When Idw announced his latest Star Trek cartoon, The last star vesselMuch of the focus was on the fact that the series somehow would revive Captain James T. Kirk for a story set in the 31st century timeline that was introduced in Star Trek: Discovery. Now the series is here; The assumption is much more than nostalgia for the original Trek Captain, but instead a fascinating way of exploring not one but two different larger plotlines developed in modern Star Trek‘s streaming age – ideas Star Trek Largely abandoned on TV.
The first edition of The last star vessel– Written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, with art by Adrian Bonilla and Heather Moore, and letters of Clayton Cowles – are set in the first of these two unanswered options: the immediate outbreak of “The Burn” in the early 31st century. The cataclysmic, galaxy-wide destabilization of Dilithium (and with it formed the almost instantane violation of any active varpkers) a large back story element across Discovery‘s third season after the titular ship was shot into its long future and into the middle of the 32nd century, to a galaxy that had already largely struggled with the new status quo in a greatly diminished federation and limited Interstellar FTL journey.
But while Discovery‘s third season largely formed about solving the problem of combustion and its mysterious origin (and letting the ship neglect the problems around FTL trips large The last star vessel In the direct demand for the combustion itself, the series itself gives a fascinating sense of drama. The first is the fact that no matter what happens, we pretty much know that the Starfleet crisis won’t be resolved because it’s Discovery‘s job a century after all this takes place without a dramatic time shopping or two.
The other is that we get an incredible chance to see Starfleet officers fight in real time with the loss of a Star Trek The status quo, which had existed for millennia and what that loss can do for even the best and brightest. Last Star Ship Does not give us a stagnant Federation in moments before it is laid low but one that was absolutely increasing: the problem opens with the USS Sagan in the pursuit of a gorn ship but not for any common problem but because the ship’s crew has a chance to convince Gorn to join the Federation as last Excellent known species in the galaxy. Even if we know everything is about to go to hell for Captain Delacourt Sato and his crew, in the shortest moments, Star TrekFederation is at CUSP in a complete utopian society, the ultimate achievement of goals, the franchise as a whole has wanted to advance for almost 60 years, an idea of Star Trek Without external conflict, the series has rarely considered before.
Of course, things don’t hold: In the exact moment Sagan Achieve this water change torque with diplomacy, the combustion occurs. The SaganAlong with the Starfleet’s primary fleet and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ships, starfleet or otherwise, across the galaxy, explodes. Sato and three of his bridge herd are some of the small number of Starfleet staff who are still alive and become key figures in the federation’s response to an almost complete crushing of galactic civilization in a moment. Unlike DiscoveryThere is no flash forward to a changed but still largely similar status quo. There are no people here who are used to this; There are not yet the flowering pockets of society or isolationist worlds we see across the series, waiting for the hope of unity in the Federation that will eventually be delivered by Discovery Crew Mission.
All in The last star vessel is raw and at the moment, and enough to put even the most idealistic of the starfle’s surviving members make. And not only do we get to sit with that horror but The last star vessel‘s first edition almost luxurious in it, Bonilla and Moore’s art wreathed in thick, outlined line work and heavily inked shadows. Last Star Ship Feels almost like a horror cartoon as much as it makes one Star Trek One but fear is existential: the horror is in the collapse of a society that has been given in almost any work by Star Trek ever made.
That is what people suddenly are willing to do in the kind of horrible situation that leads to Last Star Ship‘s second twist and its other riff on an unanswered Star Trek opportunity. While the remains of Starfleet’s command call on the ground to navigate what comes next for the galaxy, they are interrupted by the arrival of a well -known envoy: a masked, cybernetic figure, kendriles swirling around those who eventually reveal their name, face and identity … Star Trek: PicardAgnes Jurati, the ambassador for his own castle -co -operative, not seen for almost a thousand years, ready again to work with the federation as it had been at the start.
One of the greatest, strangest disappointments over the transition from Picard‘s second season to its third was how much potential was spread in its sudden step into a nostalgic Next generation Reunion (though it was ultimately a pretty good reunion). The Ballsy notion of a whole new fraction of castle not only willing to be at peace with the federation, but even potentially joining it was the kind of bold thinking that Star Trek had not considered for years – not since Tng Even had transformed Klingons from antagonists to allies. But the show never did anything with it: Jurati was just an original Picard character among several who never appeared in season three who reunited Tng The crew to confront the castle threat we already knew and had seen a lot of times before.
Borg-Jurati’s role in The last star vessel is as delicious as her short appearance in Picard Season two finale was. While Starfleet had largely wiped out Borg Collective, Agnes’ cooperative is a much different animal that offers to help Starfleet’s remnants of building a new flagship to try to bring hope to the galaxy working on Borg Transwarp technology rather than Dilithium-based FTL journey. On the surface, she is amicable and pushes a desperate federation into alliance to live up to the ideals it is represented for thousands of years – she is not there to kick Starfleet while it is down or finish the job. But it is immediately clear by the end of Last Star Ship #1, that the cooperative has its own goals rather than just walking in the Starfleet to put his Latin, where its mouth is: not quite a villain or heroic, but plays a longer game across the new series.
It’s only there that Captain Kirk of it all comes into play. After helping Starfleet almost literally cobblestone together a new flagship – USS OmegaAn eerie hybrid of dozens of Starfleet -Ship Hulls and Juratis Transwarp -Engineering -reveals Jurati that her reward out of the purchase is none other than a blood test by Kirk, stored at daycare for centuries. Using advanced castle -nanites, the test creates a very real Jim Kirk. Not reminiscent of a new body or clone that she dismissed, but Kirk in his prime minister, a church that breathes, thinks and remembers as if his last moment in Star Trek: Generations Wasn’t finally at all. The way Jurati tells the resurrection as it was is hopeful: she believes in this moment in Star Trek Requires one like Kirk, a Frontier diplomat who, with boldness, explored and fought for the future of the Federation, rather than being caught up in resting on the laurels of her past as her grief-affected Starfleet contemporaries are. But there is something, again, presented as almost awful of what she has done: a castle playing God with one of the most revered figures of Star TrekAlthough it is for an hour of great need.
How The last star vessel Builds on this from here to see. The debut problem closes for a drill of a very well -known conflict for this reborn Kirk and Omega‘s crew to confront, in a fraction of Klingons that uses the chaos of the burn to try to return their people to the warrior roots of their ancestors and end the Starfleet once and for all. What remains interesting is not how it manages to reshape the well -known of Star Trek‘s story, but how it is based on the great potential it has begun to mine from Star Trek‘s recent era to create something new and exciting instead.
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