Comics round up: After Darkness, August releases, timeline, and latest covers

Lots of comics new for you, starting with news of a new comic series tie-in to Into Darkness, Roberto Orci tweeted to confirm there will be a four-part prequel series exploring the character of John Harrison, coming in the fall:

Ask and ye shall receive. IDW Pubishing IS going to do a 4-issue John Harrison miniseries this fall!

Before then though, we're heading into events after the film. Here's a first look at After Darkness; the three-part comic sequel to Into Darkness, which will comprise issues twenty-one to twenty-three, of the Star Trek ongoing series. Wired posted these two preview pages (pages 10 and 13 from Part 1):

 

Pre-order: Things From Another World, Forbidden Planet.

Wired also posted an interview with the series writer, Mike Johnson, where he gave a vague outline of where he'll be going next:

You’ll see immediately on the first page of [the story] that it’s very much a sequel in terms of plot. Things happen in the movie that can’t be ignored going forward, and we will see the repercussions play out over the months to come. It’s also a character-based sequel, as we see how the crew reacts to the events of the movie, and what it means for their relationships going forward.

I’m aiming for a combination of two things going forward. First, all-new worlds and stories that expand the galaxy as we know it, and second, a larger epic story about the clash of civilizations. And I’m not just talking about the Klingons vs. the Federation. The map of the Star Trek galaxy is divided into established empires and the great unknown. I want to explore both.”

IDW have also given us some idea of where what's next with the release of their August solicitations, which give us the first details of Star Trek ongoing issue twenty-four, a sequel to Star Trek: The Video Game:

Star Trek (ongoing) #24
Written by Mike Johnson. Art by Claudia Balboni. Cover by Tim Bradstreet, with retail incentive sketch and photo covers.

The adventures of Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise crew continue in an all-new adventure that follows the events of the hit film STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS and the new STAR TREK video game! A classic enemy returns in this story overseen by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci. Beware... THE GORN!

 

IDW have also released an interactive timeline, explaining the timeline divergence, and placing all the ongoing comics.

They suggest the following chronological order for the ongoing series:

• 2256: #20 - Red Level Down
• 2257:
• #18 - Uhura origins
• #19 - Scotty origins
• 2258:
• 2009 movie
• #15 and #16 - Mirrored
• #1 and #2 - Where No Man Has Gone Before
• #3 and #4 - The Galileo Seven
• #5 and #6 - Operation: Annihilate
• #7 and #8 - Vulcan's Vengeance
• #9 and #10 - The Return of the Archons
• #17 - McCoy origins
• #13 - The Redshirt's Tale
• #14 - Keenser origins
• 2259:
• #11 and #12 - The Truth About Tribbles!
• Countdown to Darkness
• #21, #22, and #23 - After Darkness

If you've missed the ongoing series so far, IDW are going to try and tempt you with their latest 100 Penny Press release (reprints of their comics for one dollar), which is Star Trek (ongoing) #1. Details of that and other upcoming reprints, after the jump:

Comic bits: Seeking old strips, and the best of Klingons

Last year, IDW's Library of American Comics began something very special, with the release of Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics, Volume One - The first of four planned books which will reprint, in brilliantly high quality, the long lost, and often forgotten, comic strips published in newspapers in the US, and magazines in the UK. The Library of American Comics are now at work on part two of the US strips collection, and are looking for help filling some gaps in their collection. Comic collector and author Rich Handley sent this appeal to TrekWeb:

In December 2012, LOAC published Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics, Volume 1: 1979-1981, reprinting the first 10 L.A. Times Syndicate strips by Thomas Warkentin, Sharman DiVono and Ron Harris ( http://www.libraryofamericancomics.com/catalog/series/2419/). In creating that first volume, we worked hard to find the highest-quality strips available. Now we're preparing Volume 2, and we're on the lookout once more. We've already located all of the strips from the second batch of 10 stories, but are reaching out to the fan community in the hope of finding higher-quality versions of some of them. If you have any of the actual dailies (the original strips, rather than photocopied versions) published between February 1982 and January 1983, and would be willing to lend them for scanning purposes (or provide high-resolution scans), please contact editor Dean Mullaney at info@loacomics.com. Thank you for your assistance. With your help, we can continue presenting these lost gems in the best light possible.

