Captain Kirk is back from the dead.
Kirk, in all his William Shatner-like glory, is headlining a new comic that will serve as the flagship title of the Star Trek line of comics from IDW Publishing.
This will be no past or glory days tales of Kirk. This will be Kirk back from the dead – as Trekkies know, the good captain died in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations so any story, screen or comic, has taken place prior to that. This tale will take place in the modern Starfleet future. And he’s back just in time for him to watch the Starfleet he loved so dearly burn to the ground.
Launching this September is Star Trek: The Last Starship, written by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing and artist Adrián Bonilla. Kelly and Lanzing, who attended USC for film, have written for Marvel, DC, and other publishers. And they have been writing Trek comics for IDW for several years; their previous Trek title even earned an Eisner Award nomination for best new series nomination in 2023.
“Forget everything you know about Star Trek. The Last Starship is a new crew, a new era, and a completely different tone; our aim is to be literary, intense, innovative, and most of all, accessible,” said Lanzing in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
He also explained that series is geared to be accessible to all readers.
“We’re bringing you into the Federation’s darkest hour through the brilliant, noir-soaked lens of artist Adrián Bonilla with zero homework required,” he continued. “Longtime Trek fans will have a deep and fascinating reading experience, to be sure – this is a pivotal moment in Trek history that’s never been even glimpsed before – but above all, The Last Starship is a dark and complex sci-fi you can hand to anyone.”
The series takes place during The Burn, a galaxy-wide disaster which caused the destruction of every active warp core, killing trillions and shattering the peace and stability the United Federation of Planets provided for seven centuries. Facing a true wild west in space, a mysteriously resurrected Kirk will need to lead a new crew and ship in a seemingly impossible effort to uphold Starfleet’s mission of unity across the cosmos.
The cast will be populated by new characters with the legendary Kirk the only face that will be familiar to fans.
“William Shatner’s iconic performance transcends borders and Kirk is one of the great characters of the modern fiction canon,” stated Kelly. “He was also the first Star Trek character we ever wrote, a leader and warrior poet with boundless tragedy and contradiction. Now, we’re honored to be taking this character into truly uncharted, groundbreaking territory in The Last Starship…as the Federation’s greatest pioneer must face down the inferno that threatens to consume his entire legacy.”
Starship is intended to be the main book in IDW’s already busy Trek line-up. The publisher has been putting out Trek comics for years but earlier this year wrapped up a few long-running storylines, including Kelly and Lanzing’s previous book. In July, the company will debut limited series Star Trek: Red Shirts and then Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Seeds of Salvation in August. It then launches Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming, another limited series, in September.
Last Starship will feature a primary cover by Francesco Francavilla, and variants by Skyler Patridge and Michael Cho. There will also be full art variants and a foil variant. The debut issue hits Sept. 24.
Check out the covers below.
Courtesy of IDW
Courtesy of IDW
Courtesy of IDW
