Review by Win Wiacek

Superstar Italian illustrator Alberto Giolitti pencils all six Star Trek stories originally published between 1973 and 1974, but there’s considerable fluctuation on the writing front. Arnold Drake is responsible for the first two episodes and the last, John David Warner contributes once and Gerry Boudreau scripts the remaining two adventures.

Trek merchandising expert Paula M. Block provides the introduction this time, before the trans-galactic trips resume with ‘The Haunted Asteroid’, and the art offering a rare American inking job by Sal Trapani over Giolitti’s pencils. The Starship Enterprise is despatched to investigate uncanny events at the universe’s most romantic tourist spot: a glittering space tomb built by an ancient ruler as a tribute to his lost love. Before long the crew are experiencing bizarre visions and seemingly supernatural visitations, leading Captain Kirk and his team to uncover an even more amazing solution and proof that true love is eternal.

The odious task of escorting spoiled brat Crown Prince Raviki home to take up the reins of government becomes a deadly affair after planet Nukolee becomes ‘A World Gone Mad’. Moreover, whatever poisoned the minds of the boy’s subjects soon starts affecting the Enterprise crew.

‘The Mummies of Heitius VII’ is Warner’s one contribution as Kirk and Company are ordered to escort an archaeological find to a research facility. When the body in question comes to life and shanghais the ship, the Captain, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy are drawn into a terrifying struggle against ancient automatons programmed to turn organic beings into slave cyborgs. Warner writes more of Volume 5 than anyone else.

Boudreau begins with ‘Siege in Superspace’, which sees the Enterprise drawn through a black hole into a higher realm and sucked into a war between humanoid refugees and ghastly war-machines. They’re all grown by a marauding artificial intelligence from the flora and geology of their homeworld.

‘Child’s Play’ follows a desperate SOS to a planet wracked by plague and devoid of adults. Infected by a disease which kills in days, the starship crew’s search for a cure is hampered by bellicose kids indulging in full-contact war games and well used to seeing everybody die before their thirteenth birthday.

This cosmic compendium concludes with another Drake and Giolitti collaboration as ‘The Trial of Captain Kirk’ finds the bold hero back on Earth to answer charges of bribery, corruption and collusion with pirates. Subject of a most assiduous frame-up, Kirk happily acts as a stalking horse while Spock, McCoy and Engineer Scott ferret out the real traitor: a trail which leads into the highest echelons of Star Fleet.

Rounding out this compelling collection is a gallery of painted covers and a remarkably scanty biographical feature about George Wilson, who painted those covers. He’s a man of immense imagination, prodigious talent and prolific output, but one about whom precious little is known.

Straightforward sci fi thrills and dashing derring-do pack this thrilling and astoundingly compelling collection of comics classics which will delight not just TV fans and comics collectors but also any reader in search of a graphically superior good time.