IDW Launching ‘Echoes’ Comic Miniseries Set Right After ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’

IDW continues to ramp up its Star Trek comics output with the announcement of another miniseries, this time  tied into the first movie in the franchise. The new Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes series is written by Marc Guggenheim, creator of Arrow and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow CW television series.

TMP – Echoes

This will be the first IDW comic set in the Star Trek: The Motion Picture era. The five-issue miniseries is set immediately after the events of the 1979 film. Here is the official synopsis:

Echoes pits the venerated Admiral James T. Kirk and his crew against enemies both terrifying and shockingly familiar! When a space anomaly thrusts a criminal mastermind—pursued by a very determined pilot on a mission—into our universe, the Enterprise must stop them from unintentionally starting a war with the Romulans and unleashing a superweapon of foreign technology into the system. But things get infinitely more complicated when these newcomers to our reality remove their helmets, revealing that they’re doppelgängers of our beloved heroes!

Cover A by Jake Bartok

The series features artwork by Oleg Chudakov and colors by DC Alonso, along with a series of different covers for each issue. “What does it mean to draw this new Star Trek adventure? It’s like revisiting my childhood, but at the same time learning something new. It’s amazing!” says Chudakov.

B cover by Oleg Chudakov

In addition to his extensive series of television credits, Marc Guggenheim has written for over two dozen comic titles across both DC and Marvel. This will be his first time writing for Star Trek, at least officially. When he was just starting out in the ’90s, he wrote a Star Trek: Voyager spec script.

“Despite watching the occasional fragment of a Star Trek episode here and there with my father, my true introduction was going to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture with my grandparents—I was entranced. I’m thrilled that IDW and Paramount Global have allowed me to revisit that time period, which was so impactful to me and my love of Star Trek,” said Guggenheim in a statement. “Almost all Trek stories are told from the point of view of the Enterprise crew, but I was interested in telling a story from the perspective of an outsider as a means of recapturing how it felt for me when I first saw Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”

Retail incentive cover by Luke Sparrow

“When everything in life feels like it’s moving too fast towards the future, it’s always important to step back and revisit where it all came from. And that’s exactly what we’re doing with this comic focusing on the Star Trek: The Motion Picture time frame,” says series editor Heather Antos. “No one knows more about this period in Trek history than Guggenheim, we’ve learned… and we could think of no one better suited to take Kirk and his crew on this wild adventure. Paired with Chudakov’s energetic, character-driven inks, this is one mission that the crew of the Enterprise soon won’t forget. Oh, and did we mention that there are possible Easter eggs to some of our other Trek books, too?”

Retail incentive cover by Rod Reis

Star Trek: The Motion Picture — Echoes kicks off this May.


Keep up with all the Star Trek comics news, previews, and reviews in TrekMovie’s comics category.

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Kirk was a captain at the end of the movie, even wearing captain’s rank insignia. Presumably his admiral rank at the beginning of the movie was temporary. (Same for Decker, who went from captain to commander.)

Kirk was demoted to captain in ST IV. At the end of TMP he was an admiral, serving as captain.

WOK took place over a decade after TMP. Presumably by that point Kirk had received a regular promotion to his rank. Tellingly, he was the same rank, what we’d call Rear Admiral Upper Grade, both in TMP and in WOK, which may indicate that he wasn’t really at the rank the first time we saw him. (Of course, while commanding the Enterprise in the interim for five or ten years, his rank may have been frozen.)

Kirk did say that Decker’s rank reduction was “temporary”.

You’re right. Which means maybe Kirk’s was as well. Commanders of a ship are often called “captain” even if they’re lower, but I don’t know they’d be if they were actually admirals, though. And Kirk’s rank stripes did change as well.

In IV, V, and VI there seemed no problem in having *three* captains on board (Kirk, Spock, and Scotty).

Kirk was still an admiral. He remained an admiral until Star Trek IV. The captaincy role didn’t mean he was demoted.

You have a point- see my responses above- but I’m still not sure.

Kirk was an admiral as TMP begins. He tells Scotty he’s spent “Two and half years as chief of Star Fleet operations.” He’s addressed as Admiral Kirk. There’s no evidence of his being anything but an admiral.

There’s probably an out of universe reason for his demotion to captain. Fans wanted him to be “Captain Kirk” again, without another title. Not to mention avoiding his having to sling that fancy wide swath of sleeve braid around on the bridge.

Ha! Good point.

Take your hands off Spock, Daft Punk.

She seems to be female under this Mask. You can see the bulge on her Chest on the Cover

Oh, well, that changes everything.

Would rather see an IDW series adapting the PHASE II Scripts…including the alternate version of what became the first movie. IF the Kelvin Universe is out there, shouldn’t the PHASE II one be out there someplace 2? Pilot movie and 13 scrips could easily get 28 issue run.

I love this idea!!!😀👍🐕

This would be amazing.

That, may very well be something I would buy into.

Yes!

This to me was always an exciting time period. You had the Enterprise clearly the flagship of the fleet with the Chief of Starfleet Operations aboard. Many speculate that there was a 5 year mission in there. The DC Comics of the time were awesome – you also had the clear disappearance of the Organians and the Federation having to react to that. Lots of drama too with some having Nogura having brought Kirk in to save Starfleet only to see Nogura getting pushed out.

The DC comics weren’t set post-TMP other than a single issue or two. They were set post-TWOK, post-TSFS and post-TVH. The first Marvel series and the L.A. Times Syndicate strips were post-TMP, however.

I think the first eight issues of DC were post WOK pre SFS, the next thirty or so were post SFS pre TVH, and the next twenty or so were post TVH.

Of course, each movie in turn ended those possibilities, with only a few days between WOK and SFS, three months (all on Vulcan) between SFS and TVH, and a month (on Earth) between TVH and TFF.

The second DC series was all post TFF, and there was plenty of time there, almost a decade before TUC.

There’s about twelve and a half years between TMP and WOK- time enough to let the characters catch up with their actors’ ages- so Kirk may even have commanded the ship for ten years.

“This will be the first IDW comic set in the Star Trek: The Motion Picture era.”

It really isn’t. There have been a handful of others from IDW. :)

They should do a live action series set in this time. Could be a natural follow up to SNW. Keep the actors they have cast already and ditch the disco era uniforms and you have a good, back to basics show the franchise needs at least one of.

That’s the first decent idea I’ve heard with regards to a Kirk-era show.

I could really get into this!!!

Sweet!

great era to mine. The book “Ex Machina” is a fun read set after TMP and a sequel to more than one TOS episode.

A bunch of the early novels were set at various points in this era.

This is the era new movies should be set in…

but this kirk is more chilled post TMP.
i liked the messed up admiral who stepped on people to take back the chair and needed a lesson in hubris