Today in Star Trek history: comic book veteran Tony Isabella is born

Tony Isabella, creator of Black Lightning and writer of the Star Trek: The Original Series novel “The Case of the Colonist’s Corpse,” is celebrating his 70th birthday today

When a former classmate of Spock’s develops a device that is designed to kidnap individuals from alternate universes, bringing them into our own, it’s up to Captain Kirk and his Away Team to stop the machine’s brilliant creator from using it. Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, and Scotty must try to foil an attempted takeover of the starship itself. Such was the premise of the comic “All of Me,” co-written by comic book veteran Tony Isabella, who was born on December 22, 1951.

Isabella was born in Cleveland, Ohio. When he was four years old, his mother began purchasing comic books for him at Woolworth, thereby setting him on the path to his future career. Isabella’s comic book influences included Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Len Wein, as well as William Shakespeare, Harlan Ellison, Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, and Dave Barry, to name but a few. When he was a teenager, he had numerous letters published in Marvel magazines, was a contributor to several comics fanzines and was a member of CAPA-alpha, the first amateur press association devoted to comics.

His involvement in the comics fan community paid off when it brought him to the attention of Roy Thomas, Marvel Comics’ editor, and Thomas hired Isabella as an editorial assistant in 1972. Eventually, Isabella began scripting issues of Ghost Rider, and with Thomas’ approval, he created a new character for the series called “The Friend.” “He looked sort of like a hippie Jesus Christ, and that’s exactly who he was,” Isabella told Comics Buyer’s Guide in 2007. It was a solution to a problem the writer had noticed in Marvel’s line. “Though we had no end of Hell(s) and Satan surrogates in our comics, we had nothing of Heaven.” Unfortunately, Isabella’s vision of “The Friend” was never to be seen in print. Editor Jim Shooter took offense to the story, having the art redrawn and the copy rewritten to reveal “The Friend” as a demon in disguise. “To this day,” Isabella stated, “I consider what he did to my story one of the three most arrogant and wrongheaded actions I’ve ever seen from an editor.”

Isabella went on to write for DC, creating the character of Black Lightning and producing, with artist Richard Howell, the 1985 mini-series Shadow War of Hawkman. He also wrote issues of Justice Machine for comics publisher Comico and, later, for Innovation Comics. For more than a decade, Isabella wrote the column “Tony’s Tips” for Comics Buyer’s Guide. The column ended in 2010, but he began it again online in 2013 for Tales of Wonder. It was at the turn of the 21st century, in 2000, that he and fellow Comics Buyer’s Guide columnist Bob Ingersoll produced “All of Me” for Wildstorm Comics.

Isabella and Ingersoll also co-wrote a short story entitled “If Wishes Were Horses…” (not related to the Deep Space Nine episode) which was published in The Ultimate Super-Villains: New Stories Featuring Marvel’s Deadliest Villains. They went on to write the novel Captain America: Liberty’s Torch and, in 2003, a Star Trek novel.

The Case of the Colonist’s Corpse, a Pocket TOS novel, was billed as “A Sam Cogley Mystery.” Sam Cogley, you may remember, was the book-loving lawyer who successfully defended Captain Kirk when he was put on trial for murder in the season one episode “Court Martial.” The book was inspired by Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason novels and takes place concurrent with the classic TOS episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles.” In the story, the Federation and Klingon Empire are competing to develop the planet Aneher II, much like the competition over Sherman’s Planet in “Tribbles.” Things go south when the head of the Federation colony is found murdered, with the head of the Klingon colony crouched over his body, a phaser in his hand. Areel Shaw, also from “Court Martial,” is brought in to prosecute the Klingon. Always favoring the underdog, Cogley volunteers to act as defense. “But when Cogley’s own investigation provides the prosecution with its key piece of evidence,” the book jacket proclaims, “and his courtroom tactics unexpectedly backfire, can even the galaxy’s most brilliant defense attorney win the day in…THE CASE OF THE COLONIST’S CORPSE?” As an added touch, the edges of the book’s pages were dyed red in order to make it resemble a ‘60s-era Perry Mason novel. You can buy the mass market paperback or Kindle editions of the book at Amazon.com.

Please join us in wishing Tony Isabella a very happy 70th birthday.