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Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

(W) Christopher Cantwell (A) Megan Levens

Only two red shirts remain. The other ten crewmembers on Mission Squawkbox have plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground, been eaten alive by giant alien insects, or been exploded into a million tiny bits by falling torpedoes. Each death has dealt a blow to Ensigns Raad’s and Miller’s morale… Is Starfleet really the paragon of cooperation it claims to be? Or is it willing to expend its members’ lives for the sake of peace? With both Klingons and Romulans breathing down their necks, Raad’s and Miller’s loyalty will be tested. Are they for Starfleet? Or themselves?

Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

(W) Christopher Cantwell (A) Megan Levens

Only two red shirts remain. The other ten crewmembers on Mission Squawkbox have plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground, been eaten alive by giant alien insects, or been exploded into a million tiny bits by falling torpedoes. Each death has dealt a blow to Ensigns Raad’s and Miller’s morale… Is Starfleet really the paragon of cooperation it claims to be? Or is it willing to expend its members’ lives for the sake of peace? With both Klingons and Romulans breathing down their necks, Raad’s and Miller’s loyalty will be tested. Are they for Starfleet? Or themselves?

Star Trek: Red Shirts #5

IDW Announces Three New Hires and Two Promotions

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From the sewers of New York to boldly exploring strange new worlds, IDW Publishing has big plans for 2026. And, as everyone knows, building comics takes teamwork. IDW has announced new talented people to the company while also recognizing the hard work of two exceptional employees.

Left to right: Jake Thomas, Darran Robinson, Corey Wells, Ryan Balkam, Cassandra Jones. Art by Megan Levens

Jake Thomas joins the team as Group Editor. With 11 years at Marvel and four years at Humanoids, Jake brings his passion for comics to the TMNT line while also supporting other lines, like GODZILLA and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.

IDW proudly welcomes Darran Robinson and Corey Wells to the company. As Art Director, Darran will focus primarily on designs, logos, and much more for various IDW comics and projects. He worked at DC for almost eight years, and also worked on design projects for Disney, WWE, Activision, and more. As Fan Engagement Coordinator, Corey will expand IDW’s community engagement through social media, videos, events, and much more. Corey’s previous experience includes working in comic book shops (Fantom Comics, Showcase Comics) and TKO Studios.

Ryan Balkam has been promoted from Speciality Sales Manager to Director of Sales. With more than two years of experience at IDW, Ryan will focus on sales analysis, publishing and retailer strategies, and much more. During his time at IDW, he heavily promoted TMNT’s best-selling relaunch, crafted the hit TMNT #13 blind bag program, and built the engaging Whatnot partnership.

Cassandra Jones received a promotion from Editorial Assistant to Associate Editor. With almost two years at IDW, Cassandra will continue to help craft and coordinate comics from the STAR TREK and MONSTER HIGH lines, as well as select horror comics from the IDW DARK imprint.

Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #4

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #4

(W) Christopher Cantwell (A) Megan Levens

Ensigns Raad and Miller find themselves on a dark ship and face to face with… Klingons. The two red shirts are accused of being spies, and their captors brutalize and torture them for any information they can get on how the Romulans were able to access a Starfleet subspace antenna feed. Meanwhile, DeMatrio, Amiga, and Lanier engage in a tense starship battle with a Romulan Bird-of-Prey.

If all six remaining red shirts are going to make it off Arkonia 89 alive, someone is going to have to make a sacrifice — but for what? How many red shirts have died to ferret out the Romulans? There must be more to the story than Starfleet is letting on…

Star Trek: Red Shirts #4

Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #3

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #3

(W) Christopher Cantwell (A) Megan Levens

It’s a race to the top as the anti-Federation spies and the Red Shirts summit the towering antenna on Arkonia 89. The spies seek to escape a transporter disrupter and make it back to their ship with their stolen data, and Raad, Grash, Vesta, and Miller will try to stop them by any means necessary. The climb is made all the more difficult by fire raining from above via a cloaked Warbird captained by a young Romulan and a mysterious Tal Shiar officer.

