Star Trek: The Key Collection, Volume 1

Collecting the first eight issues of the equally much loved and much maligned Star Trek series from Gold Key. The publisher first debuted the sci-fi series in early 1967. All artists and writers had to go on was a series bible written by Gene Roddenberry and photos taken from the filming of the pilot episodes 'The Cage' and 'Where No Man Has Gone Before.' So there were quite a few errors in these early issues, such as:

• Mr. Spock uses contractions and has emotions. 
• Nobody except for Spock wears blue or red smocks! It's all greenish gold.
• Mr. Scott is thin and blond. He looks more like Jose Tyler, the navigator on 'The Cage', then he does actor James Doohan.
• and my favorite- the transporter room is a combination between the room from 'The Cage' and is encapsulated within a transparent chamber.

Despite the mistakes, the Gold Key/ Whitman Variant Star Trek is still a thing of beauty. The artwork was so detailed and rich. The stories were complex. They might have been cookie-cutter plots with some off-the-wall dialogue; but the creativity and applications of physics and science was astounding. Considering how little the writers and artists such as Nevio Zuccara and Alberto Giolitti had to go on, it's amazing how close to the real thing Gold Key got to Roddenberry's vision of 'Wagon Train in space.'

There's now only 2 volumes in this reprint series from CheckerBPG to find. Unfortunately, the company never got to releasing books covering issues 41-61. But I'll find them all one way or another, warts and all.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.