Elsewhere in IDW, work is under-way preparing another reprint: Amazon have added a listing for Best of Klingons, an omnibus book coming in September which will collect together IDW's own Klingons: Blood Will Tell, and the first four issues of DC Comic's first TOS series. Here's the Amazon blurb:

Sharpen your bat'leth and prepare for war in this collection of unforgettable Klingon tales from the Star Trek universe. Including the original 4-part DC start to The Original Series as well as the 6-issue Klingons: Blood Will Tell series by Scott and David Tipton, this volume is more fun than is allowed by Klingon law!

IDW actually planned a Best of Klingons omnibus back in 2009, as part of their Archives series of omnibuses. That book, which was ultimately cancelled, was also to include the first four DC TOS comics, as well as the next two comics after (the same content as the previous Titan Books omnibus, To Boldly Go). The cover presented here is from the cancelled Best of Klingons book.

Latest from Cross Cult (New Frontier and comics)

Cross Cult have released their latest New Frontier character image, it's Shelby:

On the comics front, my usual German informant, Jens Deffner of Unreality SF, has pointed me towards a Cross Cult forum post announcing their future plans for comics. After impressive sales of Countdown they have found further comic sales disappointing and will no longer be releasing series omnibuses. As an alternative they are considering doing much larger omnibuses instead, with four miniseries in a single limited edition hardcover book. They're seeing customer feedback on the idea on the forum post. The first book provisional could include Klingons: Blood Will Tell (TOS), Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor (TOS), Fool's Gold (DS9), and Turnaround (NF).

IDW reprints in Brazil

If like me you're fascinated and intrigued by the international reprints of all things Star Trek then you're in luck, as thanks to TrekWeb's Gustavo Leao (who posted an image of the most recent reprint in question on the IDW forums) I've been finding out about the Brazilian reprints (in Portuguese of course) of IDW titles coming from the publisher Devir. They're a little behind and a little slow, having started in 2008 and so far only just got to the first Alien Spotlight series. Here's what they've done so far:

Klingons: Blood Will Tell, aka Klingons: Herança de Sangue
-Published in November 2008
-Translated by Antônio C. Neto, with Portuguese lettering by Reinaldo Fraga
-If google's translations are cirrect this book included some sort of technical manual for the D7 class in addition to the comic series!

Year Four, aka Ano Quatro
-Published in May 2009
-Translated by Anthony C. Grandson

The Space Between, aka Interlúdios
-Published in July 2009
-Translated by Anthony C. Grandson, with Portuguese lettering by Reinaldo Fraga

Alien Spotlight, aka Raças Alienígenas (Alien Races)
-Published in August 2010

IDW August

ComicNewsi have posted IDW's solicitations for August, which includes two Star Trek comics and a rather large omnibus:

Star Trek Movie Adaptation #6
The official comics adaptation of the blockbuster film STAR TREK comes to an epic conclusion in this mini-series presented by J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman! Kirk, Spock and the crew of the Enterprise fight to save Earth from Vulcan's fate! Brought to you by the creative team behind the best-selling STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN, this series includes scenes not included in the original film!Burden of Knowledge #3
When the Enterprise arrives too late to save another starship in distress, all evidence of guilt points to a shocking source: a fellow Federation member! Can Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock prevent all-out war with the Tellarites? From the creative team behind SPOCK: REFLECTIONS!





Star Trek Omnibus: The Original Series
Blast off with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise on fantastic voyages through exciting worlds in this collection of Original Series era Star Trek comics. Collects Star Trek series Year Four, Enterprise Experiment, Klingons: Blood Will Tell, and The Original Series Alien Spotlights.

IDW bits

From Joe Corrney's website we have the first look at his cover for the fifth and final issue of the Ghosts miniseries:And from Amazon a cover for the omnibus of Alien Spotlight II (though I'm assuming not final as the Enterprise is rendered rather roughly and it omits the Cardassian issue at the moment):
Also from Amazon the first hints at a new book in IDW's Omnibus series, this time collecting several of their own miniseries. Star Trek Omnibus: The Original Series will apparently contain IDW's Year Four, The Enterprise Experiment, Klingons: Blood Will Tell, and the TOS Alien Spotlight issues (the other series are all IDW's earliest TOS series, so maybe just from Alien Spotlight I?).

A year of IDW Star Trek

One year ago this day IDW kicked off it's range of Star Trek comics with History Lesson, the first issue of The Space Between miniseries. So how have they faired in their first year?

Well a couple of months into The Space Between IDW launched their second miniseries, and have kept up two simultaneous series since. Which gives their first year a grand total of four miniseries (two of which aren’t quite finished yet).

