The Star Trek universe is heading toward the Day of Blood. IDW Publishing revealed the upcoming Star Trek comic book crossover — the first of its kind — via the solicitation for its FCBD 2023 Star Trek release, due out on the annual comic book celebration in 2023. The cover of the issue, created by Malachi Ward, shows a Starfleet combadge with blood streaming over it in front of a yellow and black background, possibly the uniform of a support services officer (engineering, security, etcetera). It appears to be a bold homage to Dave Gibbons’ iconic cover of Watchmen #1, which depicted a blood-spattered yellow-and-black smiley face.
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The story sees the crew of IDW Publishing’s new ongoing Star Trek series, with the returned Benjamin Sisko in command, colliding with the rogue crew of the USS Defiant, featured in the spinoff series . The crossover’s title suggests that they won’t be meeting on friendly terms. You can see the cover below.
Star Trek has crossed over with other properties before, including crossovers with Doctor Who, Green Lantern, and Planet of the Apes under IDW’s stewardship of the franchise. IDW previously engineered a franchise crossover, . However, this is the first time they’ve had two ongoing Star Trek ongoing series crossover, which makes sense since this is the first time they’ve had two ongoing series going at the same time. It’s all part of the publisher’s new Star Trek initiative, creating a line of comics set in Star Trek continuity in the gap between .
“This is real Star Trek,” Star Trek co-writer Jackson Lanzing told ComicBook.com during an interview. “This is as close as we can, on the comic side, to being canon. We will be canon until they un-canonize us. But we are working with the shows. We are in communication with the teams. We are encyclopedic Star Trek knowledge boys, so we’re on Memory-Alpha all the time, but our brains are effectively little Memory-Alphas. We’re already fed by all the canon that we grew up with, that being TOS to Voyager. So all of that stuff, if it was on the show, it’s canon.” He also added at the time, “Our objective is not to have just a single book, which is all I can say about that.”
FCBD 2023 Star Trek #1 will be available at participating comic book stores on Free Comic Book Day, May 6th. Star Trek #1, the issue kicking off this new Star Trek comics initiative, is on sale now. Star Trek #2 goes on sale on November 30th. Star Trek: Defiant launches in March.
