Bounding into Comics, one of the more boneheaded of the culture war blogs, which routinely blasts what it sees as excessive “wokeness” in comic books and films, has turned its attention to the latest comic book version of Star Trek, demonstrating in the process that it has completely missed the point of the whole franchise.
“New Star Trek Comic Disgusts Readers With A Vulcan Lecturing The Crew On Gender Pronouns,” the headline of a recent post by Jon Del Arroz blares.
The Star Trek franchise has become one of the most mocked properties on the internet in recent years, mired with controversies because of the identity politics constantly pushed by the show, books, and comics.
Uh, you do realize that show creator Gene Roddenberry was kind of a Social Justice Warrior himself, right? I mean, practically the whole point of the original show was to demonstrate, with true 1960s idealism, that a coalition of different sorts of people (and aliens) could work together to bring justice to the universe. This has naturally continued in all of the spinoffs since.
“Intolerance in the 23rd Century?” Roddenberry once wrote.
Improbable! If man survives that long, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.
And if Gene Roddenberry had lived a bit longer he might have referred to “human beings” rather than “men.”
So what exactly is bothering the Bounding Into Comics folks and these mysterious Star Trek fans who apparently hate the very thing that made the show distinctive and in many ways ahead of its time?
“The decline of Star Trek’s popularity among fans,” Del Arroz sniffs,
began with Star Trek: Discovery, which first flaunted racial divisions and an explicit on-screen homosexual relationship before pushing even further to the bottom of the identity politics barrel when they introduced a Trill character who, despite obviously being a woman, lectured her crewmates and audience on how she wanted to be called “they/them.”
Got it. Never mind that Star Trek, from the beginning, was a multiracial enterprise (featuring a multiracial crew on the Enterprise). The show, a favorite of Martin Luther King, rattled racists in its day by featuring one of the first if not the first interracial kiss between a white man (Kirk) and a black woman (Uhuru) on network television. This kiss was a lot more daring for its time than a gay relationship on television is now, or even someone calling themselves “they.”
Somehow I suspect the Bounding Into Comics guys, if they were writing in the 1960s, would have been cross-burningly indignant over that scandalous kiss.
So what about this new Star Trek comic is proving so “disgusting” to the anti-social-justice Star Trek fanboys?
The comics have been no refuge for Star Trek fans who want to keep current-year left-wing agenda out of their science fiction reading. In 2021, IDW named embattled personality Heather Antos as the line’s editor. Under her tenure, fans complained about how she took no care with continuity, which was highlighted in several editorial failures in a recent issue of a Deep Space 9 comic.
Nothing is more of a challenge to the survival of Western Civilization as continuity errors. I mean, this couldn’t possibly be something drummed up as an excuse to attack a female editor, right? Nah.
The current “controversy,” such as it is, stems from a scene in Star Trek (2022) #1 in which a Vulcan character tells a blue-skinned alien woman that “the gender binary is illogical.”
That’s it. A Vulcan calling something “illogical.”
Del Arroz explains the vast significance of this line.
The interchange is meant to reinforce 2022 gender identity politics propaganda based on the English language, which is nonsensical in a 24th-century era as the language wouldn’t be anything like it is today, and presumably, an Andorian and Vulcan would have the benefits of a universal translator which wouldn’t even likely have English-based pronouns.
Moreover, if a Vulcan were trying to reinforce the logic in this speech, he wouldn’t refer to an inanimate object like a ship by the term “their” which, despite being a plural word, is a pronoun. He would instead use the proper word “it”. The only reason to insert this kind of dialogue is to lecture readers on gender pronouns, making the Vulcan sound more like a current-year teenage girl than a logical scientist.
Is it logical to get this worked up about a single line in a comic book about space aliens?
But of course, Del Arroz goes on to point out, this is all the fault of Ms. Antos, the CONTINUITY DESTROYER.
This kind of pause in the story to virtue signal identity politics is creeping into comics more often and is yet another sign of the poorly thought-out editorial oversight of Ms. Antos, who has repeatedly demonstrated she is more interested in left-wing politics than maintaining accuracy in comic franchises.
Yes, that’s right: the most important thing about comics about space aliens is their commitment to accuracy. That and keeping “identity politics” OUT of anything having to do with Star Trek, which was actually all about identity politics in the first place.
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And I vaguely recall there was one episode which ended where Kirk left behind a woman who was supposed to have beguiling pheromones because his one true love was the Enterprise itself.
It’s redundant here, but I must add my voice to those amazed at right-wingers’ umbrage that the series set in a communist, basically atheist, one-worlder, future that’s much better than our own present by secular standards seems to be in some sort of disagreement with them.
@Jenora
“Elaan of Troyius.”
Jon Del Arroz? There’s a name I haven’t heard since the Puppy days. I remember him trying pathetically to spar with John Scalzi on twitter. Deeply mediocre man.
Sulu managed to have a daughter who made an appearance in one of the movies
Yup in the first Next Generation moive. Demora Sulu was Helmsman on the Enterprise-B. They were lucky,I hear She wasn’t suppose to arrive until Tuesday.
I came in just to point out that it’s Uhura, not Uhuru, but stayed for the worthwhile discussion. I hope David will fix that typo, which was already mentioned by another commenter.
Thanks for linking Jessie Gender’s Trek videos. They’re wonderful.
I believe it was Snowberry who wrote that they had not seen any of the new series, but that Star Trek had not ever really lived up to its ideals. There have been 5 new series since Enterprise, so twice the number that existed up till that time. (Not to mention the movies, novels and comic books.) That’s a heck of a lot of Trek. It appears to me that the creators involved work extremely hard at living up to those ideals. Maybe sometimes they miss the mark, but as always with Trek, there’s a great deal of social criticism and promotion of tolerance and diversity. Some of it fights against the same kind of thinking that’s targeted by this very blog.
“Lower Decks” even pokes fun at the stereotypes of Trek itself, not just the larger culture.
For those who avoid all Trek because Gene Roddenberry had some issues– he’s been dead for over 30 years, and the franchise has moved light years beyond him, while still holding to those fundamental values that we appreciate.
When Gene Roddenberry was an LAPD officer, his partner was J. Jon Bruno, who later became Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles. Bishop Bruno was a strong social justice advocate himself.
“Strange New Worlds” has even directly criticized the J6 Nazis, implicated them in causing the Trek continuity’s Eugenics Wars/WWIII, and adapted “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”.