Holiday specials are an old tradition when it comes to comic books. Marvel, DC, and other publishers make an effort to pull up at least one issue a year as an anthology book with several End-of-the-year celebrations being represented. However, it’s unusual for licensed comics to also roll with the holiday special festivities. And yet, you get the occasional oddball.

Say hello to issue 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, titled Spirit in the Sky. This comes from the first mini-series DC launched for the second Star Trek TV show in 1987. While issue 2 has a cover date of March 1988, all reports I can find show the issue being published in December 1987. This comes from the Cover Date for comics mostly being when various newsstands should pull the comic, rather than cover the month released.

This issue comes from the mini-series writer Michael Carlin. Pablo Marcos would pencil the entire mini-series, with Carlos Garzon and Arne Starr working on inks for this issue. Carl Gafford worked the colors, while Bob Pinaha lettered the issue.

Before we dive into why this is a holiday special, however, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed. Unlike the first volume of Star Trek (the Original Series) comics DC was publishing at the same time, this comic played with actor likeness fast and loose. This is likely because the show was literally in the middle of its first season, and promotional shots likely were less available than normal. However, it doesn’t explain why Pablo Marcos made everyone jacked like steroids were a part of the average breakfast in Starfleet.

Here, we see Data re-creating the Pieta with Geordi. Who has as many muscles as Superman.

Everyone in this comic is either ripped or remarkably fit compared to their original actors. While the first two seasons used an uncomfortable amount of spandex, to the point that it almost crippled Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes, this is honest overkill. This does not stop me from loving how stupid this is. It gets worse when Michael Carlin made a pair of original characters that, shockingly, do not make it out of this mini-series to otherwise exist in the expanded universe of Star Trek.

Say hello to Michael and Patricia Brickley, the only Starfleet officers to pull double duty as generic DC superheroes. I genuinely do not know what possessed anyone on this book to give them superhero capes, legless leotards with thigh-high boots, or make the two of them squabble like children. Even early Picard can’t take this crap, but they’re in every issue.

Anyhow, the issue begins by establishing the stardate as 42120.3, which actually puts this comic in the… second season of The Next Generation? Weird. It’s Christmas on the Enterprise, and everyone is getting ready to celebrate. This is doubly-bizarre, seeing how franchise creator Gene Roddenberry actually thought religion would generally die out by the time of the first Star Trek, and avoided mentioning it in any of his works. Still, it is Christmas time, as noted by generic alien helmsman… Skooch.

Despite coming about a decade later, this feels like I’ve stumbled back into Marvel’s Star Wars comics.

Meanwhile, Commander Riker speaks with a never before encountered race of bondage ninjas, and he invites them over for Christmas.

During this time, we also see the main crew prepare their Sunday best for Christmas celebrations. This includes Troi dressing up in less clothing, Picard putting on a green jacket with his rank emblazoned on it like a Members Only Jacket… and Tasha Yar waxes nostalgic for the holidays she couldn’t have on her home colony.

Yeah, that weird nostalgia she has sure aged poorly. I couldn’t even find a clip where she rants about the “roaming rape gangs” that filled her broken colony. I’m not joking either.

Everyone gets into the spirit, and it looks like Christmas has evolved into everyone wearing jumpsuits and rave clothes like someone spiked the punch at a meeting of the Justice League. This also includes Data, who is anxious to get into the swing of things.

The bondage aliens, named the Creeg, are welcomed aboard, and Picard offers to escort them to the party. Wesley, true to the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, feels something is horribly suspicious, and no one believes him. However, Troi believes him, and the two of them are jumped by one of the Creeg.

Troi and Wesley tell everyone how the Creeg are trying something strange, and that another force is aboard the vessel. They also spill that the Creeg are trying to eat this other force. Revealed as bad guys, the Creeg whip off their bondage gear and-

…

Why is there a species of bondage Grinch patrolling the spaceways?

Why are they trying to eat Santa Claus?

Why was Santa inside Data making him feel wonderful? I don’t think I should be trying to answer these questions that the book is obviously bringing up at this point.

Intent on hunting down and saving… Santa… the crew comes across other major celebrations on the ship.

However, Picard realizes there is only one place Santa would hide: the ship’s north. Once on the bridge of the Enterprise, they find Space Santa hiding in the corner of the room, looking thin and gaunt. Or as thin and gaunt as a Santa can be, at least. Data and one of the Grinch people come up with a really strange solution to a problem we never knew we had.

So. The crew offers to love Santa, which makes him swell with love, and he decides to pay them back.

And so ends the strangely sexually suggestive stealth Star Trek Holiday Special. To my knowledge, there has not been another one, and this story has been almost entirely forgotten about. After issue 6 of the mini-series, DC would launch a much closer to the actual show version of The Next Generation, which would go on for a good 80 issues before being canceled with Marvel swooping up the license from DC. Luckily, none of the comics after this one were truly this bad or bizarre.

Merry Christmas to all, may your Santa energy being be full and robust.