IDW March Star Trek Comic

IDW Publishing has released their publishing plans for March. The month brings just a single trade that compiles the Captain's Log one-shots. More and more it looks like Trek in comic book form is failing and the company is possibly spinning its wheels until Star Trek 2 gets closer to its release date in 2012. If you are interested in the books, just let your local comic book store know. For the full details of IDW's other books including GI Joe, Transformers, Angel and more click here.

Star Trek: Captain's Log
Scott and David Tipton, Marc Guggenheim, Stuart Moore, Keith R. A. DeCandido (w) Andrew Currie, Federica Manfredi, J.K. Woodward (a) David Messina and J.K. Woodward (c)
The most legendary captains of Starfleet get their due in this collection of five standalone tales! See how Captains Pike, Sulu, Harriman, and Jellico handle the responsibilities and challenges they face as Starfleet Captains.
TPB FC $17.99 | 104 Pages | ISBN: 978-160010-887-7

Sequel Details Being "Worked Out"

Based on a recent comment from Star Trek 2 producer JJ Abrams, the sequel seems to still be in the rough draft stage. While at the Children’s Defense Fund California Beat the Odds Awards Ceremony on December 2nd he said "We don’t have a script yet and it is being worked out so it is too early to talk about what it might be, because it hasn’t happened yet." The current expectation is a working draft will probably have to be completed by early next year for pre-production purposes with a final draft ready for shooting to being in the summer.

Star Trek Sequel Story "Broken"

In an interview with Hero Complex, Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman revealed they "have broken the story" which more or less means they have figured out the major story points for the sequel. I don't think that means they have a complete outline and probably still a month or so away from a first draft. Current expectations put a finished script sometime in early 2011. Below are excerpts from the interview as they discuss the challenge of putting a story together.

GB: It’s early days on the “Star Trek” sequel, but is there anything you can tell us about the story direction, tone or even the types of challenges you’re anticipating with this next-step project?
AK: Well, we have broken the story, which is very exciting. I think one of the weird challenges that we’re facing on this one is that in many ways, with the first movie, I don’t think people knew what to expect, so when we were in the writing process, Bob and I really spent our time going to things that we loved about “Trek” and it was a very unfiltered process. It felt intimate and small. There weren’t a lot of voices other than [producer] Damon [Lindelof], J.J. and [executive producer] Bryan Burke. Now, that first movie has come up and did well and everyone wants to know what happens next. We didn’t have that pressure, exactly, on the first one. That said, part of what we have to do is listen to it all, ask a lot of questions about what people’s expectations are — and then let all of that go when we sit down to write. We need to find our way back to the same kind of vibe that we had when we wrote the first one: What do we want to see here? What moved us about “Trek”? Where can we go from where we left off?

RO: One of the big challenges is all of the characters are together now. A prequel is a pain in the butt, but one of the nice little advantages was that you get to meet the characters as you go through the story and they get to meet each other. That’s fun. We don’t that luxury of not having the entire family there together at the start of the story. So now you want the character stories to be good for everybody but also not just be there to be stories but also fit into the plot and be organic. We’re looking at a lot of the old episodes for inspiration, still. Whereas the last movie was all about breaking free from “Star Trek” and its canon, now that we can do whatever we want, we still want it to feel like good ol’ “Star Trek” even though it’s a new story.

GB: Your great advantage going in is the chemistry between this bright, young cast. It must be a treat to write for an ensemble that has already shown a lot of spark, humor and nuance.
AK: “Treat” is literally the perfect word. We spend a lot of time talking about how — now that everyone is together — they all need really clear, defined moments. Moments that are specific to their characters, specific to way they interact with each other and also build on the dynamic of those amazing, amazing actors. It’s going to be joy for us.

Typhon Pact: Seize the Fire Chapter One Excerpt

While the Star Trek novels don't come out with the frequency they use to, when they do come out the result is often some very entertaining work that continues the ongoing saga, especially for the Next Generation universe which as continued to expand for years beyond where Star Trek: Nemesis left off. The current story involves the Typhon Pact which is kind of the cold war with a mix of the World War II treaty system set in the Trek Universe. It is essentially the Federation (the Allies) vs. the Axis (Romulus, Breen, Gorn, etc) on what could become a galactic war.

Seize the Fire is second volume, available now, in this story arc written by Michael A Martin that focuses on Captain Riker and his crew on the Titan. The excerpt can be found at TrekMovie.com here.