Star Trek announces new comics line with familiar foes

A new Star Trek comics series will be released in May at IDW titled Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes.

This five-part comic will be helmed by Marc Guggenheim and will be set immediately after the events of the 1979 film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. 

Artwork will be provided by Oleg Chudakov and colors by DC Alonso, the comic will see Admiral James Kirk and his crew pitted against new foes and old. 

A space anomaly throws a criminal mastermind and a pilot chasing him into our universe and the Enterprise crew must prevent them from starting a war with the Romulans and unleashing a foreign superweapon.

Though there is a spanner thrown into the works when the criminal mastermind and pilot reveal their faces, showing themselves to be doppelgängers of the heroes. 

Talking to StarTrek.com, Guggenheim said “Almost all Trek stories are told from the point of view of the Enterprise crew, but I was interested in telling a story from the perspective of an outsider as a means of recapturing how it felt for me when I first saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

Guggenheim is an acclaimed screenwriter, producer, and comic book writer, working on CW’s television series Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, and the comic titled Star Wars: Han Solo and Chewbacca.  

The cover and its variants for the first issue have also been released, with some featuring a helmet or masked figure.

Series editor Heather Antos says that there are “possible easter eggs to some of our other Trek books, too?” to be found in the comic. 

2023 will be a big year for Star Trek fans. Another Star Trek comic, Star Trek: Defiant, will start its run in March, and April will see the release of the video-game Star Trek: Resurgence. 

May will also see the release of a Star Trek comics crossover event, titled Star Trek: Day of Blood.