8 Time Travel Stories That Changed Star Trek Forever

Time travel episodes have been a part of the Star Trek franchise since its beginnings in the mid-1960s. The first season episode “The Naked Time” introduced the trope in a clever fashion, and it has been a staple ever since. Many of Star Trek’s finest episodes and movies have been built around this premise, and every iteration has put its own spin on time travel.

The various licensed Star Trek media, including novels and comic books, have also dabbled in time-travel stories. The license to produce Star Trek comics has bounced from publisher to publisher, but one thing remains consistent: fans cannot get enough of time travel, regardless of who holds the rights. Some of the time travel stories depicted in the Star Trek comics rank with the best of what has aired on television. Here are 8 great Star Trek time travel adventures that originated in the comics.

8

Captain Kirk Had to Diffuse a “Bomb in Time”

This Early Star Trek Time Travel Comic Is Perfectly Bonkers

The cover to Star Trek #36 depicts a jumble of time periods: a Starfleet crewman uses his phaser to zap a pistol out of a cowboy’s hands while a Roman chariot and an automobile hang out in the background. This juxtaposition of disparate eras sets the tone perfectly for “A Bomb in Time.” A Federation scientist has seemingly absconded through time with a powerful doomsday weapon, and now Kirk and company must follow him back to retrieve it. Along the way, Kirk and the Enterprise crew travel through several historical periods, including 20th century Earth.

Written by Doom Patrol co-creator Arnold Drake, “A Bomb in Time” is one of the earliest Star Trek time travel comics, and is still an engaging read 49 years later. Star Trek has no shortage of “doomsday machines,” but the “N-Cycle” weapon depicted in “A Bomb in Time” is one of the most dreadful. The story never breaks down what the N-Cycle Bomb does, leaving its exact effects up to the reader’s imaginations. “A Bomb in Time” is also chock-full of twists and turns that keep fans guessing until the last page.

7

There Was “No Time Like the Past” for Captain Kirk and the Enterprise

“No Time Like the Past” is a Great Star Trek Comic From the Gold Key Era

The Gold Key era of Star Trek comics is sometimes maligned for its lack of fidelity to the source material, but “No Time Like the Past” bucks this trend. The story deftly mixes two classic Star Trek episodes: “City on the Edge of Forever” and “Mirror, Mirror.” “No Time Like the Past” brings back the Guardian of Forever, the mysterious time portal. A mad scientist escapes custody, leaping through the Guardian. When Kirk returns to the Enterprise, he finds a vastly different ship, one with a ruthless and fascist crew.

At the core of “No Time Like the Past” is the mystery of what the mad scientist did to change Earth’s history in such a drastic fashion. Not only does Captain Kirk have to discover what changed, but fight a dark and twisted version of his crew. The new timeline Enterprise crew recall the worst of the Mirror Universe, right down to the Nazi-like salutes. “No Time for the Past” proves that Gold Key could make great Star Trek comics that rank as some of the franchise’s best.

6

For Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, It Was Either “Tomorrow or Yesterday”

“Tomorrow or Yesterday” Puts a Cool Spin on the Time Travel Trope

By the time Marvel published “Tomorrow or Yesterday” in 1980, time travel was already an established concept in Star Trek lore, and it succeeded in putting a fresh spin on the trope. Set shortly after the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, “Tomorrow or Yesterday” finds the Enterprise trying to evacuate the inhabitants of a planet in the path of a deadly interstellar phenomenon. Arriving planet-side, Kirk, Spock and McCoy are shocked to find enormous statues in their images. Complicating matters is that the statues are thousands of years old!

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“Tomorrow or Yesterday” is a worthy addition to the Star Trek time travel canon. Episodes such as “All Our Yesterdays” demonstrated the franchise could spin gold from the concept, and this carried over into licensed media. “Tomorrow or Yesterday’s” fresh spin on time travel was a highlight of Marvel’s first go at producing Star Trek comics. The publisher was famously hamstrung by a restrictive license, but DeFalco, Nasser and their collaborators made the best of it, giving a fresh spin to a trope that was already being overdone.

5

Star Trek’s Crossover With the X-Men Spans Eras

This Controversial Star Trek Story Was the Franchise’s First Crossover With Other IPs

When Marvel once again obtained the license to produce Star Trek comics, the publisher kicked it off in a grand fashion: crossing Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew with the X-Men! This move was greeted with derision by Star Trek fans at the time, who felt the two groups meeting was a betrayal. Nevertheless, it was the first time Star Trek crossed over with another IP, and it would not be the last. Written by then X-Men scribe Scott Lobdell, and drawn by an all-star roster of artists, the book saw Proteus team up with Gary Mitchell.

