Shapechangers: The Star Trek Universe
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One of the wonderful things about the fantasy world of comic books is that all kinds of superpowers are possible – flying, super-magnetism, mental telepathy, or super-speed. My personal favorite? Shapechanging – the ability to change your physical form into anything. Just imagine. You want to look like the girl next door or a blonde bombshell, Brad Pitt, or Kathy Ireland, you just concentrate and "Voila" there you are. (Note to myself: When I find a genie’s lamp, I know my first wish.) Sometimes it’s limited to just changing into other persons, which for our interests is just as good. Since this particular ability pops up with both heroes and villains, we will visit some of the various shapechangers in comics from time to time.
Where No Man, um, Woman, um, Person, um, No One Has Gone Before
For this installment we visit the Star Trek Universe, where we find a surprising amount of gender related themes. (See Bjo Trimble’s article "Transgender – Star Trek & the Final Frontier" in Transgender Tapestry #76.) One of the most recent Star Trek novel series, New Frontier, features a new character who is a Hermat, a race with both genders who uses pronouns like s/he and hish. Narrowing our focus to shapechangers, we still get quite an array of choices. On the very first episode of Star Trek aired, "Mantrap", Captain Kirk, et al, ran into a shapechanging salt vampire who took both male and female human forms during the episode. Later Kirk ran into Garth of Izar who could impersonate others, but failed to do any gender-bending. (Rats! Though we did get to see Yvonne Craig, television’s Batgirl, as an Orion Slave Girl.) And in the sixth Star Trek movie, Kirk discovers that his love interest, Martia, played by model Iman, was actually a shapechanger. Both Martia and Garth engage in the obligatory theme of impersonating Kirk, forcing Spock and others to figure out who is who.
However since this is a comics column, not a Trekkie column, let’s keep moving. Star Trek has bounced all over the map in the comic world. Star Trek comics have been published by Dell (truly awful 60’s comics that are highly collectible), Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and now currently by Marvel. Throughout these we have seen a variety of shapechangers who genderbend now and then, and we will look at a few of them this time around.
Two Kirks Are Better Than One?
Our first story appears in Star Trek #6 (DC Comics, 1984) and features a cover of two Kirks, each claiming to be the real one. As the story unfolds, we discover that an assassin named Enigma has come on board the ship to assassinate Ambassador Fox. We follow as Enigma changes from alien males to human males, including Scotty, and even into a couple of animal forms. Near the end Enigma changes into Captain Kirk, giving us the scene on the cover. Where’s the genderbending? It turns out that Enigma is actually Ambassador Fox’s estranged daughter who has joined a terrorist group.
At Least He Didn’t Impersonate Kirk – Oh, Wait, He Did That Last Time
In a several issue storyline in Star Trek 49-55 (DC Comics, 1988) reprinted in book form as Who Killed Captain Kirk?, our stalwart crew runs into a shapechanger, but it takes them a while to figure that out. The story opens as the Enterprise chases down a space pirate to his base. However, when they finally catch him, or rather, find his body, he has apparently been dead for two weeks, while at the same time he was somehow running around as a pirate. Leaving this mystery behind, the Enterprise continues on to another mission, and shortly afterward, Bearclaw, a rebellious crewman, attempts to kill Kirk, and nearly succeeds. Meanwhile, another Federation team arrives at the pirate’s base and finds the dead body of a female Enterprise crewmember, Bloemker – a crew member we have seen on the Enterprise since they left the planet. The existence of the imposter is brought home with two matching panels, one of the corpse and one of the imposter crew member, although no one (except the reader) realizes there are two of them.
The leader of the team that found the body is an old rival of Kirk’s, Finnegan, and his next assignment is to conduct the trial into the murder attempt on Kirk. (Aren’t coincidences a wonderful thing?) He sees Bloemker on board and recognizes her face from the corpse. Putting it all together he goes to confront the villain alone without telling anyone. (It may sound stupid, but every cop show does it.) The villain then stuns Finnegan, and transforms into him, to finish off Kirk. However at the last minute the true villain is revealed to be…. Garth of Izar – who is captured almost immediately. The nice part of this one is that Garth as Bloemker is around for quite a few issues giving a variety of shots of the fairly attractive crewmember.
Meanwhile, in the Delta Quadrant…
A gender bender of another sort shows up in the latest issues of Star Trek Voyager (#14 & #15, Marvel, 1998). The starship Voyager picks up a distress call from an Orsorian ship. The captain appears to be a beautiful naked female, Catira. However when she realizes that Captain Janeway is female, she defers to her brother, Katirus. Katirus comes on board the Voyager, and although the men aren’t impressed he proceeds to seduce both Janeway and Torres, using pheromones to overwhelm them. They even get into a cat fight over him. Finally, Janeway beams over to his ship to be with him. When she doesn’t answer their hails, Tuvok beams over and is promptly seduced/kissed/overwhelmed by Catira.
Issue 15 opens with both Tuvok and Janeway in bed powerless to resist their respective partners. Suddenly an alien entity shows up in space and attacks Voyager, after Katirus tells it that he has prepared Voyager for the entity. As Voyager’s power fades, Chakotay calls the Orsorian ship and demands the return of the two crewmembers. Catira refuses, saying they and Voyager will be consumed. The Borg, Seven of Nine, and the holographic doctor beam over to the Orsorian ship and confront Katirus, since Seven has adapted to his pheromones by creating antigens in her bloodstream, and the Doctor is immune. Surprise! Katirus and Catira are the same being. (If you didn’t see that one coming, you must be at the wrong website!) The Doctor injects Catira with some of Seven’s antigens and the alien mutates into a truly disgusting Picasso-esque mess. After they beam back to Voyager, Chakotay confuses the space entity and it collapses on itself, taking the Orsorian ship with it.
Bonus: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Just Like It
Battlestar Galactica, another less popular sci-fi television show, briefly had its own comic as well. In issue #9 (Marvel, 1979) the crew encountered the "Space Mimic" – an alien that invaded the ship, impersonating various crewmembers. At one point he knocked out Nurse Cassiopea and transformed into her right when her friends showed up. They weren’t sure which was the real one until the doglike Daggit correctly identified the right one and scared him away. (Conveniently for the reader, the alien had an aura that apparently only we could see.) Even though it’s not a comic, I would also direct sci-fi TG fans to a similar situation in the Babylon 5 pilot movie in which an assassin (what else?) impersonates a female crewmember.
Next time: A mainstream superhero comic takes a serious, sympathetic look at transvestites. Are they successful? We’ll see.
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