I really hadn't foresaw ever profiling any X-Men-related subject here. The X-Men and X-Books are just completely overdone and, for the most part, have been resting on their laurels for about thirty years. But there was one X-project in the past twenty years that I did thoroughly enjoy, lame though it may have seemed at the time. Star Trek/X-Men was a 1996 joint presentation by Marvel Comics and Top Cow/Paramount Comics. And, given the title, the book was actually much better than one would've imagined.
The book was really just a way to promote the upcoming Marvel/Paramount Star Trek Comics (Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Starfleet Academy, Early Voyages and Mirror, Mirror), but it was handled considerably better than most projects. I'd rank it right up there with the best of the DC/Marvel collaborations.
The story opened with the original U.S.S. Enterprise, commanded by Captain James T. Kirk, monitoring a spatial rift anomaly of pure psionic energy near Delta Vega. Kirk is distressed by the anomaly's presence since this is the same place that Gary Mitchell and Elizabeth Dehner were mutated into god-like beings and eventually lost their lives (circa "Where No Man Has Gone Before"). The Enterprise was also receiving a subspace distress signal from beyond the rift. A ship appeared suddenly and was just as suddenly destroyed by an expansion of the rift, though Mr. Spock did manage to sensor scan the ship to indicate that it held seven "near-human" life forms.
Another vastly larger ship emerged from the anomaly and fired a projectile at the Enterprise. The projectile turned out to be Gladiator, the leader of the Imperial Guad of the Shi'ar Empire. He claimed the planet for the Shi'ar and warned the Enterprise off, actually punching and damaging the deflector shields.
Meanwhile, the passengers from the first ship that appeared out of the rift had transported themselves onto the Enterprise and were hiding in a storeroom (which was near the engine room, as the energy from the dilithium crystals provided them with some protection from the Enterprise's scanners). They were, of course, the X-Men (Cyclops, Wolverine, The Beast, Bishop, Jean Grey (named Phoenix in one panel), Storm and Gambit). The X-Men had been tracking down Deathbird, the renegade sister of Empress Lilandra of the Shi-ar Empire. Gambit, the last one to teleport over to the Enterprise, was in bad shape, so Cyclops ordered the team to split up, with Storm and Beast taking Gambit and trying to find the ship's medical center, while the others tried to determine their next course of action to prevent Deathbird from using the rift to further her own ends.
Storm and Beast got Gambit to the sickbay, only to be interrupted by Doctor McCoy, who immediately helped them with Gambit ("I'm a doctor, dammit - not the head of security!"). Jean Grey's psi-scan of the ship (to find a way off and down to Delta Vega's surface didn't go unnoticed, as Mr. Spock was able to track her and the others. Wolverine attacked Spock, but was rendered temporarily unconscious with a Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Spock was rather surprised at the effect Wolverine's healing factor had on the Pinch, as he got up almost immediately. Spock took them up to meet Captain Kirk, who was musing on the fate of his friend Gary Mitchell.
In the Shi'ar ship, Deathbird had learned that the psionic energy that composed the rift was self-generating, and the source was on the planet below. Below, the source of the energy was remaking the landscape into a typical 20th-century Earth city street in a Scottish village. The psionic force was the being known as Kevin MacTaggert, the menace known as Proteus who battled the X-Men on several occasions. It had banished itself to the stars, looking for a kindred spirit capable of understanding what it really meant to be able to control reality. Proteus had found that spirit in the form of Gary Mitchell, whose long-dead body he now occupied.
The command crew of the Enterprise and most of the X-Men beamed down to the planet's surface, arriving amidst that street scene (even though sensors had indicated that it was an open plain). Deathbird and the Imperial Guard had beaten them there, and had already offered Gary/Proteus the use of their star cruiser to leave the planet. Proteus explained that he had left Earth searching for a body that wouldn't burn out over time like his previous hosts had, and had been attracted by the rift, which was a doorway between the two realities. Once across into the Trek universe, Proteus discovered the "echo" of the long dead Gary Mitchell and a form that was capable of holding his psionic energy, and by bonding together, he/they discovered that had the power to control the rift and all of reality.
Bishop beamed back up to the Enterprise, where his ability to channel energy would be of more use, where Spock and the Beast were trying to come up with a plan to assist the landing party in their efforts. Meanwhile, Gary/Proteus broke his alliance with Deathbird and the entire force of the X-Men, Imperial Guard and the Enterprise crew could do nothing to affect him. Kirk had Jean Grey use her telepathic abilities to create a psychic link between the two of them and the mind of Gary/Proteus, hoping to reason with him.
While this was going on, Spock and The Beast prepared to use the Enterprise's tractor beam to destroy the rift by removing a mass of the energy from it and then using it, via Bishop, to attack the rift itself. Down on the planet, Gary/Proteus was caused great pain by that action, but Kirk was able to reason with Gary enough that he lowered his defenses so that Kirk and the others could destroy him before he completely lost his humanity. Spock and the Beast's plan also worked, causing the rift to begin to contract.
The X-Men commandeered the Shiar ship to return them and the Imperial Guard to Empress Lilandra, and the Enterprise carried on with its mission to the future.
As a rule, I don't believe that cross-genre crossovers usually work. Normally, I would look at this issue and say that this has about as much chance of being a good tale as a Star Trek/Star Wars crossover would, simply because of the disparate points of view and styles. I was, however, pleasantly surprised at this story.
The art was relatively good, though I'm not that big a fan of the Image-inspired work that permeates comics even nowadays. The X-Men look like super-heroes and the crew of the Enterprise look like normal people (and their requisite actors, I must say, which is a lot more than most of the regular Trek comic books managed to do usually), especially considering the multitude of pencillers and inkers that worked on the book.
Scott Lobdell actually produced a good story, and even more so, utilized a lot of history of both sides. The inclusion of the Shi'ar forces was a nice way to get the X-Men into space, and the clever use of Proteus and Gary Mitchell forged a good and believable link between Trek and the X-Men.
There was a lot of little touches that made it enjoyable as well. Kirk getting shot down out of the gate by Jean Grey, the two Dr. McCoys, and Spock's response to Wolverine's attack stand out. I laughed out loud at the sequence where Gladiator punched the ship, and Kirk's disbelief at the event.
To be brutally honest, I have found very little to recommend about comics featuring the X-Men since Dave Cockrum left the original new X-Men title the first time, but I really enjoyed this story. The only thing I would've like to have seen was the original X-Men meet the original Star Trek series crew instead of this group. I know there was a second special (and a novel) in which the new X-Men met up with the Star Trek: The Next Generation universe. I've never been able to find the special but I did read the novel (Planet X) and I think the new X-Men fit in better there.
STAR TREK/X-MEN
"Star TreX"
Written by Scott Lobdell All images and logos ©2003 Marvel Comics Group/Marvel Entertainment, Inc. & Paramount Pictures, Inc., respectively.. All text and html ©2003 Richard Meyer
Pencils by Marc Silvestri, Billy Tan, Anthony Winn, David Finch & Brian Ching
Inks by Batt, D-Tron, Billy Tan, Aaron Sowd, Joe Weems, Victor Llamas, Team Tron, Joe "Jag Guillen, Viet Troung and Mike Manczarek
Colors by Tyson Wengler, Steve Firchow, Jonathan D. Smith, & Richard Isanove
Letters by Dennis Heisler
Assistant Editor: Polly Watson
Top Cow Coordinator: Mike Manczarek
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor in Chief: Bob Harras
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