Star Trek comic covers round-up

IDW have released a whole load of covers for forthcoming Star Trek comics, continue below to check them all out, plus a few other comic updates.

First up we have the main covers for Succession #2, the second issue of the mirror universe Discovery miniseries, which should be due out later this month. The A cover here should be by issue artist Angel Hernandez, and the B cover is a photo.

Also expected this month (only four months behind its original release date!) is the fourth and final issue of the Klingon-focused Discovery miniseries, The Light of Khaless. Tony Shasteen's series of major Klingon character A covers finish on L'Rell, while again the B cover is a photo. We've also got the Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire retail incentive cover revealed already, which is part of an ongoing series of ship covers, and this time features the USS Discovery.

In other Discovery comics news, writers Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson both recently appeared on the Go Trek Yourself podcast, and revealed some pretty interesting bits and bobs about how they are managing working on Discovery comics alongside the TV production. For instance they revealed an image of the grounded Sarcophagus ship originally developed for The Light of Kahless, ended up inspiring the TV series to the point that the image that ultimately made it to screen meant the comic had to redesign its original inspiration!

When we were first talking about the T'Kuvma series; and at the time all we had from the room, and not really even the art department yet, was this idea that the new Klingon ships were more organic than anything we had seen before in the show. Bryan was really fascinated by the idea that the woods,  and the stones, and the gems and the things from Qo'noS might be part of the ship, as opposed to just the utilitarian metal stuff we were used to seeing.

So when we decided that T'Kuvma's ship was this hundred year old, or more, ancient kind of thing that had been grounded on the planet for a long time. Mike and I sort of came up with the notion that perhaps why all those materials had got integrated was because while the ship had been down, the local flora and fauna had sort of grow up inside the ship. So we had this early image of the ship as T'Kuvma as a young boy first found it, where you've got the bones of the ship, but you've got all these trees and natural formations that had sort of worked their way inside it over the years. And that was the thing that the show, when we sort of explained that that was going to happen, the show loved that idea. And then in terms of what we actually saw, that idea got whittled down based on the realities of what we could actually produce. It was a situation where, in a lot of ways I wished we had been able to just leave that in the comic, because I think the comic could had done an extraordinary job of really landing that point, and sharing that part of the story. But the show liked it so much they wanted to integrate it, and then their integration of it meant it got altered slightly just because of the environment, so it was more volcanic and stuff like that, as opposed to the trees and the stuff that we originally imagined.

They also mentioned there are some areas Discovery tie-ins will be avoiding due to the TV team wanting to play with them, such as the childhood of Burnham, or Saru's background, but then also areas where they have found themselves exploring more than expected, such as flashbacks to Emperor Georgiou's reign in Succession. Give the podcast a listen for a really interesting insight into how the show and comics work together!

Anyway, back to new covers! The eighth and final New Visions omnibus is now listed on Amazon, who expect to arrive in January next year! The book will contain the final two issues of that series, plus the one off photo-adaptation of The Cage.

Presenting all-new tales set in the Star Trek: The Original Series universe, done in a unique photomontage style, using images from the classic TV series. It's as close as fans will ever come to getting new episodes featuring the original cast.

First, "The Enemy of My Enemy"... is not my friend. But when Kirk and Kor find themselves forced to work together against a common foe, does it mean a productive alliance, or a chance for deadly betrayal?

Then, Kirk and his crew venture into the past, only to discover it is nothing like their history books teach--no trace of the devastation of World War III and the Eugenics Wars. What can have caused such a divergence? The answer is to be found in "An Unexpected Yesterday."

Also includes a reinterpretation and adaptation of the TV episode "The Cage."

Back in the mirror universe, this month sees a weekly release miniseries, Through the Mirror, continuing IDW's exploration of the mirror-TNG crew. The first issue came out last week (see preview), and IDW have now released the B covers for the remaining issues, each by the issue artists: Issue two by Chris Johnson, issue three by Josh Hood, issue four by Carlos Nieto, and issue five by Debora Carita.

I missed this at the time, but it seems back at Wondercon in March IDW also released a convention exclusive variation of the omnibus edition of the first TNG mirror-miniseries in this series, Mirror Broken, which reuses J.K. Woodward's cover for the final issue in that series (rather than the first issue art used on the regular edition of the omnibus).

J.K. Woodward also pretty regularly shares other Star Trek artwork he has created. Some of his recent highlights include these assembles of both the mirror-TNG crew, and mirror-Voyager characters:

Plus some awesome Discovery art:

Finally, something that is sure to impact Star Trek releases is the big editorial shake-up occuring at IDW right now, with staff both leaving and joining the publisher. In recent weeks the main Star Trek editor at IDW, Sarah Gaydos left IDW to take up a new role at Oni Press, and long serving IDW editor Chris Ryall, who worked a lot on early Star Trek comics at IDW and was still editing John Byrne's soon to end New Visions series, has also left, looking to take up new opportunities. It will be interesting to see what directions whoever ends up in charge of Star Trek decide to go. And it's not just editors on the move, artist Tony Shasteen, who has been responsible for most of the last few years worth of Kelvin timeline comics has also decided to move on from Trek!


To keep track of all the latest Star Trek comic releases, hit the comics button on my 2018 schedule page. You can also find reading lists for several Star Trek comic series on my Trek Collective Lists site.