IDW's March titles, and other Star Trek comics updates

IDW have released their solicitations for March, which include five Star Trek titles, including the start of a new story, and the long awaited UK comic strips book. Continue below for full details of those, and other Star Trek comics news.

Star Trek (nuTrek ongoing) #55: Legacy of Spock, part 1
Written by Mike Johnson, with art by Tony Shasteen.

This all-new story set in the universe of the new STAR TREK films celebrates the life of the most iconic character of them all: Leonard Nimoy's SPOCK. In Part 1 of this 4-part epic, the elder Spock joins the last survivors of Vulcan to search the galaxy for a new homeworld! Don't miss this special series, part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the STAR TREK franchise!

Writer Mike Johnson recently outlined the series while talking on J.K.'s Happy Hour podcast, giving a bit more detail on what it's all about:

...it actually starts with that scene in the 2009 movie, where Nimoy Spock meets Quinto Spock. And in this comic we follow Nimoy Spock away from that meeting, and follow him as he joins with the survivors of Vulcan and they develop plans to find a new homeworld, and consequences and tribulations ensue from there. And then over the course of these four issues we will see Spock reflecting on the life - It's really looking back over the whole of his life. We'll see cameos and flashback with familiar characters from the original universe/timeline. It's like a celebration of his life, at the same time we're telling a very important story in the Trek present about finding a safe location for the new homeworld.

And speaking of J.K. Woodward, he will provide the subscription cover for this first issue in the series, alongside the regular cover from Tony Shasteen:

Starfleet Academy #4
Written by Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrott, with art by Derek Charm.

The hit new series continues here as our all new cast of cadets sets off on their first mission in space and headlong into a century-old mystery that could change the Academy forever. Meanwhile, Uhura risks her career in Starfleet with her only chance at redemption coming from a most unlikely place.

There will be three covers for this issue, the main one by Charm, the subscription cover (not yet released) by Robert Wilson IV, and a variant by David Malan.

Starfleet Academy was also a top of conversation on J.K.'s Happy Hour podcast, where editor Sarah Gaydos mentioned her longer term plans for the series: She would like to see this as a semi-regular series, suggesting do five-issue arcs, but not quite as a monthly ongoing series.

Back to the March releases, something I've been looking forward to for a long time is coming:

Star Trek: The Classic UK Comics, Volume 1
Written by Harry Lindfield, Jim Baikie, and Mike Noble, with art by Harry F. Lindfield.

In 1969, six months before the Star Trek TV series premiered in England, British comics readers were introduced to the characters in an original comic-book series. The stories were serialized, generally 2 to 3 pages at a time, in 257 weekly magazines spanning five years and 37 storylines. These extremely rare comics have never been published in the United States. Star Trek fans will quickly note that the comics were not written with strict adherence to Star Trek's core concepts. But it's precisely that "offness" that makes them so eminently readable and deserving of a proper reprinting. They're unique in the annals of Star Trek and fans have gone without them for far too long.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp.   

Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War omnibus
Written by Mike Johnson, with art by Angel Hernandez, and cover by Stephen Mooney.

Two iconic franchises collide for this blockbuster crossover event! The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise meets the Green Lantern Corps for the first time in an all-new adventure that spans the cosmos! Kirk and Spock make a most unusual discovery on a lost world... igniting events that will change the fate of empires!

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp.

Finally for the March releases, there's also a reprint of the first nuTrek ongoing issue (the first half of the nuTrek version of Where No Man Has Gone Before), released for one dollar as part of IDW’s Greatest Hits reprint series.

Star Trek #1 IDW’s Greatest Hits Edition
Written by Mike Johnson, with art by Stephen Molnar, and cover by David Messina.

Introducing IDW’s Greatest Hits! One-dollar versions of key issues and launch-points from your favorite IDW books! This month, it’s Star Trek #1! Picking up where the 2009 film left off, this is the jumping-on point for everything that’s come after for the new cast!

Note, while IDW's solicitations credit David Messina for the cover of this issue, pictured is the Tim Bradstreet cover for the issue. There was a Messina cover for this issue though, so it's quite possible they could reissue that art for the final release.

Speaking of covers, here's a nice new one from Cat Staggs, released by StarTrek.com, the subscription cover for Reunion, part 1, the first half of an Orion story in the nuTrek ongoing series, which starts next month:

Vis Amazon's listings, there's also our first look at the cover for the fifth book in IDW's Gold Key Archives remastered omnibus series. Amazon expect this to arrive in April:

Boldly going... where it all started! Presenting the first comic book adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her crew! Fully remastered with new colors, volume 5 collects issues #25-28 and #30-31, (#29 was a reprint of #1) including the stories "Dwarf Planet," "The Perfect Dream," "Ice Journey," "The Mimicking Menace," "Death of a Star," and "The Final Truth."

Amazon have also recently added a listing for The New Adventures, Volume 3, which they expect to be published in May. The previous two books in this nuTrek ongoing omnibus series have each contained twelve issues, so one might presume this book will contain issues twenty-five to thirty-six - However that would mean splitting up a six-part story, with the first two issues at the end of this book; so maybe they'll tweak that boundary, the page count certainly suggests this too. I'm sure we'll find out for sure once a blurb is released.

For full listings of all the upcoming Star Trek comic releases, and links to my previous coverage, hit the comics button on my 2015 and 2016 schedule pages. You can also find further comics series reading lists on Trek Collective Lists.