On the cover, for some reason, Kirk is depicted wearing a
suit of medieval-style armor, though he never dons such in
the story.
On page 8, Ariel claims that all of the humans in the town
on Beta III are descendants of the crew of the U.S.S.
Archon, which crashed there over a century ago. The
origin of the humans on the planet was not made clear in the original
episode. Also, in the original timeline, the Archon
disappeared in 2167, less than a century from the current
year of the story, 2258; possibly a Beta III solar year is
less than that of Earth, so a century may have passed by
their reckoning.
The design of the Archon on page 9 is similar to
that of the Enterprise NX-01 from the TV series
ST-Enterprise.
In the original episode, Kirk and his crew never really
learn the origin of Landru, they just assume from rumors in
the colony that Landru was a being who lived 6,000 years ago
and who programmed the computer that took his place and
ruled the society he left behind. In the televised episode, the
Enterprise leaves a group of people behind to help the
colony recover and grow after the loss of their computerized
ruling entity; did that group learn the true origin of
Landru as Cornelius Landru of Starfleet's Advanced Research
Division?
On page 22, we see that Admiral Pike is still in a
wheelchair, implying his condition is permanent
considering
"Return of the Archons" Part
1 itself implies this story takes place 18 months after
the end of "The
Vengeance of Nero", where Pike is depicted in a
wheelchair after his experience under torture on board the
Narada. However,
Star Trek nto Darkness shows Pike
walking again, albeit with a cane.
The end of the story implies that Starfleet (or possibly the
covert organization that offers Sulu membership in
"Return of the Archons" Part
1) was conducting an experiment on the colony of Beta
III for the past century and Kirk has now ruined it. Admiral
Pike seems to be in on it as well, though I'd like to think
he's one of the good guys and is working from within to
bring an end to these sorts of underground activities.
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