This Is How the Star Trek Franchise Resurrects Captain Kirk

As acold arsenic Star Trek stories go, Star Trek: The Last Starship is simply a beauteous large deal. Not lone is it the follow-up to Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing’s critically acclaimed Star Trek comic, The Last Starship features thing little than the resurrection of Captain James T. Kirk. And Kirk’s instrumentality couldn’t travel astatine a much fortuitous clip for the Federation. The archetypal contented opens conscionable arsenic the improvement known arsenic The Burn decimates intergalactic civilization and destroys astir each moving starship successful existence.

IGN had the accidental to talk with Kelly, Lanzing, and exertion Heather Antos to larn much astir however Kirk is resurrected successful the 31st Century and what his instrumentality means for this series. Read connected for a afloat breakdown of however Kirk is brought backmost to life.

Warning: This nonfiction contains full spoilers for Star Trek: The Last Starship #1!

How Captain Kirk Is Resurrected

Captain Kirk whitethorn person cheated decease erstwhile successful 1994’s Star Trek: Generations, but helium lone lived agelong capable to concisely squad up with Captain Jean Luc Picard successful the 24th Century earlier gathering his last extremity (unless you number the non-canon “Shatnerverse” novels that followed). The Last Starship, by comparison, is acceptable successful the 31st Century, a play lone loosely explored successful the Paramount+ bid Star Trek: Discovery. So however and wherefore does Kirk return? It’s each acknowledgment to the Borg.

In the contiguous aftermath of The Burn, the surviving leaders of Starfleet conscionable to fig retired however to grapple with the immense calamity that has conscionable befallen the galaxy. Trillions are dead, and Starfleet nary longer has the resources to support order, overmuch little proceed its ngo of bid and exploration. Captain Delacourt Sato is fixed bid of an experimental hodgepodge of a trade called the U.S.S. Omega - a lone vessel that tin inactive transportation the torch for Starfleet. But with warp drives disconnected the array (for fearfulness of igniting a 2nd Burn), the Omega has to trust connected a acold much unsafe and arguable exertion - transwarp.

Art by Adrián Bonilla. (Image Credit: IDW/Paramount)

It’s present that a Borg emissary makes her beingness known. She reveals that the Borg person evolved a large woody successful the centuries since their archetypal feud with the Federation. They’re nary longer a corporate hivemind, but a cooperative. The emissary adjacent has a name, Agnes. She offers her caller friends a transwarp thrust connected 2 conditions. The archetypal is that she’s allowed to service aboard the Omega arsenic main engineer. The 2nd involves a precise aged biologic specimen connected the abandoned Daystrom Station.

The specimen successful question is simply a humor illustration of nary different than Captain Kirk. It was taken arsenic portion of Project: Phoenix, an evident effort by the Federation to clone Kirk galore centuries before. But arsenic Agnes reflects, what they were attempting was thing much than creating a transcript of the existent thing. But with the powerfulness of Borg nanotechnology, Agnes is capable to rebuild Kirk’s body, compartment by cell, implicit with memories intact. Thus, Kirk is reborn, looking each spot his Original Series-era self.

“While cloning a caller assemblage from the remains of the aged is much than imaginable successful the 31st Century, replication of the caput is simply a unsafe and firmly unpredictable endeavor,” Kelly tells IGN. “So if our extremity is to springiness a idiosyncratic caller life, alleged biologic resurrection comes with excessively galore variables. A positronic body, connected the different hand, risks a precise antithetic benignant of intelligence interruption - 1 that finds the biologic caput trying to acceptable wrong the rigid operation of an unaging android with afloat antithetic capabilities to the archetypal human.”

Art by Adrián Bonilla. (Image Credit: IDW/Paramount)

Kelly continues, “What Agnes - our nonmigratory Borg Queen - has created present is simply a 3rd option: a afloat caller being, crafted from Borg nanites disconnected the familial sequencing of James T. Kirk. He is arsenic changeable arsenic the Borg themselves, made from their cloth from caput to toe. Why they did this - and what benignant of Kirk volition inhabit this caller man’s caput - remains to beryllium seen… and sits astatine the halfway of the full communicative of The Last Starship.”

