Thursday 30 June 2016

New Visions Gorn and Swarm issues

Fans of John Byrne's New Visions series of photo-comics will be pleased to learn that September will be bring two new issues! One of them comes via unconventional channels though. Continue below for all the details.

IDW have once more teamed up with Humble Bundle, to offer a large selection of Star Trek comics in a bundle, with revenues split between the publisher and charities. In this case Traveling Stories and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, plus a third charity of your choosing if you so desire. Currently digital copies of twenty-eight different titles are available (with the promise of more to be added), representing a diverse range of IDW's titles. All you have to do is decide how much you want to pay, with as little as $15 granting access to the entire collection (which would cost hundreds at normal prices). If you want to pay more, you can, and thus more will go to IDW and the charities.

This time there's a very enticing bonus though. If you donate $25 or more you will also be able to claim an exclusive brand new issue in the New Visions series, More of the Serpent Than the Dove, which features the Gorn. As StarTrek.com describe:
...a brand new story that picks up where the fan favorite TOS episode “Arena” left off. Master photostory artist/writer John Byrne presents the comic-book return of the Gorn, as the Federation’s first attempts at a Gorn peace treaty take a dire turn. 
The book, which unlike the rest of the bundle will will be delivered as a printed volume, will also reprint the first issue of Byrne's Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor.


The Humble Bundle is available until the 13th of July, while the exclusive comic is expected to ship in September.

Byrne has also posted a teaser page from this on his forums, where he regularly documents his work in progress on the series:


He also posted this costume test for a potential alternate uniform option:


Meanwhile September will also see the release of the next regular issue in the series. Issue twelve is Swarm, and this is how the solicitation describes it:
An alien threat that numbers in the millions, and star systems are already dying. What can the crew of the Enterprise do—alone!

Finally, Byrne's recent forum postings also included an update on his planned multi-era story, which now looks set to connect two rather than three periods of TOS:
I've been planning a crossed-timeline story for a couple of years. Now that the 50th Anniversary is going to slip by without my getting to it, I've decided to eliminate one element and make the story simpler
Originally I was planning a story with three parts, Pike, TOS Kirk and Movie Kirk switching to each other's ships. I've decided to drop TOS Kirk's part, and just have the "bookends" switch -- so Move Kirk on Pike's Enterprise and vice-versa.

Probably have McCoy go along with Kirk, too play the "Robin" part. Haven't decided yet whether Movie Spock will actually remember Pike telling him of this event, or if I'll play it as "cumulative" time travel so it's all new to everyone.

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, including a list of all New Visions comics.


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