- An expedition team discovers its secret—too late… K-G, planet of death!
"The Planet of No Return" was the first licensed Star Trek story. Published in July 1967, it launched a 61-issue TOS comic book series from Gold Key Comics. Written by Dick Wood and drawn by Nevio Zaccara, it depicted the USS Enterprise's visit to a world of dangerous plant species. The story reran in issue 29 with a new painted cover by George Wilson. It has been extensively reprinted in English and at least eight other languages.
Description[]
- It was the strangest civilization in all the known universe — more awesome than the mind of man could conceive! And the expedition from the star spaceship USS Enterprise soon regretted their decision to explore K-G...
Summary[]
- Captain's log, stardate 18:09.2
- Enterprise carrying out exploration mission through Galaxy Alpha. So far we've seen no indication of life anywhere in the galaxy.
The Enterprise's space scope detects a fertile green planet. Scotty comments that it looks "Kelly Green" and Captain Kirk orders a landing party to be assembled. While approaching the planet, the Enterprise passes through a mist, within which float plant spores which fasten themselves to the hull and quickly penetrate the ship. The spores cause the laboratory guinea pigs to transform into tree-like plants which attack Spock and Dr. McCoy, but are soon destroyed by security guards.
While Spock investigates how the transformation occurred, Kirk leads the landing party to the planet, which has been named K-G. While exploring, Crewman Hunt is exposed to spores and transforms into a giant plant. The rest of the landing party are nearly devoured by a carnivorous plant, but the transformed Hunt sacrifices himself to save them. After a brief funeral, the party discovers that K-G is inhabited by intelligent plants. They escape from attacking trees and take shelter in a nearby cave, but Rand is grabbed by a vine and dragged away. The others chase after the plant, which deposits her inside a large enclosure where animals are grazing.
The landing party uses their phasers on the wall of thorns which surrounds the enclosure, but the thorns regenerate as fast as they are destroyed. Kirk sees the plants herding the animals away, and after gaining a vantage point from a rock pinnacle, they see that the plants consume the animals for food. Kirk calls the Enterprise and has Spock fire a pinpoint phaser beam at the thorn wall, destroying it and allowing them to rescue Rand from being eaten. Kirk orders Spock to beam them back up to the ship just before the plants can infect them with more plant spores.
On the Enterprise, Spock tells Kirk that the spores pose a threat to life on all other planets in the galaxy. They therefore use the ship's weaponry to destroy all life on K-G.
- Captain's log, stardate 18:10
- We are orbiting the planet Kelly Green, performing what will be our last duty here… Total destruction—a mission that must be fulfilled before we can continue our tour of research through the vast reaches of the universe…
References[]
Characters[]
- Dean • Hunt • James T. Kirk • Leonard McCoy • Janice Rand • Spock • Hikaru Sulu • giant cannibal plant • running vine plant • cattle beasts • tumbleweed-type plants • USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel (unnamed USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) personnel)
Starships and vehicles[]
Locations[]
Shipboard locations[]
Planets and planetoids[]
Stellar regions[]
Races and cultures[]
- Human • Vulcan • plant species
Science and classification[]
- astronomy • communications • lifeform • matter • spore • stardate • technology • thorn • universe • weapon
Astronomy[]
Communications[]
- captain's log • communicator • film • language • log entry
Lifeforms[]
- animal • bloodhound • cattle • cobra • guinea pig • humanoid • plant • sheep dog
Materials and substances[]
- atmosphere • blood • fog • gas • metal
Technology and weapons[]
- binoculars • communicator • identification bracelet • phaser • space scope • starship • teleporter • TV radio • TV scanner
States and organizations[]
Occupations and titles[]
- captain • commander • commanding officer • crewman • first officer • lieutenant commander • rank • scientist • science officer • security officer
Other references[]
- cave • five-year mission • government • nation-state • nightmare • races and cultures • science • title
Appendices[]
Background[]
- This is Janice Rand's sole Gold Key Comics appearance, aside from a one-panel cameo in issue #24, TOS comic: "The Trial of Captain Kirk", and the first of her very few appearances in any Star Trek comic.
- A new cover painting created for the reprint edition depicts the attack on the landing party by a K-G running vine plant. It showed Dean's arm and leg mutating into tree branches. In the story, this transformation actually happened to Hunt during a prior attack by a K-G giant cannibal plant.
- In 1975, Gold Key began augmenting its Star Trek run by reprinting occasional issues. This was the first issue to be reprinted.
- This story has been released 32 times. In English, it was printed 14 times, scanned for a DVD and reproduced on filmstrips. In other languages, it was printed 16 times: French (3x), German (3x), Portuguese (3x), Dutch (2x), Italian (2x), Finnish, Serbian and Spanish.
- As the first Star Trek comic story, produced while the series was still brand-new and on TV, the story contains several notable departures from established canon. Spock, for example, is depicted as fully emotional, even exclaiming in relief when the landing party returns. His resolution to the dilemma - decimating all life on the planet - is also out of character. The Enterprise also has some notable differences, with her warp engines depicted as standard rockets - with a third rocket motor expelling flame from what should be the shuttle bay. The transporter is also depicted differently, with the beam emitters at the sides rather than above. Such deviations from the TV show would continue through the early issues of the comic.
- The 1969 board game "Voyage of Discovery" incorporated the K-G running vine plant battle in the middle of its game narrative.
Images[]
Connections[]
Timeline[]
| published order | ||
|---|---|---|
| Previous comic: first issue |
TOS comics (Gold Key) | Next comic: #2: The Devil's Isle of Space |
| Previous comic: #28: The Mimicking Menace |
TOS comics (Gold Key) | Next comic: #30: Death of a Star |
| Previous story: first story |
Stories by: Dick Wood |
Next story: The Devil's Isle of Space |
| chronological order | ||
| Previous adventure: Voyage of Discovery part 1 |
Memory Beta Chronology | Next adventure: Voyage of Discovery part 3 |
| Previous story: Voyage of Discovery part 1 |
Voyages of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), Year Two | Next story: Voyage of Discovery part 3 |
Production history[]
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Translations[]
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External links[]
- The Planet of No Return article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- The Planet of No Return article at When Comic Books Ruled.
- The Planet of No Return article at The Movie Blog.
- Mighty TV Comic article at the Albion British Comics Database Wikia.