Description

Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever                     Variant Comics Lot
Featuring the Complete Subscription Variant Collection by Paul Shipper and the Adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s Original Teleplay.  Awesome!!
Writers: Scott Tipton & David Tipton
Artist: J.K. Woodward
Letterer: Neil Uyetake
Editor: Chris Ryall
All Subscription Variant Covers by: Paul Shipper

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before.

Star Trek is an American space opera media franchise based on the science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, simply called Star Trek and now referred to as “The Original Series”, debuted in 1966 and aired for three seasons on the television network NBC. It followed the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew aboard the starship USS Enterprise, a space exploration vessel, built by the United Federation of Planets in the twenty-third century. The Star Trek canon of the franchise includes The Original Series, an animated series, five spin-off television series, the film franchise, and further adaptations in several media.

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.

Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Yeoman Rand return to the Enterprise following their first encounter with the Guardians of Forever, only to find a darker, more vicious crew of renegades awaiting them! Can they return the timestream to its proper state? And will they even survive long enough to try?

Story/Spoilers
In issue #1, Life aboard the USS Enterprise is far from glamorous. The rigors of an extended stay manifest differently in each crewmember. For Lieutenant Lebeque, that stress had manifested itself in an addiction to “jewels of sound”, the most banned substance in the galaxy supplied by the unscrupulous Beckwith. Supplied a jewel in exchange for a spot on the next landing party, Lebeque awakens on the bridge two hours later in the middle of a scolding by Spock for in his delirious state, he has nearly overloaded the engines. Realizing the depths of his addiction, Lebeque tells Beckwith he will be turning him in prompting a violent retaliation. Beckwith makes his way to the transporter room and seals it from within, beaming down to the surface to make his escape. Undeterred, Kirk merely orders security teams down after him.

Materializing on the surface of the barren planet, the away team follows Beckwith’s tracks while pondering the mystery that a world so old and so far from its red star be still able to sustain life. Rand then pinpoints the source of the mysterious radiation the Enterprise has been tracking: the mountains where Beckwith’s tracks lead. As the crew breaks through the fog, they are greeted by the impossible sight of a crystalline city untouched by time and perched atop the mountains. A city…on the edge of forever.

Approaching the city, the crew meets six crystalline “ghosts” who identify themselves as the “Guardians of Forever” who have lived in the city since before Sol formed and have settled on this world due to its unique connection to the flow of time. At Kirk’s queries, the Guardians demonstrate this ability by channeling pure matter into a portal to Earth’s past from the era of the dinosaurs to the 1930s. The Guardians reveal that though it is possible to travel back to the past none do so due to the dangers. Time, contrary to Spock’s belief, is not rigid. It can be changed, bent and added to but should those changes be too much, then the flow of time, the very universe could be irrevocably altered. At that, Spock understands the strange readings and phenomena they have been encountering. A zone of no-time has been created on the planet. If the Guardians could manipulate time and matter, then how much easier would it be to manipulate the atmosphere of a planet?

As the Guardians display their admiration at lesser species so readily grasping the basics of their super-science, Beckwith makes himself known and leaps directly into the time portal…

Next in issue #2, Failing to stop Beckwith, the crewman has escaped to the past of Earth. At a light from Oyya, the Guardians retreat back to the city to consult the machines of the ancients but warn that the whole universe beyond the Gateway has changed. As the entities vanish, Kirk has Rand beam the crewmen up to the ship. When she, Kirk and Spock follow however they are greeted by a gang of ruffians and thugs who welcome them aboard their ship: the SS Condor. Kirk hardly takes this lying down and orders Rand to overload the transporter console, allowing the Enterprise crew to force their captors out of the room. With Spock, Kirk beams back down to the city, intending to follow Beckwith back and change things to what they were.

As the two materialize, the Guardians reappear and confirm that everything they knew never existed. Though they are initially unwilling to allow the two to follow, Kirk’s fiery passion is enough to convince them, allowing the two to be sent back to some point before Beckwith arrived in the past. Before they leave however, the Guardians inform them that both they and Beckwith will be drawn to a “focal point” in time. The focal point will be blue as the sky, bearing the sun and the key to all things. The focal point must die but Beckwith will instead give it life. And if Kirk and Spock should fail, there will be no second chance to repair time.