Meanwhile, on the ground, Lanier, Amiga, and DeMatrio realize a hidden secret about the deceased Cromarty’s base. It just might be their ticket out of this mess alive, but as more lives are senselessly lost, the Red Shirts start to wonder if Starfleet would even care if they made it back at all.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #3

Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #2

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #2

(W) Christopher Cantwell (A) Megan Levens

After weathering the deaths of their crewmates, the Red Shirts who survived hurtling to Arkonia 89 in torpedo casings have rendezvoused with Lieutenant Cromarty in his underground base. Their mission: to bed down and wait for enemy spies to take the bait they’ve laid in a data disk at the base of a subspace antenna. But little do the Federation officers know, they aren’t the only ones looking for unsuspecting prey…

Star Trek: Red Shirts #2

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 shows us the classic cannon fodder at times survives to be badass

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #1

Prepare for a heartrending Star Trek comic that is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Starfleet’s fearless and doomed crew members finally get their own story as main characters… and no one is safe. Featuring an all-new cast of characters, what is the true purpose of their deadly mission and who will survive? Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 is a fantastic start taking the classic punchline of “Red Shirts” and turning them into an expendable Dirty Dozen.

If there’s some things you can count on when it comes to science fiction, it’s that Star Wars’ Stormtroopers can’t hit anything and their armor is worthless while Star Trek’s Red Shirts die by the dozen. Writer Christopher Cantwell puts the spotlight on a group of Red Shirts recruited for an undercover mission to root out a spy.

Like classic films and shows that bring together a rag-tag bunch of screw-ups, Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 introduces us to each one by one highlighting their personalities and making sure we understand what sort of conflict they’re bringing to the mission that’s sure to go off the rails. But, Cantwell does more than that and delivers winks and nods and the inside joke of how expendable Red Shirts are and how unlikely you’ll meet one over the age of 30. The comic deftly uses the joke and turns it into a badge of honor making out its band of misfits to be more badasses than the color of their shirt denotes.

The art by Megan Levens is good with each character being unique and standing out. With color by Charlie Kirchoff and lettering by Jodie Troutman and the art feels like it’s a good match for the concept that’s both serious and not. The delivery method of how the crack unit gets to the surface is packed with humor but also a hell of a lot of action that you can imagine on the big screen and delivers a smile on one’s face. Like the overall concept of the comic, the art takes itself seriously and not at the same time.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 feels like it’s in on the joke. It has moments that feel like it’s played totally straight and serious and others where it haves fun with its expendable concept. The combination creates some great entertainment where you’re not sure if you want the mission to get all cool, stealth, and full of action, or go completely FUBAR and watch the Red Shirts die in creative and hilarious ways. But, the first issue shows, you can actually have both.

Story: Christopher Cantwell Art: Megan Levens
Color: Charlie Kirchoff Letterer: Jodie Troutman
Story: 8.5 Art: 7.6 Overall: 8.4 Recommendation: Buy

IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle – Golden Apple Comics

Preview: Star Trek: Red Shirts #1

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #1

(W) Christopher Cantwell
(A) Megan Levens
$4.99
July 16, 2025

The start of an all-new heartrending Star Trek five-issue miniseries by writer Christopher Cantwell (Star Trek: Defiant) and artist Megan Levens (Star Trek), featuring Starfleet’s most intrepid and doomed crewmembers: red shirts. Now, finally, they get their own story.

Led by an experienced officer embedded on the snow-ridden planet Arkonia 89, the crew of the U.S.S. Warren has a small window in which to pin down spies seeking to steal classified secrets and keep Starfleet data out of their nefarious hands.

They face threats not only from their faceless enemies but from the brutalizing elements and wildlife of a planet far from home. The red shirts’ lives and Starfleet’s sanctity are on the line… and no one is safe.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1

Star Trek: Omega ends one chapter of Star Trek… and doesn’t really set up what’s next

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Star Trek: Omega

Two and a half years of comics spanning 60 years of Star Trek history, a fair few awards, and more than a few universe detonations, and it’s all been coming to this! Star Trek: Omega is the denouement of the critically acclaimed Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant storylines, and the first glimpse at what comes after. The crews of the Theseus, Defiant, and Enterprise set to work restoring the universe to what it should be after the evil android Lore’s intervention.

Star Trek: Omega is an interesting finale, and let me make that clear it’s absolutely a finale. I haven’t followed IDW’s Star Trek comics religiously and haven’t read much of the recent “Lore War,” but I decided to check out Star Trek: Omega in hopes of seeing what happens next. And while the comic wraps things up nicely, it also does very little to clearly lay out what to expect. This isn’t the end of an event comic like we’ve grown accustomed to that acts as much as a final chapter as it does advertisement, instead it’s a rather muted send-off wrapping up what has come before.

Written by Christopher Cantwell, Collin Kelly, and Jackson Lanzing, Star Trek: Omega bounces around the Star Trek universe giving major characters their moments as their current storylines wrap up. It’s packed with touching moments and some interesting present situations but it really feels like it closes a lot of chapters. For fans who have read the current run of Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant, Star Trek: Omega serves as a nice ending wrapping up those series and letting us know where the various characters stand. But, it’s for the fans. New readers won’t find much as far as what’s next in this issue. There’s some teases and hints, but that’s about it, nothing clear beyond one series (and we’ll get to that).

