Star Trek Is Officially Doing the 1 Thing Paramount+ Failed to Do

With the penultimate season of Strange New Worlds whimpering to an unceremonious close, and Starfleet Academy succumbs to the predictably vitriolic social media “outrage,” which saw it cancelled before its second season could even premiere, one cannot help but look back wistfully to a bygone era. How acutely we now recall those days when the fandom clamored endlessly for more Star Trek: Picard, soaring as it was on the undisputed triumphs of its third season.

As the sun sets on Star Trek’s time as a streaming giant on Paramount+, IDW Publishing is officially picking up the franchise’s biggest missed opportunity. Star Trek: Legacy may have failed to manifest — despite fervent petitioning — but fans have finally been given a taste of what could have been with Christopher Cantwell’s new Star Trek run, which arrives next month. The publisher isn’t hiding the fact that they are courting fans of the spin-off that never was, as the debut issue uses “legacy” in its pitch to readers. And what a legacy this comic is upholding.

What Is ‘Star Trek: Legacy’?

Conceived by Picard’s showrunner Terry Matalas following the critical acclaim of Season 3, Star Trek: Legacy was pitched as the direct successor to the Next Generation era. The series’ failure to manifest stands as a masterclass in corporate short-sightedness, as Paramount+ doubled-down on series that simply failed to appeal to longtime fans, rather than riding the coattails of Picard.

Positioned aboard the freshly rechristened USS Enterprise-G, Legacy would have centered on Captain Seven of Nine, culminating her decades-long character arc from salvaged Borg drone to Starfleet commander, as first explored in Star Trek: Voyager. Flanking her was an intriguing blend of second-generation offspring, namely Jack Crusher and the La Forge sisters, alongside a reimagined role for Todd Stashwick as a holographic version of his curmudgeonly Captain Liam Shaw that perished in the final season of Picard. Once Matalas began sharing his plans, the concept drew immediate attention from fans, but not so much from top-brass, and the showrunner moved on to work on Marvel’s VisionQuest.

Star Trek: Legacy may be a footnote in the franchise’s history now, but Cantwell has inherited all that it has to offer fans.

IDW’s ‘Star Trek’ Is Fixing a Major Mistake ‘Picard’ Made

One of the only major critiques of the final season of Star Trek: Picard is the way that it downplayed Seven of Nine’s (Jeri Ryan) relationship with Raffi (Michelle Hurd). While it was clear that the two were in a relationship and loved each other, it lacked the romance that other dynamics were afforded. Cantwell, thankfully, is not making that same mistake. Within the first few pages of the debut issue, Seven and Raffi are locking lips and making known that they’re head over heels for each other. It’s a relief to see that IDW isn’t afraid of keeping queer characters at the forefront of their storytelling.

While Riker and Troi were afforded sweeping arcs of marital reconciliation, and Picard and Beverly rekindled their decades-old connection, Seven of Nine and Raffi Musiker were relegated to a realm of timidity and subtext. The show was content to assert their love in dialogue, yet it routinely denied them the same physical and narrative intimacy granted to their peers. Here, Cantwell goes all-in on what fans want to see.

‘Star Trek’ Is Carrying the Franchise’s Legacy

Set a sensible five years after Picard’s final season, the comic series finally delivers on the Captain Seven of Nine that we were promised. Rather than resting on mere nostalgia, Cantwell thrusts her crew directly into a complex geopolitical quagmire, which sees them tasked with escorting displaced Romulan refugees beyond the known galaxy to the uncharted Epsilon Corridor (a seemingly pristine "Trinity" of Class-M worlds that rapidly reveals itself to be a psychological nightmare). The narrative smartly interrogates the Federation’s own insidious tendencies towards colonizing, despite the Prime Directive, in a way that echoes to other franchise’s clever exploration of classically “good” institutions.

Another triumph of Star Trek is the long-overdue return of the franchise’s beloved second-generation progeny. While it remains to be seen if Star Trek intends to pick up the “LaCrush” of it all, it is a delight to see Jack Crusher and Sidney “Crash” La Forge reinstated to their rightful places aboard the flagship. After all, they are the literal and thematic heirs to this franchise, and allowing their arcs to stagnate would have been a tragedy.

Throw in newcomer Alexander Rozhenko and an apparent descendant of Hoshi Sato, and you have a crew steeped in franchise history yet wholly unburdened by it. The first issue breadcrumbs a few details for Cantwell to explore later on, namely a curious situation for Jack’s father, Picard, as well as Jack’s new position as the ship’s counselor and his lingering Borg telepathic link with Seven, which presents itself as a fascinating thread.

With just one issue, the very heartbeat of what Legacy was meant to be is scrawled across each page. While one may still lament the loss of the live-action Legacy spin-off, this comic run is a sublime consolation prize.

Pre-orders are due at comic book shops on 8/17/26, with Star Trek Issue #1 officially arriving on 9/23/26.