A Super-Trekking Cross-Over Event

IDW Pub­li­ca­tions, pub­lish­ers of a num­ber of SF prop­er­ties includ­ing Doc­tor Who and Ghost­busters, announced at the San Diego Com­ic Con­ven­tion a com­ic series that com­bines the pre­miere SF series Star Trek and one of the longest-run­ning and fan favorite com­ic series, The Legion of Super-Heroes. This is not their first such event: ear­li­er this year, there was a mas­sive crossover sto­ry that affect­ed (or should I say ‘infect­ed’) every title of their cur­rent line with a zom­bie plague, but this is the first that involves prop­er­ties from anoth­er company.

STAR TREK/LEGION OF SUPERHEROES tells the tale of the orig­i­nal crew of the Star­ship Enter­prise, who beam down to a plan­et only to dis­cov­er that the plan­et isn’t their intend­ed des­ti­na­tion, or even in the right uni­verse. At the same time, a group of “Great Dark­ness Saga” Legion­naires inside a time sphere find them­selves cast into the 23rd cen­tu­ry, but it’s not the 23rd cen­tu­ry as they know it, either. STAR TREK/LEGION OF SUPERHEROES is a galaxy-span­ning adven­ture that draws both teams togeth­er to face a men­ace that includes Khunds, Klin­gons, Borg, and oth­er threats that aren’t quite as they should be. The egal­i­tar­i­an Unit­ed Plan­ets in one uni­verse and a Unit­ed Fed­er­a­tion of Plan­ets in anoth­er is now the Impe­r­i­al Plan­ets of Ter­ra, a dark empire focused on war and con­quest, and that’s just the begin­ning for this spe­cial series.

Accord­ing to this inter­view with the writer Chris Robert­son (who is a major Star Trek and Legion fan), the series will com­bine the orig­i­nal Star Trek series crew (Kirk, Spock, Scot­ty, Sulu, Uruhu, Chekov and Bones) and the major pow­ers of the Legion (Cos­mic Boy, Sat­urn Girl, Light­ning Lad, Braini­ac 5, Shad­ow Lass and Chameleon Boy). The num­bers are lim­it­ed, he says, because there are only 6 trans­porter pads on a Con­sti­tu­tion-class starship.

The tal­ent involved is impressive:

Weav­ing these dis­parate uni­vers­es and char­ac­ters into a dark, fore­bod­ing and mys­te­ri­ous saga is Eis­ner-nom­i­nat­ed writer Chris Rober­son (iZom­bie, Super­man), with art by Jef­frey and Philip Moy, both of whom have tack­led the Legion and Star Trek in oth­er forms. Phil Jimenez, will pro­vide cov­ers for the entire series, while each issue will also fea­ture vari­ant cov­ers from clas­sic Legion of Super­heroes artists such as Kei­th Gif­f­en, Steve Ligh­tle, and Mike Grell, as well as IDW main­stay and Best Artist Eis­ner-nom­i­nee Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key) and others.

And why do I think this is sig­nif­i­cant? Oth­er than being a very big Legion and Star Trek fan, I love cross-over sto­ries, espe­cial­ly of such dif­fer­ing uni­vers­es. The egal­i­tar­i­an Legion will have to work with the mil­i­tary crew of the Enter­prise, who are not to be out-awed by the dis­play of super-pow­ers, as they have faced down gods and demons them­selves. Also, the tal­ents invovled here are pret­ty impres­sive: I am so look­ing for­ward to see­ing what Mike Grell has to contribute.

The series is sched­uled to start in Octo­ber, 2011.