Originally published August 22, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1240
So… we were talking about myths.
At this point, Star Trek has reached nearly mythic status. One of the tests for that (and I may have discussed this in an earlier column; if so please forgive me, but I’ve been doing this gig for a lot of years and I’m bound to repeat sooner or later) is that discussions of key elements can be held without qualifiers.
For instance, if one were to ask, say, “Who was Napoleon Solo?” (to pick a contemporaneous program) the answer one would get (if one were rewarded with something other than a blank stare or a half-hearted guess such as “Han Solo’s brother?”) would be something along the lines of, “He was a character on a TV series called The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. There’s possible variants, sure, but that’s the most likely answer, I’d think.
But if you were to ask, “Who was James T. Kirk?” the reply you’d likely get would be, “Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.” There would be no qualifier, no further clarification, and no acknowledgement that one is discussing a television show. To rank as myth, a concept, characters or stories must take on a life of its own, its origins either lost in antiquity or simply irrelevant.
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