Writer: Mike Johnson
Artist: Tony Shasteen
$3.99
IDW Publishing

 

There’s nothing particularly significant about Boldy Go as a new #1 issue for the Star Trek franchise. Boldly Go essentially continues the existing Star Trek comic from IDW set in the new J.J. Abrams film timeline. For better or worse, Star Trek has fallen prey to the same renumbering phenomenon which plagues every other comic book, because first issues sell better and get more attention. But for those of you keeping score: yeah, this is the same comic that you were already reading.

Continuing past the events of Star Trek Beyond, Boldly Go gives our heroes a bit of a break as they’re scattered across the galaxy before the inevitable events which always pull franchise characters back together. Spock and Uhura have settled on New Vulcan to figure out how their relationship works; Scotty is teaching back at the Academy; Sulu’s assigned to a ship near the Delta Quadrant; and Kirk’s assumed command of a new ship with Bones and Chekov joining him. It’s almost nice, seeing the characters have just a little bit of downtime before the next problem.

That problem turns out to be a big threat which is reincorporated from a part of Star Trek‘s original, pre-reboot universe. We’d best not spoil it here, although the news and solicitations have made it pretty clear what that threat is. Johnston and Shasteen at least try to maintain the mystery by keeping the threat just out of camera view this issue, so we meet it only through a vague sound effect that readers won’t specifically recognize until the last page. For purposes of protecting the three people who don’t know who the villain is, it works.

For those fans who want to see more of the new Star Trek franchise or taste an updated version of a classic Trek threat, Boldly Go‘s opening arc could be a fun diversion. If there’s a downside, it’s that IDW’s ongoing Abramsverse comics do delve into classic Trek stories and characters a lot, so bringing in this particular problem is unoriginal in the broader scope of the book. But in the scope of a single story, this could be a nice distraction for a reader who just wants more Trek.

Rating: Four warp drives out of five.