Star Trek to Boldly Go as the nuTrek adventures continue at IDW

After the end of the nuTrek ongoing series with the final issue in August, and the first month with no nuTrek comics in half a decade in September, IDW will be returning to the Kelvin timeline in October to pick up the pieces after Star Trek Beyond, with the launch of a new series Boldly Go.

Both writer Mike Johnson and artist Tony Shasteen will be returning, with the promise of a different feel to the series, more focused on ongoing story arcs, and less episodic. Here's the blurb for issue one:

Star Trek's 50th Anniversary Celebration continues with this all-new series following the adventures of Captain Kirk and the iconic crew! New worlds! New species! New ships! And a new danger unlike anything the Federation has encountered before! Boldly go into a new era of Star Trek!

And here's the lovely cover by George Caltsoudas:

Continue below for more details, and preview pages. Possible spoilers for the general outcome of Star Trek Beyond.

Another bit of cover art was released by IDW editor Chris Ryall on his Tumblr, these are apparently the Tony Shasteen covers for issues one to six.

IGN have also posted an interview with the writer and artist. First off they asked why start a new series?

We figured, first and foremost, given that it's the 50th anniversary year, there are a lot of special things going on. And we were thinking in terms of the comic series, what would be a cool thing to do, and the idea [that] it's been five years since we launched the ongoing comic, it sort of dovetailed nicely with the idea of a five-year mission. And literally, 60 issues divided by 12 months is five years, so it felt like an appropriate time to wrap it up. And then along with that, we had the movie coming out at the same time, which these comics have always followed the Kelvin timeline crew. So it felt natural to then use the movie as sort of the jumping off point for the next series. So it was sort of this combination of factors that felt like the right time and also, you know, we're one of the few comics out there that's numbered higher than, like, 10, or 12 at this point. It seems like everything reboots. It's like us or The Walking Dead are the only ones that are still going, but it felt like the right time.

Johnson then outlined the new approach to the series:

Yeah, so the original series was almost like the Kelvin timeline version of the TV show, where we'd have two- or four-issue arcs that were sort of like episodes, that would wrap up their stories. And Boldly Go is gonna be more of a serialized story, less of the bottled episodes and more of an ongoing story, for lack of a better word. We're getting away from the sort of paradigm of you roll up to a planet, something weird happens, [you] get in trouble, you've got to the solve the problem. This is more throwing all of the characters into new situations. They're not all going to be together. We're going to follow multiple threads of the characters as they each encounter new situations.

Note the characters not all being together. Of course the Star Trek Beyond's loss of the Enterprise will be an issue going forward.

...their five-year mission was rudely interrupted by the events of the movie, and as we open Boldly Go, we're dealing with the fallout from that. It's safe to say you're not going to see the Enterprise right away.

...as you'll see in the new situation in which [Bones is] thrown, he's having to deal with things that he's not used to. Having Bones as the mirror reflecting the craziness going on around them is a lot of fun. Also, Kirk dealing with losing the Enterprise, you know, there's a lot of juicy character work there. And all the crew, sort of seeing how they react to the new situation that they're in. Once your ship is out of commission, Starfleet doesn't just let you twiddle your thumbs while you wait for the rebuild. Starfleet wants their officers working, so that's kind of the basis and the jumping off point for the new series -- where do the characters go if they're not on the Enterprise?

John also mentions we'll be seeing lots of new characters and settings:

...you will actually see a couple of new ships that are still squarely in the Kelvin timeline but they're gonna be in the aesthetic of what we've seen in the movies. But there's going to be differences. That goes for characters, too. We're going to be introducing some new characters -- both Starfleet and otherwise -- that Tony had the chance to design. We've never met these folks before. And Tony has, as usual, done a brilliant job at not only bringing to life the characters as we know them, but adding new things and building out this timeline, which is really what the goal of the comics has always been.

Plus there is a Kelvin timeline version of someone we have met before:

...the antagonist of the first arc of this new series is a classic Trek villain. But you haven't seen them in the Kelvin timeline. I'm hoping that when people find out who it is they're going to be really excited about the book.

Johnson noted they wont be bothered to do a, oh-look-we-got-new-uniforms moment, but continuing forward with the look from Star Trek Beyond, and when asked about flashbacks in the new series, he offered his unofficial explanation for the reconfiguring of the Enterprise:

They're not planned for yet, but there is no reason why we couldn't see flashbacks to fill in what happened. One thing I like to think of -- this is not official, but it's my sort of own head canon -- is that the Enterprise actually looks slightly different in Beyond in a couple different ways, and the explanation for those changes are after our Manifest Destiny miniseries when the Klingons attacked the Enterprise and just rampaged through it, they went in for repairs. And [it] came out looking like it does in Beyond. So that's the least official explanation I can give that you'll ever get!

IGN also released a couple of preview pages, which seem to show some of those new characters, and a very familiar looking starship interior - But what is this? A new ship, a repaired ship? We'll find out in a few months (or maybe days, depending how Star Trek Beyond ends)!

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