For all the criticism it got for odd plot holes and the abysmally inconclusive final issue of the series, The Space Between was actually a pretty strong start for IDW. Each stand alone issue was an interesting tale, the second and forth issues remain two of the best they've produced so far. The artwork throughout the series was consistently interesting, and very attractive. Unfortunately the final issue, which promised to tie all the issues together, really dragged the series down as it utterly failed in giving any kind of satisfying conclusion. But if you ignore the ending, the individual stories told in The Space Between were enjoyable and well worth reading.

IDW's second series, Klingons: Blood Will Tell was a significantly stronger entry than The Space Between. The series was joined up by a continuing story arc from the start, and suffered none of the editorial errors or odd jumping to conclusions of the TSB series. Each of the first four issues creatively retold a TOS Klingon episode from the Klingons’ point a view. A delightful concept enjoyably executed. The strongest issues in this series were the second and third, which focused on a single character from the episodes and really told his story. The first and forth suffered somewhat in being tied to events of the episodes but were still thoroughly enjoyable. The final issued brought the series to a magnificent and glorious conclusion. Klingons: Blood Will Tell set the standard for IDW's Trek comics, so far some have come close, but nothing has surpassed this wonderful series.

Next up was Year Four, endeavouring to present lost episodes from the forth season of The Original Series that never was. The concept of the series is sound, and the ideas behind each issue are very good, really taking the TOS theme for exploring present day issues, touching on genetic engineering, oil and the Iraq war and reality TV and doing some very TOS-like sound-based aliens. Unfortunately the strong ideas for this series is about as good as it gets. Some issues are better than others, the forth issue, on reality TV is enjoyable, well illustrated and the story is well held together. But other issues suffer terribly from rushed an thin story telling, which isn't helped by a strict panel layout through the series which restricts pages to four wide panels (trying to emulate a widescreen TV apparently) - the result is pages were very little happens as a full quarter page panel is used for the most pointless things, and other pages were far to much of the same happens, as each panel is near identical to the previous in a long scene, this coupled with the rather flat and unexciting artwork in many of the issues crippled a series which could have been so much better. Year Four isn't all bad, there is much to enjoy, but it is easily the weakest entry into IDW's Star Trek range so far.

Finally for 2007 we got Alien Spotlight, six issues by six different creative teams (two of which are still to come). Having each issue completely standalone in story and creators seems to have helped make each issue stronger itself. The first issue on the Gorn, while not hugely original, is attractive and engaging. The second issue on the Vulcans suffers a little from some odd artwork but has a strong story. The Andorians issue has a very strong and interesting story and equally good artwork, however said artwork does suffer a little from the very texty story, with speech bubbles and talking heads filling a lot of the pages, fortunately that speech is so good it doesn’t matter. The most recent issue on the Orions is a treat for fans of Captain Pike, Orions, and Tellerites alike and fills a nice gap in Star Trek history. So from we’ve had so far, Alien Spotlight is very strong indeed, lots of good stuff and not many flaws at all, and from the looks of previews of the final two issues it’s only going to get better.

So what’s next? Well just within the anniversary (yesterday) the first issue of the next series was released. Intelligence Gathering, by the same team behind Klingons: Blood Will Tell. The first issue is off to a promising start with an engaging story and wonderful artwork, this looks sure to be another hit for IDW.

IDW first year of Star Trek had it’s bumps and hiccups, but overall they’ve done a smashing job, bringing a diverse range of stories by a diverse range of creators with plenty of talent. In the year ahead IDW will be doubling their output of Trek comics with an issue out almost every week, I have great faith that they will continue to deliver enjoyable, engaging and attractive new additions to the Star Trek universe. If they keep up the current, and ever improving, quality of Star Trek comics, then us fans have nothing but goodness ahead.

Blood Will Tell #5 & Year Four #2 review

This week saw two new comics from IDW, the final part of the excellent Blood Will Tell series and part two of Year Four. I'm very pleased to say I loved both of them!

The final issue of Blood Will Tell was a fabulous end to a wonderful series. A most satisfying conclusion to the story of Kahnrah and K'ahlynn, superbly woven into the story of The Undiscovered Country. And a really cool levitating train to boot! Bring on more Tiptons I say!