The two men materialize in a 1930s street where Spock is appalled by the violent racism of the time, and the vaunted Earth heritage that humans seem so proud of. As if to emphasize his point, the mob targets him as a foreigner forcing Kirk to scare them off with a phaser. The two cut across alleyways and backyards and duck into a basement.

Next in issue #3, Ducking into a basement, Spock has a disturbingly emotional reaction at the savage past of humanity only for Kirk to quickly silence him and begin looking for contemporary clothing. Once the two are disguised, the landlord discovers them and sympathetically offers them lodgings if they are willing to provide cleaning services. Smirking, Kirk asks Spock if humans are indeed “worse than any barbarians”.

As they sweep the floors, the two men ponder that if Beckwith will be drawn to the “focal point” in time, so will they. Grabbing the tricorder Kirk orders the machine to, despite the very real risk of power overloads and internal circuit burnout, use the data gathered from the Guardians to compute all possible points of temporal divergence. As it goes to work, Spock points out the good news that the tricoder is not dependent of the USS Enterprise for power. The bad news is that without the Enterprise, they are dependent on one tricorder which they stretching far beyond its design limitations. And in this primitive time, its value to them is inestimable. The device then beeps but all it can do is remind them of the Guardians’ cryptic warnings. It did warn them of possible circuit burn out.

Delegating Spock to repair it, Kirk decides to find a job but overrules Spock doing the same. Overhearing, the landlord waves off such concerns and says he can find Spock a job just down the road. A week later, Spock walks home from work and overhears the sermon of Edith Keeler. Who preaches truth as clear as the sky, wears a brooch of a burning sun and a cloak as blue as the sky of old Earth and the key is in the name.

Observing the woman from afar, Spock reports to Kirk his theory of believing she is the focal point they have been searching for. But despite Beckwith’s absence, they have no way of knowing if he hasn’t already arrived. Continuing to observe Keeler, Spock worries his captain is developing feelings for the woman.

Next in issue #4, New York City in the 1930s. A city where, even in the Great Depression, love can blossom as it does between James T. Kirk and Edith Keeler. But such moments of happiness are punctuated by bittersweet reminders that Kirk is a stranger to this time and that Edith…has little time left.

In the nighttime streets, Spock is blunt is saying Kirk is enamoured with Keeler. After some false starts, Kirk admits to loving her like no other women before. Surprisingly Spock offers his sympathies, these past few years their romantic partners have been only call girls and casual flings in spaceports and on pleasure planets. That Kirk should feel an urge to set down on his homeworld and forge a meaningful connection is hardly surprising. But that doesn’t change the fact that Keeler must die for time to resume its shape. Though Kirk proposes bringing her back to the 23rd century with them, Spock soon convinces that they cannot alter time. In a few years, Earth will be consumed by World War II, and Spock theorizes that Keeler’s pacifism will grow across the United States. Without America’s support, the Germans will grow bolder and develop atomic weaponry first, thus winning the war. Kirk sadly dismisses his first officer. Spock departs but warns time cannot be so easily sent away.

The next day, Edith is back to work at the milk kitchen. Kirk and Spock spend the time waiting for Beckwith who materializes right on Spock’s schedule. Though the two give chase, they lose the rogue officer by the milk kitchen. Meeting Edith, Kirk only asks her to stay indoors until he returns. Though confused, Edith agrees professing her love to Kirk as he walks out.

In the streets, Kirk and Spock argue once again about Edith’s demise with the scuffle revealing Spock has armed himself with a phaser. Though not for use against Beckwith. But to put time back on course himself if he must. Reclaiming his weapon, Spock walks off alone. In an alley, Beckwith jumps the commander and manages to wrestle away the phaser. Though Spock manages to dodge the crewman’s barrage, he is unable to give chase.

