Review: Star Trek: Discovery: Succession #3
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Written by: Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson
Art by: Angel Hernandez with colors by Mark Roberts
As previously explained in a tweet by producer Ted Sullivan, everything in the Disco expanded universe is semi-canon, including the comics. While “Succession” might be the series we never thought we needed, I’m starting to think that it may be laying the groundwork for something bigger down the road – perhaps in season two or beyond. After all, Georgiou is still alive in our universe. What if she gets tired of constantly squinting due to the bright light and wants to return to reclaim her throne – especially if she finds out her petulant younger cousin inherited it? I can definitely see Kirsten Beyer and Mike Johnson planting the quadrotriticale, err, seeds.
Well, the secret is out. Mirror Michael Burnham is alive and set to stop Alexander from claiming her birthright. In a classic case of the “enemy of my enemy is my friend”, she’s aligned herself with the leader of the Klingon resistance, L’Rell. In exchange for her help to kill Alexander, she agrees to help attempt to overthrow the Terran Governor of Qo’Nos. After a failed attempt on his life, Burnham’s cover is finally blown, thus enraging Alexander.
After a brief appearance by a certain Constitution-Class starship (no, not that one) that is carrying the lethal gene-weapon, Captain Airiam swoops in and destroys them, saving the weapon along with Burnham and L’Rell. Here is where things get interesting and further proof that Beyer and Johnson could be planning something: Airiam and L’Rell not only know each other, but have a long history together. That makes me wonder – do they know each other in the Prime universe? It’s certainly possible.
Once again, Angel Hernandez’s artwork is a delight. Every actor likeness is there and every action is drawn with blunt force – you can almost feel the tension jump out of each page. One of the challenges, however, is that since every other character has an actor associated with them, it’s hard for me to imagine Alexander as a real person. It’s not a criticism so much as an observation but I do wonder if he had anyone in mind when drawing him.
Much like Mirror Spock, Mirror Burnham is calm and calculated – not a ruthless, barbaric dictator with no moral compass. But what kind of relationship do Burnham and Spock have in this universe? We know that Burnham was raised by Georgiou and not by Amanda and Sarek, so is their behavior just a coincidence? Since she wasn’t raised Vulcan, why doesn’t she appear to act much different than her Prime universe doppelganger?
Overall, this has been an enjoyable series so far. Alexander is such a hateable character and I can’t wait to see his demise. It will be interesting to see where they go from here. Will whoever succeeds him be the emperor during “Mirror Mirror?” I can’t wait to find out.
5-page preview
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Issue #3 Available now
Star Trek: Discovery: Succession #3 was released Wednesday, July 4th. It retails for $3.99. You can order it at TFAW with a discount, including 2 different variant covers.
IDW SDCC Exclusives
In other Trek comics news, today IDW announced their San Diego Comic-Con exclusives, including a couple of items joining our previously reported Star Trek exclusives. The exclusives are available at IDW’s booth (#2743), and they have also set up a site you can pre-order exclusives, to pick up at the booth.
Star Trek TNG Through the Mirror Bundle: Set of 5 B&W variants
You can collect all 5 issues of the Star Trek Through the Mirror 5-week event, by the Tiptons and artist J.K. Woodward by getting this bundle containing unique B&W versions of the Woodward regular covers. This bundle is limited to only 250 sets at $25 per bundle.
Star Trek Discovery Annual – Blank sketch cover
The hit CBS All Access show, Star Trek Discovery, comes to comics, and the Annual is packed with backstory on Science Officer Lt. Stamets and his interactions with the Discovery crew! Pick up this blank cover and get it signed and sketched by your favorite Star Trek con-creators! $10, limited to 500 copies.
Keep up with all the latest inked Star Trek in TrekMovie’s Comics Category.
“Semi-canon” is not a thing. Rather like saying “semi-correct” or “semi-pregnant”. Sheesh!
I think it basically means that it canon until it’s otherwise contradicted on screen. So, a future Discovery episode could reference back to plot points or characters that appeared in these comics.
Yeah, that’s why a lot of fans don’t read those books.
Saying “oh this happened until it didn’t” is a lot to get in to when you’re trying to keep canon straight.
It would be nice if they gave Airiam some lines in the show…
Sadly, the franchise seems increasingly enamored with the MU…..
Yep :(… so much for a positive view of the future, exploring new worlds and encountering new species and phenomena. It’s almost as if the showrunners and CBS have misled us fans on this. The show’s called Discovery for Pete’s sake!
Except for the uniforms, the prime universe doesn’t even differ from the MU nowadays. Makes me wish the original Kirk and crew would beam in to straighten them out.
LOL!!!
That one speech bubble is more dialogue than that character had all season.
She mostly just farted like a frog.
So much makeup and work for a background character to make robot fart sounds.
Now we’re cooking with gas.
airam …..! is the most out of the canon character, is a contradiction to the canon …. which is perhaps the granny of data, lore and before
erg…. imagine how much things you don’t know about your own town, your own country, your own world… now imagine an entire galaxy — just because we haven’t seen something on the small sliver of a galaxy we have seen on Star Trek before does not mean there are not all sorts of things unseen by us or the characters we’ve seen already. Besides, androids in TOS showed up all the time.
Who or what is Airiam? They create this great costume and make-up for a character but zero context and zero exposition, zero lines, zero reason to care. Discovery is just style and no content. Just kids pretending to write a show. An android would be a big deal at the stage in Trek lore… yet, Discovery hates canon so they can stick a cyborg or a robot lady on the bridge and it not have to matter. And if you dare to say you expect it to mean something, you’re a sad nerd who shouldn’t care so much. Fed up with Trek today.
Fortunately you still have 5 series, 28 season, 704 episodes and 10 movies to enjoy (Or 6 series, 29 season and 726 episodes if you include TAS). While you are of course welcome to your opinion in regards to Discovery, please allow us who do enjoy it to enjoy it without your holier-than-thou judgmental eyes.
Actually 13 movies noraa! :)
In season 1 she’s just a background character. The format is also different because they’re covering various story arcs, so they’re not just ‘slice of life’ episodes that allow all the different characters to have their day to reveal some backstory. Airiam’s backstory simply wasn’t relevant to the plot and story arcs, so they didn’t shoehorn it in. We’ll likely get more from each of the bridge crew in season 2, but don’t expect the show to be about them, because it’s not.
Also, who says she’d be a big deal? She might be to the audience, but maybe not to the characters. She’s an augmented alien, not an android like Data, so that might not be all that uncommon. For example, Phlox mentioned the Bynars in ENT, meaning they couldn’t have been too far away. It’s possible they might be members of the Federation at this point. There could also be quite a few other species that are fine with augmentations. There’s nothing in canon (that I know of) to suggest this wasn’t the case.
Hear hear!!!
I really do hope we get some development of her season 2 as well. We’re Trek nerds you show us a robot we want to learn everything about it lol.
As far as canon I don’t think the show hates canon so much as it’s clear they want to add their own stamp to the show, which I understand. But they probably went too far with it in some places. I really hate they put it so close to TOS but now that they did hopefully they bring it a bit closer to that next season. We’ll see.
Huge fan of Mike Johnson!
I agree Bob, he’s great. I just wish each story could take four issues
I have really enjoyed the IDW AU Trek comics, and now these Discovery comics.
Huge fan of Mike Johnson!
i like the new star trek discovery so very nice, but i am not happy that this hardened robotic is on show.
original star trek did not have this robotic, not ever, so why in the discovery show?
maybe in serie 2, this robotic should be much nicer, but I do not have force to like this robotic so far
El universo del espejo me tiene las bolas llenas.