NYCC: IDW Panel Discusses Upcoming Star Trek Ongoing Series and Reveals Previously Unannounced New Series

Liana Kangas, Jackson Lanzing, J.K. Wodward, and Chris Fenolgio at New York Comic Con 2022. Image: T. Rick Jones.

OCTOBER 8, 2022 - This weekend is New York Comic Con and DSTN is there. IDW Publishing is in the process of planning and publishing several new series, most of which we’ve covered at one time or another. Joining the panel were relative newcomer artist Liana Kangas, writer Jackson Lanzing, and artists J.K. Woodward and Chris Fenolgio, with Senior Editor Heather Antos moderating. The team gave us updates on the current comic books in development and also made a big announcement about a previously unannounced ongoing series.

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Star Trek Ongoing

The USS Theseus in IDW's new ongoing Star Trek comic.

We’ve known a new ongoing Star Trek comic book, simply entitled Star Trek, was coming for a while now. The series will see Benjamin Sisko returning from his years-long excursion into the Celestial Temple. Upon his return, her will take command of a new starship and collect a group of characters from throughout the Star Trek universe.

The series, which will take place between Star Trek: Voyager’s finale, “Endgame,” and Star Trek: Nemesis, and follows the crew of the USS Theseus, a new starship with a history stretching back to the Original Series era. The crew is led, of course, by Captain Sisko, with Data as his first officer, Tom Paris at the helm, Ensign Lily Sato, a descendant of Star Trek Enterprise’s Hoshi, at comms (where else?), and T’Lir, a non-binary Vulcan character at the science console. And, beginning in the second issue, everyone’s favorite Klingon, Worf, will be joining the crew at tactical.

Kangas has been a casual fan of the Star Trek films, but never really watched much else from the franchise. “I’m really excited about this series,” she said, “because it’s going to introduce me a lot more into these deeper characters that everybody resonates with.”

“This book is canon,” Lanzing announced. “Star Trek has made a real dedication toward all of the books in the Star Trek line being canon and operating not only inside what is happening inside on the shows currently and what happened in the shows in the past but what is going to happen in the shows moving forward.”

That’s good news for fans of tie-in media, but bad for their wallets. Star Trek’s first issue comes out on October 26.

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Star Trek: Defiant

The panel also unexpectedly announced a brand new ongoing series, coming out in March. Star Trek: Defiant will be a direct spinoff from Star Trek and feature a captain that many fans have waited to see since Star Trek: The Next Generation left the air: Captain Worf.

IDW's new ongoing series Starv Trek: Defiant begins in March 2023.

Star Trek: Defiant will be a direct spinoff from Star Trek. On page one we’ll see Worf stealing the Defiant. The rest of the crew, apparently on an unsanctioned mission, will include Spock, B’Elanna Torres, Data’s evil twin, Lore, and Ro Laren.

“One of the neat things here is also going to be in terms of what splits Worf and Sisko up,” Lanzing revealed. “These are two guys who are effectively best friends. There is so much respect between these two. What could split these two up? It’s not amicable, so what could split them up?”

Lanzing added, “Effectively if a flagship (the Theseus) is going to be dealing with very frontline, cosmic questions, well, the Defiant is going to be working in the shadows.”

Other Titles

Currently running is Star Trek: Picard - Stargazer, which takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of the series and involves not just Picard, but Seven of Nine and a new half-Romulan, half-Reman character, as well. Also running currently is Star Trek: Lower Decks, which looks and reads very much like a missing episode from the series. Star Trek: Resurgence follows Leah Brahms on an adventure and acts as a prequel to the upcoming video game of the same name. That title will release in November.

Finally, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - The Illyrian Enigma comes out this fall. “In think it’s going to shock a lot of people when they find out where the Illyrians actually come from,:” Antos said, then slyly added, “You might find it…fascinating.”