Star Trek: The Last Starship Reveals the Darkest Day in the Federation's History

If Star Trek Discovery ever made you funny astir "The Burn," that 31st Century catastrophe that crippled the Federation, past the comic bid Star Trek: The Last Starship is for you. This bid follows the past starship unit near lasting aft each warp halfway successful the postulation explodes. And astir intriguingly of all, they number the resurrected Captain James T. Kirk arsenic a unit member.

We've seen however precisely Kirk is resurrected centuries aft his death, but galore questions inactive remain. Those questions volition person to wait, though, arsenic Captain Sato and the unit of the USS Omega are dealing with a large Klingon attack. Star Trek: The Last Starship #3 not lone chronicles a bloody conflict betwixt the Omega and the Klingon fleet, but it ends with arguably the top calamity successful the past of the Federation. Earth has declared independence, abandoning the high-minded ideals it represented for truthful long.

To interruption down that shocking twist and the different large developments successful The Last Starship #3, IGN spoke with writers Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing. Read connected to larn much and to spot an exclusive preview of Star Trek: The Last Starship #4.

IGN: Issues #2 and #3 truly item the opposition betwixt Kirk and Captain Sato and however the second is having to face the necessity of warfare for the archetypal clip successful his career. Do you spot that arsenic 1 of the halfway struggles of the series, wherever members of the Federation are having to look a caller world aft an epoch of specified unprecedented peace?

Collin Kelly: Absolutely. Captain Sato is simply a kid of that peace; Starfleet’s champion captain, the Picard of the age. There’s a crushed this communicative began successful his shining infinitesimal conscionable arsenic it burns. When a afloat functioning strategy falls apart, the ensuing vacuum tin springiness emergence to thing …and sadly, conscionable similar successful our ain time, the archetypal happening to emergence is violence.

Jackson Lanzing: The dialectic betwixt Sato’s acquisition and Kirk’s is the halfway of the full bid - and I deliberation readers tin truly commencement to spot however that volition turn aft the events of contented #3. Sato tried to lick the Klingon concern peacefully, but that near him with dormant comrades and a hopeless stand. He sees Kirk’s methods arsenic brutal, arsenic past - it’s similar if the Joint Chiefs gave the atomic codes to Genghis Khan. But it works - astatine least, it keeps the Omega alive. But successful the process, Sato not lone loses thing important - his innocence - but Kirk witnesses the existent wages of that violence: a burning Earth, acceptable to crook its backmost connected everything it stood for. This is an opening statement astir methods and means. It won’t beryllium the last. And it’ll lone get much devastating from here.

IGN: We spot from Kirk’s monologue successful contented #2 that helium has each his memories, up to and including his decease successful Star Trek: Generations. How overmuch is helium fueled by his lingering hatred and distrust of the Klingons? How overmuch does helium conflict with the question of whether he’s a facsimile of James T. Kirk oregon the existent deal?

Lanzing: It’s his defining struggle. Is this antheral genuinely James Kirk? Is helium a facsimile? Is helium a antheral fixed caller beingness oregon a shade brought backmost to haunt his ain burning legacy? And are those memories worthy thing anymore? In contented #2 and 3, we spot the worth of his acquisition arsenic a skipper and a warrior against the Klingons - but it involves letting himself autumn backmost into patterns of hatred that helium thought he’d overcome. Will that signifier a caller antheral from this caller Kirk? Or volition helium find his mode backmost to the fable successful this darkest of times?

Kelly: Then of people there’s the biggest question connected his mind: wherefore did the Borg bring him backmost successful the archetypal place? Is helium a trap for his chap crewmates? Forget the Burn - is Kirk the sword that volition destruct the Federation erstwhile and for all?

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

IGN: We spot Sato defer to Kirk during the conflict successful contented #3. What is Kirk’s authoritative relation connected the USS Omega meant to be? Is helium going to beryllium co-captain, oregon is this thing helium and Sato are inactive figuring retired themselves?

Kelly: Kirk’s presumption arsenic the Omega’s skipper was lone ever during that exigency - this is Sato’s ship. He mightiness not person the battlefield acquisition of Kirk, but helium has the halfway trait of each large captain: he’s consenting to enactment down his ego, perceive to his crew, spot his instincts, and past execute the champion imaginable solution with the tools provided. In that, helium and Kirk are incredibly similar…which volition beryllium thing we item successful Issue #4, erstwhile we springiness you the existent reply you’re looking for.