Mr Tischman is really starting to shine in Year Four, it still suffers from the "Star Trek: Lite" problem, but the story all made sense, didn't jump all over the place and made a most excellent parallel to the current US/Iraq/oil/insurgency situations. As the last issue sort of dealt with genetic engineering and there's one coming up about reality TV I'm getting the feeling IDW are really going for the TOS take on current issues thing - Which I think is a wonderful idea, this issue really shone for doing that.

And an interesting note in the advert for the next issue; Trek comics veteran Gordon Purcell will be doing the art for that issue, cool!

Just one complaint really: No titles again! dear dear dear.

IDW November

Comics Continuum has posted IDW's November solicitations which are as follows:

Alien Spotlight: Andorians
Written by Paul Storrie, art by Leonard O'Grady, covers by Zach Howard and O'Grady.

In the vast Star Trek universe, many diverse alien races abound, and now they finally get their due! Continuing a series of one-shots, each by a different creative team and featuring a different Star Trek alien race. Now, the spotlight shines on the Andorians. In the issue written by Paul Storrie, Andorian Ortees Shared, a Commander in Starfleet Intelligence, returns to his homeworld while on leave and finds himself in the midst of mistrust and deception, and is captured by a renegade commander of the "True Heirs of Andor."

Year Four #5
Written by David Tischman, art by Steve Conley, covers by Conley and Joe Corroney.

The U.S.S. Enterprise is dispatched to observe a Quark Gluon Plasma experiment at the Gemini Science Station -- in orbit between two suns -- in an effort to learn more about the beginning of the universe. But the formation of a black hole from the experiment's outcome means eminent danger for Spock and Dr. McCoy who are stranded on the debilitated science station.

Klingons: Blood Will Tell omnibus
Writtn by Scott Tipton, art by David Messina, cover by Joe Corroney.

There are two sides to every argument, and this special collection looks at some of the most famous encounters between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire -- from the Klingon perspective! Star Trek fans are used to the Klingons responding with "swift and blinding violence," and now the creative team that brought you Angel: Auld Lang Syne will show us why. Also includes a cover gallery by series artist David Messina and variant cover artist Joe Corroney, as well as the Klingons: Blood Will Tell #1: Klingon Language variant edition and Tipton's original, untranslated script, too.

November's Alien Spotlight issue was previously announced being on the Borg, so looks like they're rejigging the release order for that series.

Blood Will Tell #4 title

As one now expects there was no title for this week's Blood Will Tell issue, but fortunately as before one of the series' writers Scott Tipton comes to the rescue via IDW's message boards. So to title for Blood Will Tell #4 is *fanfare*:

"Blood Reign O'er Me"

Blood Will Tell #4 review

Issue 4 of Klingons: Blood Will Tell is out this week, here’s what I think of it.

This issue is set around the episode "Day of the Dove" and like the first issue of the series set around "Errand of Mercy" I feel it suffered for the constraints put on it by the episode it retells. Where the second and third issues set around "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "A Private Little War" could take a character and really expand it with this issue and the first you have a quite restrictive story which in telling the other side of you don’t get much opportunity to really do a lot different.

That said it was still another superb edition to this consistently brilliant miniseries. As there wasn’t any big background story to explain it’s all just retelling the episode from the Klingons side, which was fun. To stop it being too much of a repeat f the episode the story mostly revolves around a small group of Klingons hunting about on the Enterprise, it works in that you get to see parts of the story not in the episode, I especially liked the scenes where the Klingons got attacked by the plants in the Enterprise’s arboretum, but it also meant the story concluded rather abruptly when (*) (as prose Trek likes to call the Beta XII-A entity) had been figured out by the characters doing their thing in the episode.

Had the TV retelling been all of the comic I don’t think it would work, fortunately the series is pulled together with the movie era story. The final issue is to be all in that era and look forward to seeing how the series concludes, what happens with the movie era characters and how an issue of the series works without a TOS episode to hold it together.

Blood Will Tell #4 preview

IDW have updated their new releases page with the covers and five page preview for Klingons: Blood Will Tell, Issue 4, out this week:

Covers: 1, 2 & 3
Pages 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

Messina Blood Will Tell previews

David Messina, the artist for IDW's Klingons: Blood Will Tell miniseries, has posted some preview artwork for forthcoming issues of the series on his blog:

Check out these posts, here and here, for more of this stunning artwork.

Corroney cover for Blood Will Tell #4

Joe Corroney has updated his blog with his cover artwork for the next issue of IDW's Klingons: Blood Will Tell miniseries:

He also showed off a previously released cover for the first issue of the Year Four miniseries, the new version, which you can see on his blog, has a few more light effects and a more varied background than previously released versions.

