Kelly And Lanzing Set To Bring More Embarrassment To IDW Star Trek Comics Line By Bringing Captain Kirk Back From The Grave
IDW Publishing's announcement of "Star Trek: The Last Starship" featuring a resurrected Captain Kirk is yet another disaster for Trek fans. It represents yet another misguided attempt to shoehorn writers Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing into Star Trek while recycling concepts that have already been done better by others.
Kelly and Lanzing's previous Trek work has been nothing short of awful, transforming beloved characters into mouthpieces for contemporary social justice messaging. Their most egregious offense was introducing a Vulcan character who lectures other crew members about pronouns and identifies as "they/them" – a concept that makes no logical sense given that Vulcans are clearly established as having binary biological sexes like humans. This kind of ham-fisted identity politics insertion demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of both Vulcan culture and basic storytelling.
Their previous IDW series devolved into poorly written fan fiction that threw together characters from across Trek's golden age without any coherent narrative purpose. Rather than respecting the distinct eras and storylines that made each series special, Kelly and Lanzing created a chaotic mashup that satisfied neither nostalgia nor good storytelling. Characters from The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager were crammed together in scenarios that ignored decades of established continuity and character development.
The concept of bringing Kirk back from the dead isn't even original. William Shatner already explored this territory extensively in his series of Trek novels, including "The Return," "Avenger," and "Spectre," which brought Kirk back to life and reunited him with his Enterprise crew. Shatner's novels, while not perfect, at least maintained respect for the characters and the Trek universe's internal logic.
What makes "The Last Starship" even more offensive to Trek fans is its connection to Discovery's "The Burn" – perhaps the most universally reviled concept in modern Trek history. The Burn, which destroyed every active warp core in the galaxy due to a Kelpien child's emotional outburst, represents everything fans hate about nu-Trek's tendency to prioritize spectacle over scientific plausibility. Tying Kirk's resurrection to this narrative disaster ensures that even the return of Trek's most iconic captain will be tainted by association with Discovery's failures.
“Forget everything you know about Star Trek. The Last Starship is a new crew, a new era, and a completely different tone; our aim is to be literary, intense, innovative, and most of all, accessible,” said Lanzing.
Fans have to forget because Heather Antos certainly doesn’t remember to follow any sort of continuity as editor. Lanzing continued in his statement, “We’re bringing you into the Federation’s darkest hour through the brilliant, noir-soaked lens of artist Adrián Bonilla with zero homework required. Longtime Trek fans will have a deep and fascinating reading experience, to be sure – this is a pivotal moment in Trek history that’s never been even glimpsed before – but above all, The Last Starship is a dark and complex sci-fi you can hand to anyone.”
The timing of this announcement is tone-deaf, coming as fans are still reeling from the cancellation of Star Trek: Prodigy – the only modern Trek series that understood and respected the franchise's legacy. While Prodigy delivered meaningful continuations of Voyager storylines with respectful treatment of legacy characters, it was abandoned by Paramount. Meanwhile, IDW continues to greenlight projects from writers who have consistently demonstrated their inability to understand what made Star Trek appealing in the first place.
Kelly and Lanzing's approach to Trek comics mirrors the problems plaguing the franchise under Alex Kurtzman's stewardship: a focus on contemporary political messaging over timeless themes, disrespect for established continuity, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what made these characters beloved.
The fact that this series is being positioned as IDW's flagship Trek title while superior concepts languish in development hell speaks to the publisher and editor’s misplaced priorities. Rather than giving fans the respectful, continuity-aware Trek comics they've been requesting, IDW continues to double down on writers whose previous work has consistently alienated the core fanbase.
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For me, the burn never existed. I've never watched a single episode of Discovery.
If these clowns want to write fanfic, there are sites for that.