Tuesday 26 July 2016

Star Trek comics round-up: Green Lantern crossover continues, Captain Data, Gold Key, covers, and more

Lots of Star Trek comics news below, including the return of Captain Data, preview art and covers from several series, and IDW updates from the San Diego Comic Con.

First up, a new crossover series! Last year's really rather good Kelvin timeline/Green Lantern crossover series, The Spectrum War, ended quite surprisingly with the Green Lantern characters apparently having settled in the Star Trek universe. A sequel series due to start later this year promises to pick up where the previous tale left off:
Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will once again cross paths with the Green Lantern Corps in a sequel to last year’s Star Trek/Green Lantern series. The creative team of Mike Johnson and Angel Hernandez will reteam for another epic space opera, this one picking up the new status quo where it left off and introducing additional cosmic heroes and villains familiar to fans of both series. 

Meanwhile coming in September is the first issue in IDW's new anthology series, Waypoint, which will feature both a TNG and a TOS story. The TNG tale, written by Donny Cates, with art by Mack Chater, is due to feature Data and Geordi. Cates shared the following piece of art on Twitter, which seems to suggest we will finally be revisiting Captain Data, introduced as the commander of the Enterprise-E in the Countdown series back in 2009. The image, which I assume from the style is another cover for the issue, also features the Insignia class, a fan design by Mark Kingsnorth, which is getting its second official appearance here after appearing in the 2016 Ships of the Line calendar.


The TOS story in Waypoint #1 is written and illustrated by Sandra Lanz, who posted these lovely art samples on her Twitter. Note these same panels were previewed when the series was first announced, but as line art, while here we have the Uhura parts of the colours.


At the San Diego Comic Con IDW hosted a Star Trek comics panel, where among other things a cover for Waypoint issue two was revealed. StarTrek.com posted a tiny preview of it in their reporting of the panel. UPDATE: Dayton Ward has revealed he and Kevin Dilmore will be writing one of the stories in the second issue (their first Star Trek comic after many prose adventures), which will be a glorious homage to Gold Key Comics:
She went with our pitch to write a story that pays homage to the old Gold Key Trek comics of yesteryear. We are so totally journeying back to the days of landing parties with backpacks and utility belts, Spock with oversized ears, and the Enterprise belching fire from its warp nacelles.
The cover is by Star Trek comics veteran, Gordon Purcell:


StarTrek.com also noted that some of the other covers for the Waypoint series, by J.K. Woodward, will reportedly form a "a remarkable, franchise-spanning triptych".

According to The Hollywood Reporter, nuTrek comics writer Mike Johnson apparently also noted during the Comic Con panel, that the new post-Star Trek Beyond series, Boldy Go, will feature characters from the Starfleet Academy series.

At the close of the panel Johnson was honored for apparently now being "The most-prolific writer of Star Trek comics... Ever.", and was given an unique illustration from J.K. Woodward.

Here's a closer look, it features Johnson in the Captain's chair, with editor Sarah Gaydos at communications, and with John Van Citters and Risa Kessler of CBS Comsumer Products keeping an eye on him over his shoulder.


More new art features on an extra variant cover for Manifest Destiny #1, offered to select retailers via Fried Pie. This homage to The Undiscovered Country's poster is by Francesco Francavilla.


Mike Johnson also recently tweeted the diptych cover art, by Tony Shasteen, for the Kelvin/prime crossover story Connection:


Finally, cover artist George Caltsoudas also tweeted some of his covers, showing his initial sketches compared to the final product. Here's Boldly Go #1:


And his cover for Starfleet Academy #2:


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.



2 comments:

luna.ben said...

Great article! Is there anything new on the Eaglemoss collection from Comic Con? I know they had a panel discussion on the line but I've not yet heard any of the announcements they were supposed to make.

8of5 said...

Not heard a peep from that panel yet. But Ben said something about it being recorded, so hopefully will pop up soon.

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