Comics have been a huge part of Star Trek for decades–the first was Star Trek #1, dated October 1967. It’s the perfect format to expand the quadrants and eras; to see the Kelvinverse crew undertake their five-year mission in a way we never could on screen. So, when it comes to the 60th anniversary, without a film or notable episode to host the occasion, comics are the perfect place for a celebration.

The stock anthology is a popular format for moments like this. They work best when they gather a diverse mix of creatives, storytelling, art styles, and tones. It gives a chance for experimentation and to tell, or at least hint at stories, that can’t be told anywhere else. That’s why this one-shot is a little underwhelming. 

In their introduction, or conclusion to the one-shot, the IDW group editor Heather Antos hails the magic of Star Trek, which means every fan has their own entry point. But in an issue that can’t nod to every generation, let alone every possible entry point.

It’s a strong start with the legendary David Gerrold, writer of ‘The Trouble with Tribbles’, dropping in to pen a new short story for the Original Series crew. It’s a sequel to ‘I Mudd’ where Harry Mudd (“swindler and con man, liar and rogue,” as James T. Kirk once termed him), is hoping to escape being trapped on a planet with 500 android replicas of his wife Stella (Goodbye Harry, have fun!”). It’s an intriguing addition, as Gerrold performed an uncredited rewrite on the original 1967 episode written by Stephen Kandel. He knows his Mudd, but this is a pretty throwaway opening, if amusingly drawn by JP Buzio. 

Another frivolous entry is Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos’s Sulu, giving some prime pages to the stripped, sword-jabbing Sulu from ‘The Naked Time’. Perhaps it’s saving the legend by picking him up from the odd episode that saw crew members’ inhibitions melt and actually giving him something dynamic to do in the half-buff: pitting him against Klingons (Original Series and Next Generation era) who’ve hijacked the Enterprise. Mostly, it’s a tribute to the franchise legend George Takei. It may end with a joke about Sulu’s ambition to be captain, but it’s the “Oh my” panel that’s likely to stick in the memory. 

Expected to be frivolous is the Animated Series tale that sees the Original Series crew take on two slow-witted pakleds, as introduced in The Next Generation’s ‘Samaritan Snare’. It’s a nice tribute to the lesser-thought-about part of Star Trek and a light and welcome fusion of eras.

Following a strange tale from Dave Baker and Nicole Goux that attempts to spin out Jean-Luc Picard and Beverly Crusher’s romance from, weirdly, Riker and Troi’s marriage in Star Trek: Nemesis, which doesn’t seem quite to know how to end, there’s an interesting drop into the life of Young Worf. David Walker and the Escorza Brothers’ story doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s a fascinatingly violent exploration of Worf balancing his Klingon and human heritage all the way up to his last appearance in Star Trek: Picard.

Less successful, unfortunately, given it’s a current franchise flag-bearer, is a Starfleet Academy tale that’s a wordy two-hander, with a huge amount of dialogue filling out the futuristic starship corridors. It just looks and reads a bit tame; a bit unnecessarily serious. It loses out to the one-page, rather silly take on Star Trek: Enterprise that wryly mocks the third Star Trek film: Ensign Jimenez’s ‘Search for Archer’.

The oddest segments include a jam-packed sequel to Star Trek: Lower Decks, disarming mostly because of the style rather than the jokes and packed references. Rightly, the original Series steals most of this collection’s pages, but an odd and dour entry penned by stand-up Dana Gould revolving around Montgomery Scott is the weirdest outlier. A misjudged attempt at fusing emotional significance, weighty meaning and some reckless illogic on a dark night on the original Enterprise doesn’t feel very Scotty at all; a tale that doesn’t look better on paper.

There’s a curious absence of the Kelvinverse in the collection, and even more curious is the lack of Mike Johnson, IDW’s most prolific writer of Star Trek comics. But as the door closes on The Kelvin Era and the publisher prepares to wrap key stories from the era in a new compact line, eyes are on the future.

The highlight, IDW will be relieved to hear, is the addition of their new ongoing series. A self-contained prologue feeds into a segment of the big new ongoing series that follows the Enterprise-G five years after its inaugural mission under the command of Seven of Nine. The prologue’s an atmospheric, dark affair, featuring murder, a Betazoid driven mad and even the taking out of Jean-Luc Picard with an undeniable dose of cosmic horror. It may be on the bleaker side of the spectrum, but it’s nicely scripted and drawn. It also leads well into the new adventures of the Enterprise-G, which look stunning and promise to push the boat out far more than many stories in this collection in the hands of scripter Christopher Cantwell and artist Dennis Menheere. The art is lovely, packing pages with a frenetic sense of bleeding colour, spiky, skewered angle action, and the character juggling we all want.

It’s a great finish for the anthology one-shot, which is otherwise a mixed bag that misses more than it entertains. Despite that promising immediate future in Star Trek comics, this 60th anniversary special doesn’t quite capture the breadth and variety of the franchise. 

A hardcover edition of the one-shot, with more content, is forthcoming and may better capture and balance the range. Meanwhile, we’ll be keeping an eye on what follows from Cantwell and Menheere’s dynamic Star Trek #1. Live Long and Prosper.