Finally in issue #5, Seeking information on Beckwith, Kirk seeks out a crippled veteran of the Battle of Verdun and buys his services as a lookout for $2, even paying him all the money upfront.

That evening, Kirk and Keeler share dinner but Kirk’s somber mood is unable to be ignored. Though Edith cannot grasp the full picture, she can tell Kirk is going away and it has to do with the “Chinese fellow”. As Edith professes to losing faith that things will ever get better, Kirk reassures her that things will get better, that her philosophy will eventually win the argument and that… he loves her.

Spock then arrives and silently departs with Kirk. Leading him to the Verdun veteran, Kirk offers the man further financial compensation before the two officers stalk into the alley. As they search, a trashcan falls on Spock, the noise alerting Beckwith who targets Kirk with the phaser. Seeing this, the veteran lunges at Kirk, knocking him clear of the beam but winding up disintegrated as a result. Spock uses everyone’s collective shock to throw the trashcan at Beckwith, scaring him off for now. As Kirk picks himself up, the two ponder what effects the cripple’s death may have before Spock wonders why a man would perform such an act for someone he barely knew. A downtrodden Kirk knows. Because they were nice to him.

As the two set a sad course home, they pass by another of Edith’s sermons. And even Spock has to admit, she is a remarkable woman with ideas far ahead of her time. Spying Kirk across the street, Edith cross to him, unaware of an approaching truck. Seeing the imminent disaster, Beckwith lunges at her only to be tackled away by Spock. With only a second to look at the vehicle, Edith Keeler unceremoniously dies. As he mourns, Kirk is whisked across time and space back to Gateway while everything reverts to what it was.

With Kirk too sad to speak, Spock confers with the Guardians who confirm that all is as it was, despite the cripple’s death. He counted… just not enough. With that, Beckwith wrestles himself free of Spock’s grasp and jumps back into the vortex, the portal sealing itself. Though Spock believes it was all for nothing, the Guardians inform him that the vortex cannot be set for the same space/time coordinates twice. But Beckwith has not escaped. He is now forever trapped in the heart of an exploding star, doomed to remain trapped in a single second. Like the Möbius strip, he has no beginning or end. He wanted forever and he got it.

Back aboard the USS Enterprise, Spock manages to break though Kirk’s melancholic shell by calling him “Jim”. After a brief philosophical discussion, Spock asks if Kirk can explain why Beckwith, a man so blatantly corrupt and self-serving, felt the urge to save Keeler’s life even if it might have potentially cost him his own. Well Kirk can’t explain it but he knows the pattern of behavior. So often has the human race looked at itself and despaired over its infinite capacity for cruelty, welcoming extinction so someone better could have a go at it. But then, those who seem beyond help demonstrate an infinite capacity for good by doing something so wonderfully noble and selfless. And if that’s the case, then perhaps humanity can endure a bit more suffering if it means utopia. But even that does little to soothe the blow of the cripple’s death. A veteran of World War I and he was “negligible”. But Keeler was not. The woman who had more love to give than perhaps anyone in the universe. But who lived at the wrong time for love.

With that, Spock takes his leave. With a sad gaze, Kirk watches the stars streak by at warp speed. Now powerfully humbled regarding his place in the universe. That he is ultimately one “negligible” man, in one tiny room, in an insignificant starship, streaking through the ever-expanding void.

Alone.

Variant Comics lot contains: Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever {Complete Subscription Cover Collection} (2014) Issues #1-5.  IDW Publishing

Variant Comics are bagged & boarded and will be carefully / securely packaged then shipped via USPS Priority Mail to insure that it arrives to you perfectly and quickly.

All First Printings
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Publication Date: 2014
Format per comic: FC, 32 pages, Comic, 10.25″ x 6.75″
UPC: 827714006520

Collectible Entertainment note: Variant Comics 1,2,3,4,5 are in Fine to Very Fine condition.  Beautiful Set!  Please See Scans!!  A must have for any serious Star Trek collector and/or enthusiast.  A fun & entertaining read.  Very Highly Recommended.

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