Blood Will Tell #3 title

It didn't make it into the comic again but as before writer Scott Tipton comes to the rescue in supplying the title for the third issue of IDW's Klingons: Blood Will Tell miniseries. The title for issue three is *fanfare*:

"The Order of Things"

In his post on IDW's message boards Mr. Tipton also confirmed the photomontage cover for this issue features a Mugato rather than the version featuring Krell shown on IDW's website. Finally he stated he would love to do more comics in the same vein of this fantastic miniseries, so keep buying them peoples!

Blood Will Tell part 3 preview

Ahead of this week's release of the third part of IDW's Klingons: Blood Will Tell series the publisher has updated their new releases page with a five page preview and cover images:

Covers: 1, 2, and 3
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

They have also added a page from this comic to their Art du Jour page.

Messina Blood Will Tell previews

I recently (thanks to TrekMovie.com) found David Messina's blog which includes this cool new cover for the last issue of IDW's Klingons: Blood Will Tell miniseries:

And this bit of internal artwork from a future issue of the series, check out Messina's blog for a step by step break down of how this one was made:

The third issue of Blood Will Tell is out (a bit later than it's scheduled June) next week.

Blood Will Tell #2 review

Well it's a slow news week, and I really enjoyed the most recent comic from IDW, so here's a little review:

Blood Will Tell #2, titled "Beneath the Skin" according to the previous issue but again not actually given a title in the comic, was brilliant!

It was more difficult to fill the gaps with the first issue, set around "Errand of Mercy" as there weren't so many to fill, but this issue had a lot of room to play with, set around "The Trouble with Tribbles", and did good.

A bit of a sad story for Gralmek the Klingon, and the poor unfortunate Arne Darvin who's place he took. It really goes to show Klingons are no Vulcans when they have all those human looking Klingons about but decide to sand away ridges of a Klingon who has them to make him look human, poor fella. Made for cool, if gruesome, imagery and a good back-story though. I think this comic really built very well on the episode, and Trek in general featuring the Lexington, discommendation and sneaking Sisko in from "Trials and Tribble-ations". All round very cool.

I think Blood Will Tell is a really excellent series I can’t wait for the rest. Unlike the TNG series The Space Between, Blood Will Tell doesn’t suffer issue after issue of bizarre plot holes and is all joined up nicely with both the overall framing story arc set around "The Undiscovered Country" and TOS TV era story arc joining the Klingon episodes together very cleverly. Not that I don’t like one off stories, I’m really looking forward to the Alien Spotlight series later this year, the Gorn issue will be written by Scott and David Tipton who write Blood Will Tell and if they do as good a job with the Gorn as they do Klingons it will be glorious.

I like the art for The Space Between, I think they are really very beautiful, but they have also been criticised by others for being too stylised. It is interesting to note how despite being equally if not even more stylised I think Blood Will Tell does a much better job of getting the character likenesses, and also has very attractive, if less pretty, look. The boldness suits both the Klingons and TOS.

IDW August issues

IDW have updated their solicitations page with their issues due in August which includes two Star Trek titles, the second issue of Year Four and the final issue of Klingons: Blood Will Tell.

Year Four, issue 2:
During a routine visit by the U.S.S. Enterprise to Aarak 3, a major supplier of dilithium to the Federation, an attack on the royal palace reveals a group of zealots who resent the Federation's intrusion and desire a return to "the pure ways" of the ancestors. Captain Kirk must figure a way to prevent the zealots' coup while not violating the Prime Directive. Written by David Tischman (Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between) with art by Steve Conley, and an additional cover by Joe Corroney.

Blood Will Tell, issue 5:
The decision has been made! The Klingon Empire is in desperate need of assistance, but will they be willing to ask for it? Kahnrah has chosen how to cast his vote in the High Council—the question is, will he survive long enough to do so? It's high political intrigue, Klingon-style, in the grand finale of Blood Will Tell! Artist Joe Corroney once again provides a special incentive cover.

Blood Will Tell issue 2 preview

IDW have updated their art preview page with pages from issue two, "Beneath the Skin". The five page preview has previously been seen in a Newsarama article, complete with a commentary from the series writers Scott and David Tipton (here). This preview does include this new cover by Joe Corroney:

A sketch variation of his previously released cover, also looks like this cover in colour will be available with or without titles just like the first issue.