Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly on IDW’s THE LAST STARSHIP

This is the big one. Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly join me to break down their explosive new IDW Star Trek saga The Last Starship — a story set hundreds of years after the TNG era, long after the familiar map of the Federation has been shattered by a galaxy-wide catastrophe. In this far-future Trek epic, a desperate Starfleet captain takes one last swing at survival: resurrecting James T. Kirk. Not a simulation. Not a hologram. The real deal — brought back because he might be the only mind capable of solving the crisis threatening what’s left of the galaxy.

Lanzing & Kelly get candid about craft, collaboration, canon, and why this story had to be told now. If you love thoughtful sci-fi, bold Trek worldbuilding, and big character swings, you’re going to want to dive into this conversation.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to word Balloon, the com of a conversation show.
John suntris with you. I'm happy to welcome back Jackson
Lansig and Colin Kelly, who are killing at IDW with
so many great Star Trek books. They are on a
new book called The Last Starship. It is a at
very least a twelve issue maxi series, as they described
it to me. It might go longer, but essentially this

(00:21):
is what's going on. It's about seven hundred years into
the future of things like Picard and things like that,
and the Federation has become feeble and not really ready
to handle a big calamity. Well, if you're knew about
Star Trek Discovery, there was a big calamity that happened
called the Burn, where the energy source of all their

(00:42):
starships di lithium, a mineral they would mine, suddenly went
explosive and caused all this amazing, massive damage. And it
was a huge calamity at the moment. Discovery solves the
problem in the future. But what did the Federation and
Starflee do the day after the burn happened and they
lost a bunch of colonists and planet people and starships.

(01:06):
One very savvy captain who knew that the current iteration
of Starflee couldn't handle the job, decides he has to
go back and literally resurrect a classic hero, James Kirk.
He brings James Kirk to this future dystopia and now
Kirk has to help the Federation solve this problem. They're
not going to solve it, but again, how does the

(01:29):
Federation respond during this crisis. That's the basis of this
amazing story that the guys are doing right now, and
it was a pleasure to talk to them about it
and share this conversation with you today on word Balloon.
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(02:37):
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(02:59):
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(03:20):
Patreon dot com slash word Balloon, Thank you for your support.
League of Word Balloon listeners. Welcome back everybody time again
for another word balloon. It's a Trek Watch episode and
I got two of my favorite guys that really know
how to write Star Trek from IDW. Jackson Lansing Colin
Kelly currently killing it on a fantastic mini series. We

(03:41):
are two issues in too. Here's a variant cover because
I really appreciate this one because it really tells you
what's going on the last Starship and there's that face,
that twenty third century face of James T. Kirk in
the future. Boys. Good to see you, How are you great?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
To see you? Thank you? We just I was just saying,
we just sent disoe forward to print and we're site.
I really feel like every issue with this this story
where we're learning how to turn it up even more so.
It's really been a.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Joy, guys, Honestly, I love and I've said this before
with other things that you did, the Day of Blood event,
the Starship book with Cisco Valiant with or non Valiant Defiant. Sorry,
Thank you Colin with Wharf's Warship. You guys walk between
the rain drops and you find these great ideas for stories,

(04:33):
and I will let you describe what's happening in the
Last Starship out of the events of Discovery. And this
is a prequel, but it really it's a great, great idea.
And you took you took what I thought was like,
all right, what are these guys doing as far as
the Discovery people, and you have fun gold boys. Well done,
So please explain what the Last Starship's all about.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yes, we are head level. We're waiting for the other
guy to do it.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's like it's conversation.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, you know. The Last Starship is at its core
a sort of two things. On the one hand, it's
as you describe it, it's a Star Trek prequel to
Discovery and a sequel to everything that came before. It
said about one hundred years before the third season Discovery.
So if you're a Star Trek person, you're watching this,
you know what's up. Then this is story about the burn.

(05:28):
This is story about what happens when the entire sort
of starfleet apparatus, every starship, every star base with a
dilithium core, every planet that has an active dilithium like
experiment going on on it, every colony with a dilithium reactor,
all explode. And what happens to the Federation when effectively

(05:49):
it's civilian and military infrastructure disappears overnight, trillions of people die,
and trust is lost almost overnight, and the question of
how do you survive? So like the first three issues
of Last Starship is about surviving that event, it's just
surviving the like few months right after that event. Every

(06:11):
three issues of Last Starship is then going to head
further in time down that event. You call it a
mini series, we sort of we think of it as
like a maxi series that is also simultaneously like we
sort of imagine it like an ongoing. We plotted it
like an ongoing that we could like schedule out as
much as as big or small as we want. But
we have a twelve issue commitment from ADW and that's

(06:31):
sort of where we you know, what we were writing
for at the start. So the idea is that every
three issues over the course of these chapters, we're gonna
be going ahead in time and you're gonna be seeing
deeper and deeper and deeper into the burn into how
it has affected the lives of the people on the
last Federation starship, the USS Omega, how it affects the

(06:53):
civilizations around it, like the Borg, like the Klingons, like
the Romulans and the Balkans, but also how it affects
the sort of out of time James T. Kirk, who's
been brought back for very mysterious reasons as part of
a Borg stipulation on their giving the Omega their aid.
And so that's really at core what Last Starship is.

