Star Trek Is Getting Its Own Suicide Squad in Red Shirts

Star Trek‘s Red Shirts are finally living up to their destiny as Starfleet’s version of the Suicide Squad. The Red Shirts are the nameless individuals who sadly are used as canon fodder in Star Trek stories, always the sacrificial lambs served to the slaughter while our main characters dodge imminent death. In many ways, the Red Shirts are like DC’s Suicide Squad, who are always one moment away from death via dying in the line of duty, or by an explosive detonating in their skull. It’s now the Red Shirt’s time to shine with the announcement of a new Star Trek comic series featuring them.

Star Trek: Red Shirts is a five-issue limited series by Eisner-nominated writer Christopher Cantwell and artist Megan Levens. IDW Publishing calls Star Trek: Red Shirts a “heartrending Star Trek story that is unlike anything fans have seen before.” Featuring a brand-new team of characters, the Red Shirts are commonly known as Starfleet’s fearless and doomed crew members. Now, these intrepid and ill-fated red-uniformed individuals finally get their own story, and no one is safe… Who will survive their deadly mission?

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“Star Trek: Red Shirts is in honor of the nameless vaporized, incinerated, and otherwise blown apart, where they’re the main characters of a Star Trek-style suicide mission unlike any other,” said Christopher Cantwell. “We will get to know these ensigns and lieutenants intimately before they are likewise crushed, disrupter’d, and sucked into space. Who will survive? Will any? And what is the true nature of their planetside mission to hunt down mysterious spies? This is a major melody Original Series-era story in the key of Death, one I’ve wanted to tell for years, equal parts fun and harrowing, subversive and celebratory of the boldest tunic color one can wear in Starfleet—security red.”

Megan Levens added, “Star Trek: Red Shirts is a dream project for me, offering the opportunity to draw an entirely new cast of Starfleet officers… and then to kill them off in delightfully horrific ways! From crusty veterans to fresh-faced (not for long!) ensigns, these new heroes are charging headfirst into strange new worlds, and finding that sometimes they’re just full of strange new ways to die.”

Covers by Chris Shehan, J.J. Lendl, and Declan Shalvey show two members of the Red Shirts in pretty awkward states. First up is the Chris Shehan cover of a deceased Red Shirt skeleton floating in space. The J.J. Lendl cover features a Federation Recruitment poster of a Red Shirt trying to encourage people to enlist in Starfleet. The Red Shirt has a broken arm, black eye, and bandage on their forehead. The Declan Shalvey cover has a Red Shirt whose skin is burned off, leaving the underpart exposed ala Batman villain Two-Face.

IDW is adding to its Star Trek line with Star Trek: Red Shirts, Star Trek: Voyager – Homecoming by co-writers Tilly and Susan Bridges and artist Angel Hernandez, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Seeds of Destruction by writer Robbie Thompson and artist Travis Mercer. All three titles come as we approach the release of Star Trek: Omega, an oversized one-shot that is the denouement of IDW’s Star Trek comic series and Star Trek: Defiant storylines.

“As the age-old saying goes, ‘When two comic series end, three more begin!’ joked Group Editor Heather Antos. “From celebrating nostalgia with the fan-favorite crew of Voyager, to going boldly to the fearsome depths of a Lovecraftian planet in Strange New Worlds, to taking a decades-long question of ‘if the color of a uniform makes a man’ and spinning it on its head… we’re showing that IDW is not yet done producing the very best Star Trek comics possible. Get ready for take-off, folks, ’cause where we’re going, you’re definitely gonna wanna pre-order for your pull lists!”

What do you think about the announcement of Star Trek: Red Shirts? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!