Joanna McCoy: Hostage!

Leonard McCoy’s daughter Joanna McCoy was introduced to comic book readers in two stories released by Marvel Comics. Both took place around the same year during Captain James T. Kirk’s second five-year mission aboard the refit USS Enterprise, and both had curious similarities.

“All the Infinite Ways”

Joanna debuted in “All the Infinite Ways” by Martin Pasko, issue 13 of Marvel’s short-lived Star Trek series. Marvel’s license was famously limited to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and therefore not allowed to reference elements from The Original Series. Pasko slipped in as many TOS references as possible into his eight stories. Introducing Joanna was a sly choice, as she had not technically appeared in TOS, yet was familiar to devoted Trek fans who’d read about the character in Steven E. Whitfield’s best-selling reference book The Making of Star Trek.

Pasko envisioned Joanna similar to the way Arnold Drake had adapted her in the form of Barbara McCoy in “The World Beneath the Waves” from Gold Key Comics in the 1970s. In both, McCoy’s daughter felt deeply bitter toward her father, who this time around was uniquely presented as an absent father whom she barely remembered and hadn’t seen since she was a kid. Also in both stories, she was in her mid-20s and had earned at least one degree.

In this story, nurse Joanna was an aide and fiancée to Vulcan Ambassador Suvak. Father and daughter spotted each other, and she introduced Suvak. Leonard asked to learn more, wanting to provide fatherly advice, but she shut him down. Later, we learn that Suvak has contracted a fatal illness. Meanwhile, a Klingon ship attacked the “Enterprise” and Klingon Commander Kagg started assaulting the planet’s natives. Kagg took Joanna hostage. A rescue team located them, and Kagg threatened Joanna at gunpoint. Suvak gave his life to save Joanna, tackling Kagg and holding him long enough for Joanna and the others to beam out before a bomb detonated. Afterward, feeling guilty and conflicted, Leonard returned to the planet hoping to make amends with Joanna.

Evolving continuity

When they created the character of Joanna McCoy, actor DeForest Kelley and writer D.C. Fontana thought her father was old enough to have a daughter in her 20s in TOS. One reason why Joanna didn’t appear on TV was that third season showrunner Fred Frieberger disagreed with them. McCoy appeared that old in licensed media of the 1970s and 1980s, but eventually Paramount sided with Frieberger, de-aging McCoy by assigning him a birth year of 2227 — making him five years older than Kirk — and giving Joanna a birth year of 2249.

The retcon made it unlikely that McCoy’s daughter could be a fully trained nurse or a professor of xenobiology in the mid-2260s, rendering her comic stories apocryphal even among other comics. When Joanna next reappeared in comics, she would be presented younger, but would finally fit into continuity.

“Past Imperfect”

By the late 1990s, all of the original cast movies had been released. When Glenn Greenberg brought back Joanna in the third issue of his miniseries Star Trek: Untold Voyages, he was able to revisit the 2270s with the knowledge of what was to come, adding personal resonance and historical context to the stories. He retained a number of concepts from D.C. Fontana’s original draft script “Joanna” — enough for Greenberg to include her in the credits — while also including a few echoes from Martin Pasko’s story.

This time around, Joanna was in her early 20s and had recently dropped out of medical school, having been disillusioned by a failed engagement. Per the story’s title, Greenberg examined Leonard McCoy’s imperfect life through the lens of Joanna and Jahn, a centuries-old teen who survived a life-prolongation plague thanks to an antidote from Leonard (as seen in the original TOS episode “Miri”). As in Fontana’s script, Joanna was attracted to Kirk, which Leonard did not like at all, and Joanna rejected her father’s over-protectiveness.

In the comic, the young Miri finally succumbed to the plague. Jahn blamed Dr. McCoy for developing an imperfect antidote and sought retribution. He learned McCoy would be at Starbase 11 and stole a shuttle, intending to kill him. When he arrived, however, he discovered that McCoy had a daughter, so he abducted her. When they landed at his homeworld, however, Kirk, Dr. McCoy and a security team were waiting for them.

Jahn grabbed Joanna and threatened her at gunpoint — the same threat she faced in Martin Pasko’s story. But this time, her father tackled and held the kidnapper, risking his life for his daughter. When it was all over, father and daughter reconciled.

Future appearances

Joanna eventually appeared a comic written by D.C. Fontana herself, in the third issue of “Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment” from IDW Publishing. She was also featured in four Pocket Books novels: “Crisis on Centaurus;” the “Legacies” novel “Best Defense;” the “Crucible” novel “Provenance of Shadows;” and in the alternate reality “Myriad Universes” novel “A Less Perfect Union.”

Not much has been written of her adult life. David Gerrold’s novelization of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s premiere episode, “Encounter at Farpoint,” revealed that Joanna was still alive in 2364 at 115 years old, and had several great-grandchildren. She would have appeared as the CMO of the USS “Odyssey” in a planned but unpublished Deep Space Nine/TNG comic book titled “Dark Emissary.”

Much of her life story remains to be told.