Villordsutch reviews Star Trek: Harlan Ellison’s City on the Edge of Forever #1…
“For the first time ever, a visual presentation of the much-discussed, unrevised, unadulterated version of Harlan Ellison’s award-winning Star Trek teleplay script, “The City on the Edge of Forever!” This Hugo- and Writer’s Guild of America Award-winning teleplay has been much discussed for decades but only here can you see the story as Mr. Ellison originally intended!”
I’ve been rather excited about seeing this series of Star Trek comics since it was mentioned back in March and just and yesterday we were teased with a few pages of the comic too. Well I say excited – I’ve been watching the dispatch list like a hawk waiting for my prey to raise its head slightly above the grass so I can pounce and grab it in my talons. I want this comic so badly and woe betide IDW if this is done wrong as I’ve been filing these talons to a point, as you don’t mess with this bit of history.
What this series of IDW Trek comics is setting out to do is tackle the original teleplay of Harlan Ellison’s The City of the Edge of Forever, which is not the same as what you witnessed on the screen. Here you have a rather interesting script that went against the Roddenberry perfect harmony of the Federation. You’ll see even within the opening pages that some of the crew aren’t at their most stable within the first few years of their five-year mission and illegal drugs are being sold amongst themselves for profit which, in turn, is leading to murder. It’s our murderer, Beckwith, that escapes the Enterprise by sealing himself in the transporter room and beaming down to the planet; he then becomes the Time-Jumper – not a Crazed McCoy as in the TV show. Eventually when our Away Team arrive on the planet they discover the city on the edge of “Forever” and communicate with the guardians watching over it.
Our opening issue is a good one. The writing is handled by Scott and David Tipton who are both well versed in their Trek tales and they’ve managed to bring Harlan’s storyto the page pretty well. I did find Rand using the massive Phaser rifle to unseal the Transporter door a bit bizarre, but other than that oddity everything played out well. The art is by J.K. Woodward, who I’ve only seen before in the Star Trek/Doctor Who Assimilation graphic novel, which I personally liked very much and here too I like his artwork a lot. There is a very ethereal look, on occasion, to the characters and with each panel appearing like it has been painted I think it looks brilliant for such a special occasion in a series of comics.
If the Tipton’s and Woodward carry on delivering this standard of work for the rest of this series I’m going to be extremely happy with the end result. A perfect start to Harlan Ellison’s classic tale.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published June 17, 2014. Updated December 13, 2019.
