think my brain is bleeding.