Didja Notice?

 

The story opens in 1970 Cocoa Beach, Florida. Many NASA astronauts and workers live in Cocoa Beach, only 15 miles south of the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

 

In the 1970 prelude, Steve appears to be driving a Ford Mustang convertible.

 

The model rocket plane seen in panel 3 of page 2 may be one of the Bell X-1 series of experimental supersonic planes conceived and built in the 1940s-50s for U.S. Army Air Force and U.S. Air Force.

 

On page 2, Steve exclaims to his wife he'll be going where nobody's gone before, an obvious play on the Star Trek slogan of "where no man (or no one) has gone before".

 

Page 3 states that it takes place 291 years after the 1970 prelude. This places the story in 2261, which fits with the last known year of the chronology at this point, in "Parallel Lives" Part 2.

 

On page 7, Kirk tells Kai he may take him to a great bar in Iowa off Highway 25. This is an actual highway that runs north-south through the state of Iowa. And, of course, Kirk is from Iowa.

 

In this issue, Lt. Zahra states that she is a security officer.

 

On page 13, Kirk states that no plastics have been made since before the invention of warp drive. Presuming he is speaking of the Earth invention of warp drive (some other planets/civilizations had it earlier, e.g. Vulcan), this would be before 2063, when Zefram Cochrane successfully tested Earth's first warp drive ship.

 

After Kirk's tricorder is swiped by a native animal on the surface of Hinrichs V, he explains to his landing party they must retrieve it as per the Prime Directive. He goes on to state, "Not that Commander Spock ever needs to know about this..." On page 19, notice that Sulu has retrieved the tricorder, but tells Spock that it's his tricorder which was stolen by a local critter (not Kirk's)...what a loyal officer! 

 

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