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While not billed specifically as a time travel story, Star Trek/X-Men still bridges various eras in Earth’s history. The crossover was published in 1996, and the X-Men’s lineup reflects the redesigns the franchise received from artists like Jim Lee earlier in the decade. These mutants from the 1990s traveled through space and time to the 23rd century. Arriving there, the X-Men found a place and time that was far more tolerant to their kind than Earth-616, reinforcing Star Trek’s commitment to inclusion and diversity and applying it to mutants.

4

Star Trek: Enterprise’s Sole Comic Outing Was an Excellent Time Travel Story

Captain Archer Learned About “The Fragile Beauty of Loyalty”

Star Trek: Enterprise has only made one appearance in comics thus far, and writer Tiwary and artist Petrus make the most of it, creating a time-travel story that leaves fans feeling warm and fuzzy. Told in two different timeframes: one on board the Enterprise, and the other from Archer’s boyhood, “The Fragile Beauty of Loyalty” is not only a clever time-travel story, but it explores the relationships that people have with their pets, bonds that last for a lifetime. The story gloriously hints at what Star Trek: Enterprise could achieve in the comic book medium.

That Star Trek: Enterprise’s first comic outing would involve time travel should come as no surprise to fans. Time travel was baked into Enterprise’s DNA from the very beginning. The pilot, “Broken Bow,” established that Archer’s timeframe of the 22nd century was a front in a “Temporal Cold War.” Several Enterprise episodes involved time travel, nearly all of them related to the Temporal Cold War, and “The Fragile Beauty of Loyalty” picks this thread up. Enterprise abandoned the Temporal Cold War at the beginning of its fourth season, leaving its outcome uncertain, but shows such as Discovery have continued it.

3

During the Enterprise’s Final Year, Spock Traveled Through Time to Meet His Hero

Surak Is the Most Important Figure in Vulcan History

Star Trek: Year Five, set during the final phase of the Enterprise’s first five-year mission, featured a poignant time-travel story that sent Spock into Vulcan’s distant past. Star Trek has made it clear that prior to embracing the philosophy of logic, the Vulcans were highly aggressive and war-like. Spock finds himself facing a horde of sword-wielding Vulcan warriors from the planet’s pre-logic era. During his sojourn into the past, Spock also encounters Surak, the Vulcan who steered the species towards logic in the first place. Yet is Sural all that Spock thinks he is?

In addition to establishing that the Vulcans were once savages, Star Trek has also reinforced Surak’s importance to the species, yet issue 20 of Year Five challenges that. Spock meets the rebels who are opposing Surak’s reforms, and hears them out. They feel Surak will curb artistic expression as well as free-will. Spock must try to convince the rebels to join Surak’s side, but he faces an uphill battle, along the way learning that his hero was far from perfect.

2

Captain Sisko Was Given a First-Person Tour of Bajoran History

Sisko’s Sojourn on a Pre-Historic Bajor Shows Why He is the Emissary

Captain Benjamin Sisko is the “Emissary” of the Bajoran people, and, thanks to the Prophets, he lived for thousands of years among them, guiding their destinies. After Lore destroyed the multiverse at the end of “The Pleroma” story arc, Sisko was sent back in time by the Prophets, to a pocket universe they created. In this new universe, Sisko lived among the prehistoric Bajorans, ultimately unifying them into a great civilization. Over the course of hundreds of lifetimes, Sisko turned the Bajorans into a great, space-faring race. The story made it easy to see why the Prophets took an interest in Sisko.

Although it is set in a pocket reality, the realm created by the Bajoran Prophets still mirrors the real history of Bajor. This means that Captain Sisko actually experienced what life was like for the first Bajorans. Sisko was able to watch, and guide, the development of Bajoran culture. Star Trek revealed that Bajor was once a planet where art and science flourished, a far cry from what fans saw on Deep Space Nine. There, the Bajorans were a broken people, but here fans get to see them at their peak.

1

The Star Trek: Lower Decks Gang Are Learning the Perils of Time Travel

Boimler, Mariner and the Rest of the Cerritos Crew Have Become Unstuck in Time

Star Trek: Lower Decks is no stranger to the time travel game itself, but in issues 6 and 7 of its ongoing comic, the crew of the Cerritos find themselves tripping through various points in history, with deadly consequences. The Department of Temporal Investigations, a branch of Starfleet dealing with time travel, gives the Cerritos’ senior officers a dire mission: locate whoever is trying to alter Federation history. However, thanks to a series of mishaps, Mariner and her Lower Deck buddies are soon drawn into the plan as well.

True to the spirit of Lower Decks, this trip through time has a decidedly light-hearted tone, but the stakes could not be any higher. Mariner, Rutherford and Boimler first travel side-ways in time, seeing alternate versions of themselves from across timelines, including one where the Ferengi have taken over the ship. Then, the crew is deposited back in Earth history, namely on board the Titanic on its fateful voyage. Various Star Trek time travel stories have featured the crew brushing up against real Earth history, and this story continues that trend.