Star Trek (comics)

This is a list of comics regarding the Star Trek media franchise.

Gold Key Comics published the first Star Trek comics between 1967 and 1979. These were stylized and diverged from the TV series continuity. In most issues, the crew members, except for Spock, wear lime green uniforms. Most plots in the Gold Key series featured original characters and concepts, but later issues included sequels to the original series episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Metamorphosis", and "I, Mudd". Writers included George Kashdan, Arnold Drake and Len Wein. Originally they were illustrated by Alberto Giolitti, an Italian artist who had never seen the series and only had publicity photos to use as references. Since Giolitti didn't have a publicity photo of James Doohan, early issues of the series had Mr. Scott drawn differently.

The Gold Key series had a run of 61 issues. Starting with issue #20 all but nine stories were also released under the Whitman Comics brand. The original issues, most of which featured photographic covers showing images from the series, are collectible. The comic book "Star Trek No. 1," published in 1967 by Gold Key was sold at Heritage Auctions for a record-breaking price of $46,500. In the 1970s, Gold Key's parent company, Western Publishing, issued several volumes of The Enterprise Logs, republishing selected stories in omnibus form. Checker published a series of reprints ("The Key Collection") in 2004, in five volumes containing issues #1–40. From 2010 to 2015, Devil's Due Digital sold the Gold Key series in digital form. From 2014 to 2016, IDW published 5 volumes, covering issues 1-31.

Gold Key lost the Star Trek license to Marvel Comics in 1979, but Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from using concepts introduced in the original series.^{[clarification needed][failed verification]}

Marvel's series of Star Trek comics began in 1979 with an adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and continued for another two years. These tales take place during a second five-year mission of Kirk and the Enterprise that would have been featured in the never-produced Star Trek: Phase II TV series. Marvel's license from Paramount prohibited them from using concepts introduced in the original series. They were only allowed to use the characters and concepts from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. However this did not prohibit a few of the writers from cleverly sneaking in subtle easter egg references such as character names or planet names from original series episodes that Paramount editors were likely to miss. The series lasted 18 issues and ended in 1981.

From 1969 to 1971, a series of weekly Star Trek comic strips ran in the British comics magazine TV21. 105 issues were produced, as well as various annuals and specials. All were original stories. Two more annuals, under the Mighty TV Comic banner, also produced original Star Trek materials: at the time, the weekly TV Comic was reprinting – two pages a week – monochrome versions of the U.S. Gold Key comics.

From 1979 to 1983, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate produced a daily and Sunday comic strip based upon Star Trek. The strip debuted on December 2, 1979. The Sunday strip ran until October 24, 1982. The daily continued until December 3, 1983. Thomas Warkentin, Sharman DiVono, Ron Harris, Larry Niven, Martin Pasko, Padraic Shigetani, Bob Meyers, Ernie Colón, Gerry Conway and Dick Kulpa wrote and illustrated these stories.

The US strip had 20 stories over its four-year run, some with titles: