I serve up a minor Legion cover mystery that's tantalized me for 18 years, now, and perhaps someone here has a clue or two about it.
The cover to the end of the story of Brainiac Five and Dawnstar's adventure on the exile planet "Kol" ("TalesLSH" 323), with their looking unsuccessfully for lost Legionnaires, has one sub-"panel" that isn't alluded to at all in the plot of the printed story.
(It was plotted by Paul Levitz and Mindy Newell, scripted by Newell, and originally based on a Newell scenario for "Star Trek II," the second original-cast series that was never produced. Kirk and Spock became Dawny and Brainy, respectively.)
See the blow-up below: The hooded priests of that planet's theocracy are bowing down to a yellow life-size statue of Dawnstar, with her arms triumphant toward the sky and wings spread wide. Apparently this has gone on for some time, from the cracks in the pedestal.
The virus and bacterial strains in the two Legionnaires' spilled blood were said, in the story, to be responsible for the mass death of Kol's children, due to their lack of natural immunities.
Was this image, I wonder, intended to show that -- in the aftermath of the unwitting damage they did -- Dawny, or Brainy, or both, would have been strangely revered by these superstitious priests? As having been harbingers of death, for their supposed great power? Many such examples exist in history. Osiris comes to mind among the ancient Egyptians.
Newell, who handled the "TalesLSH" letter column that they had (for a few months) for readers discovering the newsprint reprints, said that more tales were yet to be told of "Kol," but they never were.
Does anyone have more information about the Newell/Levitz scenario or script? Especially clues as to why nothing was told about this apparent worship of Dawnstar? (Well, I think she deserves it, but she's my sister {g})
[ July 30, 2003, 06:08 AM: Message edited by: Greybird ]
Posted by Legion Lad on :
This is the first I've heard about a second original cast Star Trek tv show. Are you sure it wasn't an idea she had for the Star Trek comic? DC held the license back then.
I write the cover off to artistic interpretation. Based on what little I know about comics, the editor and the artist come up with the cover. The writer is left out of the loop.
Posted by LARDLAD on :
quote:Originally posted by Legion Lad: This is the first I've heard about a second original cast Star Trek tv show. Are you sure it wasn't an idea she had for the Star Trek comic? DC held the license back then.
I don't know what Grey meant about the script, but I've often heard about a second planned series with most of the original cast. I think it was going to be called something along the lines of "Star Trek: Phase Two". Apparently, the idea got pretty far in the development stage, but it was ultimately decided that they would make movies instead. So this plan preceded "Star Trek: The Motion Picture".
Posted by Greybird on :
I'm not sure what it was I said that confused Lardy -- do tell me -- but the second original-cast "Trek" series was definitely planned and announced, at least for about two years in the mid-'70s.
Paramount was going to use "Star Trek II" as the springboard for a new TV network. Eventually, as Lardy said, it was dropped in lieu of a feature film. And the development costs of "Trek II" were charged to the film, unfairly inflating its budget to make it "the most expensive film ever made," as it was decried in 1979. (Paramount eventually did the same network-building plan with UPN and "The Next Generation.")
I was told that Mindy Newell wrote the story, originally, as a scenario (using extended prose descriptions, and not as a script) to submit on "spec" when "Trek II" was still going. I wouldn't be surprised, once she was cultivated as a new talent by DC, if she redid it for the "Trek" comic before using it for the Legion, but I'd never heard that she did.
Posted by DrakeB3003 on :
Who drew this cover anyway? Is that Shoemaker? Did he also do the interiors of that issue?
Posted by matlock on :
ST: Phase II would have introduced a lot of the changes that wound up in Next Generation. Decker and Ilia would've been permanent additions to the cast, as well as a young full-blooded Vulcan named Xon. Nimoy had declined the series. Kirk/Decker would've mirrored the Picard/Riker relationship including the idea that Decker would've led "away" missions. Decker/Ilia had the same relationship as Riker/Troi which managed to survive into the movie. Xon was similar to Data in that he would have struggled to understand human emotion instead of struggling to surpress them as Spock did.
A pair of Phase II scripts were dusted off and retooled for ST:TNG during the writer's strike around the time of the second or third season, one was "The Child," I think. An interesting book was published about Phase II (the title escapes me) a few years ago, with concept art, plot outlines and a couple of drafts of the script which was eventually converted into The Motion Picture. The DVD of the recent director's cut of TMP also has a featurette with a few moments of test footage included.
Posted by Lightning Lad on :
quote:Originally posted by matlock: ... An interesting book was published about Phase II (the title escapes me) a few years ago, with concept art, plot outlines and a couple of drafts of the script which was eventually converted into The Motion Picture.
The book was simply called Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series and it was written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
Posted by Lightning Lad on :
quote:Originally posted by DrakeB3003: Who drew this cover anyway? Is that Shoemaker? Did he also do the interiors of that issue?
The cover was by Dan Jurgens, inked by Karl Kesel. The interiors were done by the same team of Jurgens and Kesel.