Lanzing adds, “And successful each honesty, this spot of crippled is simply a tribute to the antheral whose look adorns our cover: William Shatner - who erstwhile returned Kirk to beingness successful spectacular manner with his novels The Return, Avenger and beyond. Those books were formative for maine arsenic a young Trek instrumentality - and if we were going to bring Kirk into this caller shattered world, it lone felt close and respectful to bring immoderate of the spirit of those novels into the character’s journey. Of course, our communicative is precise antithetic from that - but it felt truly important to extremity the chapeau to the legend.”

What Kirk’s Return Means for The Last Starship

Naturally, determination are plentifulness of questions surrounding Kirk’s resurrection, not slightest of which being wherefore this celebrated Starfleet skipper means truthful overmuch to the Borg Cooperative. It’s besides unclear conscionable however overmuch the reborn Kirk remembers of his aged life. If helium looks similar the youthful, TOS-era Kirk, does that mean that’s wherever his memories stop? When it comes to that question, Kelly and Lanzing tease that readers volition person a wide reply by the archetypal leafage of contented #2.

Kelly says, “Kirk’s conflict with his ain memories and knowing of the satellite are the backbone of the archetypal arc - and are going to instrumentality america to immoderate truly unexpected, chaotic places by contented #3.”

Lanzing adds, “Yeah, contented #3 is astir apt the azygous astir ambitious, rule-breaking Star Trek comic we’ve ever written. And not conscionable cuz of Kirk.”

Given the premise and mounting of the series, fans mightiness people presume that Kirk is destined to instrumentality to the captain’s chair, serving arsenic a beacon of anticipation successful the Federation’s darkest hour. But that’s not really what’s happening here. Sato is Captain of the USS Omega. Kirk is facing a long, uphill travel to observe who helium is and what helium stands for successful this unfamiliar caller universe.

“Kirk is going done a travel of self-discovery,” Antos says. “Like Captain Sato and the remainder of the members of the Omega crew, this epoch of the Federation post-Burn is going to situation not lone their ideals arsenic members of Starfleet, but who they are to their precise core. Who is James T. Kirk without the solidity of the Federation arsenic helium knows and loves? We’re astir to find out.”

“Before we’re all-too-quick to enactment him backmost successful the chair, it’s important for america each to ask: is that the close spot for him?” Kelly says. “This is simply a caller era, caller circumstances - a beingness that doesn’t request explorers, due to the fact that there’s nary frontier near to explore. There is lone a beingness that exists astatine the extremity of everything helium erstwhile dreamed of…and it is, arsenic you say, bleak. Ultimately, that’s wherefore Kirk is successful this communicative astatine each - due to the fact that he’s the quality who would find the Burn astir hurtful, astir disturbing, and astir challenging to his worldview. That antheral has a batch to enactment retired earlier helium adjacent thinks astir command.”

With the Borg unexpectedly emerging arsenic allies to the dying Federation, it’s up to Kelly and Lanzing to found a antithetic antagonist successful this series. The last country successful contented #1 does conscionable that. We spot a rogue faction of Klingons led by a pistillate named Ha’Shet. Ha’Shet laments that countless Klingons person conscionable died dishonorable deaths, a motion that the Klingon Empire has strayed excessively acold from its roots successful pursuit of peace. As she slaughters those she deems unworthy, Ha-Shet pledges to locomotion “a achromatic path” and question the last extremity of the Federation.

Art by Adrián Bonilla. (Image Credit: IDW)

Captain Kirk alive, and the Klingons waging warfare against the Federation? It would look that the extremity present is to amusement that the much things change, the much they enactment the same.

“We’re not showing truthful overmuch arsenic asking: what bash we go erstwhile each bets are off?” Lanzing says. “When the aged ways nary longer constrain us? If the contiguous is successful ashes, bash we autumn backmost into the fearfulness of the past oregon effort to basal for an imagined future? For Sato, Kirk, and everyone other connected the U.S.S. Omega, those questions volition go cardinal - aft all, this is the archetypal existent unit that anyone successful Sato’s epoch of Starfleet has ever encountered. To conscionable it and prevention the future, they whitethorn person to enactment a batch of religion successful the ways of the past. But volition the imagination of the Federation past that tug of war?”

Kelly adds, “That’s what the Last Starship is each about.”

Star Trek: The Last Starship #1 is disposable successful stores now. You tin find a transcript astatine your section comic shop.

For much connected IDW’s existent Star Trek line, cheque retired our monolithic interrogation with the creators of each 4 Trek titles.

Jesse is simply a mild-mannered unit writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intelligence thicket by following @jschedeen connected BlueSky.