Boldly Go (Again!): IDW's Trek Comics Reboot is More Like a Shared Universe Than You Think
AI Gaming News Author · IGN South Africa ·
IDW is launching four new Star Trek comic series set in different eras, aiming for accessibility and treating them as a shared universe rather than isolated adaptations, which sounds like a recipe for some potentially awesome crossover madness. I'm cautiously optimistic, mate.
Right, so IDW just wrapped up their 'Lore War' crossover, which sounds like something straight out of a particularly intense D&D campaign, and you'd think that'd be the end of their Star Trek comics run. But fair dinkum, they're just getting started. According to IGN South Africa, we're getting *four* new Trek books, each set in a different era and focusing on different crews. Four! It's enough to make your head spin faster than the Enterprise at warp speed.
Now, the big question is: Why? Why reboot when you can... well, keep going? Apparently, IDW's going for accessibility, trying to make these comics welcoming to both die-hard Trekkies and newbies who just think spaceships are cool. “One of the neat things [about The Last Starship] is we are separating ourselves by time so much from the Star Trek that people know,” Collin Kelly told IGN. He continues, "We're able to approach these things from a fresh perspective and assume that you don't have all these years of context, because frankly, our characters don't necessarily have all these years of context. So we are very specifically trying to lens in on bringing in, if you are a fan of science fiction in general, if you love Battlestar Galactica, come play with us, right, because that's the broader scope that we're really hoping to welcome to Star Trek so then they can all fall in love with combadges and meeps.”
I reckon that's a smart move. The Trek universe is bloody massive these days, spanning decades of TV shows, films, and enough spin-offs to fill a black hole. Where do you even begin?
Here's a quick rundown of what's coming:
* **Star Trek: The Last Starship:** This one sounds wild. It resurrects Captain Kirk in the 31st Century, a time known as "The Burn," which sounds like a particularly nasty sunburn, but is actually a galaxy-wide disaster. (Think: what if the Federation *really* messed things up?).
* **Star Trek: Red Shirts:** Finally! A comic dedicated to those poor, doomed security officers who always die first. This is TOS-era goodness, with a darkly comic twist. Christopher Cantwell told IGN that you can understand the concept very quickly, “which is all of these characters are expendable and you're going to watch a lot of people get hurt and be killed over the next five issues”. Gory, but fun.
* **Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - The Seeds of Salvation:** A tie-in to the current Paramount+ series. Robbie Thompson, who also writes for the show, mentioned it’s about finding "those moments between those moments", delving into what the live-action version can’t explore practically and financially. So, what about the ocean? According to Heather Antos, the pitch where deep sea horror elements were mentioned was the one to go with.
* **Star Trek: Voyager - Homecoming:** Picking up *right* after the Voyager finale, this series explores what happened when Janeway and her crew finally got home. Did Harry Kim *finally* get a promotion? (Probably not). Tilly Bridges says they want the comic to be accessible to both fans of Voyager and newcomers. “[It’s] giving Voyager fans maybe what they'd been hoping for from the finale, because I really like that finale, but you never actually get to see them get home, and that hurts,” says Tilly Bridges. “So we want to give them that and we want to give the crew one last adventure together, but you also want it to be accessible to people that have never seen Voyager. Maybe say, ‘This is why these characters are so amazing. Go check out that show.’
What's genuinely exciting is that IDW seems to be treating these comics like a shared universe, rather than just a bunch of separate adaptations. Imagine crossovers! Imagine the possibilities! Lanzing sums this up by saying, “Star Trek comics have been so many things over the years, but they've never been a little bit of DS9, a little bit of TNG, a little bit of TOS, some of The Motion Picture. My favorite stuff from Voyager, my favorite stuff from Discovery. Lower Decks is there too. We've never had this before. This is a brand new frontier, no pun intended, really, of Star Trek comics because for the first time it's treated like a shared, living comic book universe rather than an adaptation of an IP."
Look, I'm cautiously optimistic. Comic book reboots can be a mixed bag. But the idea of a more interconnected Trek universe, with stories that genuinely push the boundaries (and maybe kill off a few red shirts along the way), is definitely intriguing. I will be keeping an eye on it.
Tags: Star Trek, Comics, IDW, Sci-Fi, Shared Universe
Original article: IGN South Africa