Well Before Star Trek Hit TV, Starfleet Took Flight With a Little-Known Comic

When Star Trek first aired in the 1960s, access to media was so much more limited than it is today that British comic book writers, tasked with adapting the series ahead of its debut on UK television in 1969, had to take a number of creative liberties – because they hadn't had access to episodes of The Original Series.

An edition of CBR.com's "Comic Book Legends Revealed" column from 2017 explored the Star Trek comic strip published in the British comic anthology Joe 90, which fans of the franchise will recognize as a fascinating footnote in the multimedia history of Trek.

That is because of the strip's strange divergences from The Original Series, but also because of how it speaks to the propagation of Star Trek and other American cultural exports during the analog era, long before the internet changed how people all over the world access content.

The Late '60s British "Star Trek" Comic Strip, Explained

How The Franchise' Landed Overseas In 1969

In the 1960s, American television was not accessible to international audiences the way that it is today; in 1969, the three-season run of Star Trek: The Original Series ended in June, while just a month later, the BBC began airing the series from Season One on British television. Several months before that debut, Star Trek comics began to appear in the Joe 90 anthology, as a kind of advanced landing party – or "away team," in the parlance of The Next Generation and later series – for the TV show.

However, as explained by CBR, the creator of these comics, Harry Lindfield, had not actually seen the series, but rather was limited to the use of promotional material in order to replicate the visual style of the show, and the likenesses of the cast. Though CBR does not go into detail about the story, it can be presumed that Lindfield was given a basic overview of the show's premise, and its style of storytelling, yet what makes the early British Star Trek comic strips so fun to examine are the ways in which they wildly depart from The Original Series.

Most infamous, of course, is the fact that Captain Kirk is misnamed as "Kurt" in the first several strips – which, by today's standards, might seem like a major blunder, or a glaring oversight, but in the late 1960s, it was more of sign of how little thought was put into coordinating the multimedia effort for a property like Star Trek. The instinct was there, as evidenced by the comic's existence in itself, yet there was much less of a dedication to consistency, if nothing else.

The British "Star Trek" Adaptation From 1969 Highlights Why Comics Are Perfect For The Franchise

The Creative Mind Is The Final Frontier

Other major divergences between Star Trek: The Original Series and the 1969 British comic adaptation highlighted by the CBR article include the Enterprise making a planetside landing in one strip, and in another, shooting actual, physical torpedoes during ship-to-ship combat. While Trek fans will certainly find these elaborations on the iconic starship to be amusing, it is once again worth looking at the context in which they appeared. That is, in retrospect, they seem to contradict solidified franchise canon, but at the time, that canon was still very much "wet cement," so to speak, not yet hardened, and still malleable.

In other words, the Star Trek comic strip featured in Joe 90 was an early example of what makes the comic book medium perfect for the franchise – while The Original Series, and its successor shows, were limited by budget and time constraints, Trek comics are only limited by the imaginations of their creators, and their readers. The British Trek strip was, it must be remembered, an adaptation – it was beholden to a certain level of fidelity to The Original Series, but it was also intended to be its own unique version of the series.

Fans Will Find The British "Star Trek" Comic's Canon Curveballs Hilarious, But The Strip Is Culturally Significant

A Window Into Pop Culture's Past

It is also worth noting that, as much as Trek fans will notice the quirks of the British comic adaptation first, there are many ways in which the strips can be praised for, especially for their art, which captures the essence of Star Trek's visual style, while also using the comic strip medium to its maximum advantage. As noted by CBR, these Trek comic strips were collected by IDW Publishing, longtime steward of the franchise in the comic book medium, meaning they are available for contemporary audiences to take a deeper dive into.

The 1969 British Star Trek comic is fascinating because of the opportunity it provides for a retrospective look at popular culture in the late 1960s – how it was created, disseminated, and consumed, all of which were significantly different than they are over fifty years later. In that sense, these vintage Trek comics are more than just a novelty; they represent more than just a fun fact, or a funny relic of the franchise's past. They are a cultural artifact, one that should prompt readers to reflect on how radically different pop culture has become since Star Trek debuted.