Still, the comic has touching moments and a lot of scenes where I want to know more. I want to see what happens next, so in that way, the comic succeeds. Where it falls short is that there’s not much highlighted to come. Star Trek: Redshirts, which is a great first issue and you can read our review, is all that’s teased. It’s an odd two page spread that doesn’t really excite and feels like it’s hiding what it’s for. Add in that Star Trek: Omega has a release date of June 18 and the final order cut-off date for Star Trek: Redshirts was June 9, and you have a teaser that falls really short of what its goal is.

The art of Star Trek: Omega is interesting with a long list of artists from the years of Star Trek comics. Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, Mike Feehan, Tess Fowler, Angel Hernandez, Liana Kangas, Megan Levens, Travis Mercer, Ramon Rosanas, Rachael Stott, Erik Tamayo, Davide Tinto, and Marcus To each take a bit of the story as it highlights each of the characters in their individual scenes. Lee Loughridge and Marissa Louise provide colors and Clayton Cowles handles the lettering. For the most part, the art doesn’t vary much from scene to scene except one, which is particularly jarring it’s so different than what has come before. But, with my knowledge of Star Trek I could tell who all of the characters that I know were and the art does a solid job of nailing down the emotional moments of the issue.

Overall, Star Trek: Omega feels a bit muted in some ways. It has touching moments and really does feel like a “series finale” in many ways. It doesn’t have lots of action and excitement. It wraps up storylines and teases adventures to come. Even with some neat teases that this casual fan can appreciate, it’s one for the fans who have read the comics through the recent years. But, it falls short getting readers excited for what comes next. It almost feels like it’s teasing possibilities to see the fan reaction and then go from there. It closes one chapter but doesn’t really open the next one.

Story: Christopher Cantwell, Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing
Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, Mike Feehan, Tess Fowler, Angel Hernandez, Liana Kangas, Megan Levens, Travis Mercer, Ramon Rosanas, Rachael Stott, Erik Tamayo, Davide Tinto, and Marcus To
Color: Lee Loughridge, Marissa Louise Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Read

IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle

Early Review: Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 shows us the classic cannon fodder at times survives to be badass

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Star Trek: Red Shirts #1

Prepare for a heartrending Star Trek comic that is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Starfleet’s fearless and doomed crew members finally get their own story as main characters… and no one is safe. Featuring an all-new cast of characters, what is the true purpose of their deadly mission and who will survive? Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 is a fantastic start taking the classic punchline of “Red Shirts” and turning them into an expendable Dirty Dozen.

If there’s some things you can count on when it comes to science fiction, it’s that Star Wars’ Stormtroopers can’t hit anything and their armor is worthless while Star Trek’s Red Shirts die by the dozen. Writer Christopher Cantwell puts the spotlight on a group of Red Shirts recruited for an undercover mission to root out a spy.

Like classic films and shows that bring together a rag-tag bunch of screw-ups, Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 introduces us to each one by one highlighting their personalities and making sure we understand what sort of conflict they’re bringing to the mission that’s sure to go off the rails. But, Cantwell does more than that and delivers winks and nods and the inside joke of how expendable Red Shirts are and how unlikely you’ll meet one over the age of 30. The comic deftly uses the joke and turns it into a badge of honor making out its band of misfits to be more badasses than the color of their shirt denotes.

The art by Megan Levens is good with each character being unique and standing out. With color by Charlie Kirchoff and lettering by Jodie Troutman and the art feels like it’s a good match for the concept that’s both serious and not. The delivery method of how the crack unit gets to the surface is packed with humor but also a hell of a lot of action that you can imagine on the big screen and delivers a smile on one’s face. Like the overall concept of the comic, the art takes itself seriously and not at the same time.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 feels like it’s in on the joke. It has moments that feel like it’s played totally straight and serious and others where it haves fun with its expendable concept. The combination creates some great entertainment where you’re not sure if you want the mission to get all cool, stealth, and full of action, or go completely FUBAR and watch the Red Shirts die in creative and hilarious ways. But, the first issue shows, you can actually have both.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1 is out in comic shops on July 17.

Story: Christopher Cantwell Art: Megan Levens
Color: Charlie Kirchoff Letterer: Jodie Troutman
Story: 8.5 Art: 7.6 Overall: 8.4 Recommendation: Buy

IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Pre-Order: Golden Apple Comics

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