Ground Zero (comic)

Ground Zero was a 10-page Star Trek: The Original Series comic strip. It was the 28th weekly story arc in the UK comic strips series, published in five installments in Valiant and TV21 in. In this story, a shuttle crew visited an unexplored planet.

Publisher's description

 * Teaser, 5 February, 1972
 * Damaged in a meteorite storm, Enterprise put down for repairs on one of four moons in orbit around a planet charted merely as 656. As maintenance teams got to work, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and two crewmen went down in a shuttlecraft to investigate the parent planet...

Summary
A shower of magnetically-charged meteors disabled shields and communications, leading to significant damage to the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)'s starboard warp nacelle. The starship made a soft landing on an airless moon to make repairs. Meanwhile, a probe sent to nearby Planet 656 had found a transmitter station near a shoreline, so Kirk took a team in a shuttle to look for other signs of intelligent life. While they were at the station, a large dinosaur emerged from the water and swiped at. Kirk ran to his aide, then both fell through a sinkhole into a sloping, sand-filled cavern.

Spock and drove off the animal with the shuttle. Spock discovered that the station was ground zero for an impending missile test. He alerted Nyota Uhura in hopes she could contact the natives in time. He ordered Ferris to leave in the shuttle if he didn't return in two minutes.

Spock tossed a length of rope down the sinkhole to Kirk and Morton, but as they tried to climb up, the sand gave way, dragging Spock with them. They descended into a cavern lit by bioluminescent fungus. Flailing tentacles suddenly grabbed them – Morton thought they were about to be devoured by giant, flesh-eating mushrooms.

Ferris returned to the Enterprise as ordered. Uhura established contact with the Planet 656 natives, but it was too late – the missile would strike in seconds. Below ground, the landing party were hurled into a gravity lift and whisked to safety. The giant mushrooms were the sentient natives. Through Spock's universal translator, they apologized for handling them so roughly in order to save them from the blast.

Characters

 * Pavel Chekov • • James T. Kirk •  • Montgomery Scott • Spock • Nyota Uhura • unnamed USS Enterprise personnel (2260s) • unnamed Planet 656 natives

Starships and vehicles

 * USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) ( heavy cruiser) • Shuttlecraft NCC-1701/3 (class F shuttlecraft)

Locations

 * Gamma galaxy (Planet 656)

Earth • Jupiter

Races and cultures

 * Human • Planet 656 native • Vulcan

Science and technology

 * bomb • communications • communicator • computer • engine housing • environmental suit • force field • intercom • magnetism • missile • PADD • phaser • probe • radio • rocket • scanner • stylus • type-1 phaser • universal translator • vertical thrusters • watch

Ranks and titles

 * captain • crewman • Federation Starfleet ranks (2260s) • skipper • Starfleet ranks • watch officer

Other references

 * assignment patch • atmosphere • bioluminescence • bird • cavern • dinosaur • emergency stations • fungus • galaxy • hour • lizard • log • meteorite • meteorite storm • minute • moon • mushroom • orbit • planet • rope • second • space • Starfleet uniform • Starfleet uniform (2265-2270) • starship • tentacle • water

Chronology

 * This story took place after Pavel Chekov was assigned to the ship in February 2267 and prior to ' promotion to lieutenant by 2269.

Production history

 * This story was serialized in two-page sections over five consecutive weeks in Valiant and TV21 magazine. Each issue was 36 pages, with the Star Trek segment printed in color on pages 18-19.


 * : Pages 1-2 published in Valiant and TV21 #18.
 * : Pages 3-4 published in Valiant and TV21 #19.
 * : Pages 5-6 published in Valiant and TV21 #20.
 * : Pages 7-8 published in Valiant and TV21 #21.
 * : Pages 9-10 published in Valiant and TV21 #22.
 * December 2016 : Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 2 (IDW Publishing)
 * 1 February 2018 : Reprinted in the omnibus Graphic Novel Collection #29 (Eaglemoss)
 * December 2016 : Reprinted in the omnibus The Classic UK Comics, Volume 2 (IDW Publishing)
 * 1 February 2018 : Reprinted in the omnibus Graphic Novel Collection #29 (Eaglemoss)

Background

 * Three covers to Valiant and TV21 during this story arc featured people, locations and events referenced in Star Trek. Issue #18 featured J. Edgar Hoover; issue #20 featured Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and John Holliday in Tombstone, Arizona at the O.K. Corral; and issue #22 featured Abraham Lincoln, describing his birth in Kentucky, rise from lawyer to 16th President of the United States of America, and his assassination in 1865.
 * The Enterprise landed two other times in the UK comic strips series. It soft-landed after being caught suddenly in the gravity well of a cloaked planet in arc #18, "Where Giants Tread", and crash-landed underwater in arc #9, "Nor Any Drop to Drink".
 * This was the only instance where the Enterprise landed for maintenance and repairs in the series. The ship usually just stopped in space, as in arc #6 "Skin Deep", arc #8 "Spectre of the Zond", arc #15 "Thorpex", and arc #18 "Where Giants Tread".
 * Shuttlecraft NCC-1701/3 made its third of six appearances in the UK comic strips series. It also appeared in story arcs #17, #27, #34, #36, and #37. The shuttle was established to be unarmed and stocked with rope for emergencies.
 * In 2269, a man named served as a lieutenant in security aboard the Enterprise.  Despite Ferris' lower rank in this story, in the absence of contrary information, the two are assumed to be the same person.

Errata

 * Although several captions reiterated that the shuttle crew consisted of four people, artist John Stokes mistakenly depicted five in one panel and six in another.
 * While the setting was stated twice as being in another "galaxy", it was more likely that the term was meant to describe some type of region within the Milky Way Galaxy.
 * In the segment for January 29, 1972, Chekov's dialogue balloon pointed to the wrong character.
 * In the real world, meteorite storms exist only within an atmosphere.

Related stories

 * – In 2258 in the Kelvin timeline, the Enterprise was shown being constructed on land in Riverside, Iowa.
 * – In 2259 in the Kelvin timeline, the Enterprise submerged on Nibiru.
 * – The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) made an emergency landing using vertical thrusters on.
 * – In 2273, 2,000 fungal-based Abaris natives were rescued from Abaris.