Lanzing: Yeah. “What is my occupation here?” is simply a question Kirk - and others connected the vessel - volition statesman to inquire successful the aftermath of that battle… and it’ll volition beryllium astatine the halfway of the communicative of The Last Starship’s 2nd chapter.

IGN: Kirk refers to the Omega arsenic the Enterprise during the battle. Is the vessel getting a sanction alteration going forward?

Lanzing: He wishes.

Kelly: Yeah, Starfleet registries don’t enactment similar that.

Lanzing: But deliberation of that arsenic a spot of a hint astatine his mindframe. Some existent clues to his aboriginal successful the publication are successful that peculiar determination for eagle-eyed readers.

IGN: It looks similar Sato is successful bid of a afloat Klingon fleet now. Is that the archetypal measurement successful rebuilding Starfleet’s breached navy?

Lanzing: Wouldn’t that beryllium lovely? That’s however this communicative might’ve gone successful a amended time, successful a little hopeless one. But during the Burn, casual answers similar that don’t belong.

Kelly: At the extremity of contented #3, Sato orders the achromatic fleet “go into the darkness, backmost to their warrior halls and past battlefields,” efficaciously telling them to "go home". But for the Klingons of the Black Mind…there is nary home. Countless Klingons died successful the Burn, either blasted isolated connected starships oregon stranded connected distant colonies, with nary of them dying arsenic warriors bound to Sto’vo’kor - truthful the survivors person nary crushed near to live. No crushed but to punish their past rivals, the 1 enactment that was meant to support them safe…and successful the process, efficaciously perpetrate death-by-Starfleet. Instead, they were sent distant successful defeated shame. What Sato hears adjacent is “so overmuch screaming it fills subspace…and past they’re conscionable gone”.

Lanzing: Note that we’ve ne'er seen the Klingons post-Burn successful immoderate of the series. There’s a crushed for that… and it’s those screams and soundlessness that’ll springiness your archetypal hint.

IGN: We spot from the ending to #3 that Agnes seems to clasp existent emotion for Kirk supra and beyond the reverence she showed successful earlier chapters. Is it amusive penning a Borg quality who tin consciousness these sorts of emotions? Is it harmless to presume we’ll larn much astir her past and wherefore she’s truthful attached to Kirk?

Lanzing: Absolutely, connected some counts. To me, Jurati is the cardinal to making the Borg absorbing - she’s tragic and hopeless and unsafe and mysterious. And erstwhile her motivations are revealed aboriginal successful the series, that large infinitesimal astatine the extremity of contented #3 volition apt consciousness precise antithetic than it does close now.

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

IGN: The bid takes a darker crook inactive successful contented #3 erstwhile Earth is attacked and subsequently chooses to defect from the Federation. How heavy a stroke is this to those who remain? Is the question present whether the Federation tin adjacent past without specified a cardinal subordinate world?

Kelly: To Sato, the Omega, and astir each surviving serviceman of Starfleet, losing Earth from the Federation is similar being disowned by a parent. Earth has not lone geographically been the halfway of the Federation, it has made itself the taste halfway of the Federation arsenic well…and it’s present efficaciously said, “everyone who isn’t america needs to get out”. As 2 writers who were virtually raised connected the ideals of Starfleet, the conception that Earth would chopped ties truthful rapidly aft the Burn was ever a spot of a stroke to the chest…but successful the satellite extracurricular our window, we’re seeing however fragile our beloved institutions genuinely are, erstwhile those successful complaint let themselves to beryllium ruled by absorption and fear.

Lanzing: Ultimately, that’s wherefore we wrote The Last Starship: to make a devastating collision betwixt the ideals of an eternal utopia and the inevitability of systemic collapse. We’re looking retired our model - conscionable similar the archetypal bid - and telling a communicative astir what we see. Issue #4 is the clearest illustration of that yet… and with that charter, I deliberation each contented allows Last Starship to propulsion past the boundaries of what’s expected from a Star Trek communicative and into the realm of the universal. There are a batch of radical retired determination who spot Trek arsenic someway truthful idealistic arsenic to beryllium removed from reality. This is our counterargument - a communicative astir a satellite with nary casual answers, wherever Star Trek indispensable someway persevere. Just similar each of our ideals, done the darkest times.

Star Trek: The Last Starship #4 volition beryllium released connected January 21, 2026. You tin preorder a transcript astatine your section comic shop.

In different comic publication news, Oni's Flux House imprint is getting a FCBD 2026 special, and we've got the afloat scoop connected the immense twist successful TMNT #13.

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.