(07:15):
If you're a Star Trek person and I think you're
not a Star Trek person, yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
If you're not a Star Trek person, which is really
those are the ones that we're trying to really trying
to welcome into Star Trek. One of the things that
we've been hearing throughout our time on Star Trek is
at convention after convention, we meet so many people who
are Star Trek people, but they're not comics people or
vice versa.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
We got sick of that.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
We wanted to create the Star Trek comic that welcomes
you into the house even if you've never Star Trek before.
So describing this as a prequel to Discovery hurts my soul.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
It hurts my.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
But the thing about this is, in order to tell
the story of the Last Starship, you needed to find
a story that takes place in the Last Frontier, and
that is really one of the hearts of what Star
Trek is is taking a family, putting them on a
ship to nowhere, right on a ship, and putting them
out in the middle of the unknown. That's the core

(08:15):
of Star Trek. And we've seen the far future with Trek,
We've been to the past. This is a plup a
time during the history that is exactly what we were
looking for at the moment of chaos. Far enough in
the future that you do not need to know anything
about Trek. We are not relying on anything here that
you need to build yourself, build the story on for
you to enjoy it. With the exception of the things

(08:37):
that audiences have probably already absorbed pop culturally, you know
what a James T. Kirki is right, you know what
a borg is, even if you don't really know what
they are beyond those spooky kind of robozombies. By tipping
our hat the things that we know people are already
engaged in and not relying on anything that's kind of
the meat and potatoes of what Star Trek has been before,

(08:59):
we've tried to create something that we're really considering an
absolute Star Trek or Ultimate Star Trek. It's a great
time to come in experience what the buzz is, experience
the excitement of Star Trek, even though it is in
Star Trek's darkest day.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Way to pump the product column, Well done, well said,
I love it and truly for again for you know,
you'll forgive me because given that this as as much
as I cover Star Trek and guys, you know, I
would be very happy to do a three sixty five
Star Trek podcast every day.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're you're you're a you're you're a
Star Trek head, just like us so and.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
We and again, you might people who know Star Trek
might be like, well, we know how the di lithium
issue is solved, because it happens in the third season
this discovery. All right, but but as we know good storytelling,
it's not about the destination. It's the journey exact. And
you have put this story in this place where in
the future, but one hundred years before Discovery jumps to

(09:58):
the future. This is a very passive starfleet and passive
federation and they've kind of forgotten how to fight. Yeah,
and you know, so yeah, go ahead, chance and from
that for.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
That, that is exactly why we set the story here.
We had been struggling for a while to discover a
place in the Star Trek timeline that allowed us the
operational freedom that we wanted to create brand new characters,
to create a brand new context, to create a brand
new set of of of conflicts, to create a brand

(10:28):
new ship, to play with new technology. Like we really
wanted to tell a totally new thing and be able
to say but at the core of it at Star
Trek and so as we looked at the timeline and
played around with that, we have a few different ideas.
I don't want to tip. We have one that like
is like our like chorus of core ideas, like someday
we'll get to do it. It's it's the one like
dangling thread on our Star Trek list that's like miss

(10:50):
not someday. We'd love to come back to this. But
we thought about is it that is is it this? Like?
What is what is the thing we want to do,
and the Burn by nature of Discovery solving the problem right.
But the Discovery spends an entire season trying to be like,
what is the burn? What happened? How do we solve it?
How do we put it back to rights? How do

(11:11):
we do that? And then and then and then runs
that whole mystery and plays it out. That is a
gift to us because it means that our book at
no time needs to be concerned with what caused the burn.
In fact, it's so much better for our story, which
is not a story about trying to discover anything in
terms of like, oh, what is the thing? Our stories

(11:33):
trying to survive and trying to hold something together, trying
to hold a monolith that you thought was incredibly solid
together as it crumbles, and so being able to say,
in the first issue, we have a we have a
line that's like, oh, this place, we've retasked the star base.
We're calling it to space hope they're going to figure
it out. And Star Trek fans know they're not right.

(11:55):
Non Star Trek fans might go, oh, okay, great that
that lets that be over there, and I'm sure we'll
come back to that, and and spoilerler, we're coming back
to that. But yeah, you'd think we could just ignore it.
But ultimately, what that does is that puts a great
piece of story on our table because you know they're
gonna fail. So what does it mean for that race
to fail? What does that look like? What is that story? Okay, great,

(12:19):
now we've got more narrative. Right. The deeper we dug
into the burn, the more we realize that by solving
the core problem, Discovery had actually left behind an incredible
amount of like not just unanswered questions, but just fully
unopened story envelopes, like things that you're just like, oh,
they weren't even thinking about this. This gives us a
chance to own an entire century of Star Trek history

(12:41):
and unpack it the way that we want to unpack
it as creators, the way that Heather wants to unpack
it as an editor, the way that our artist Adrian
wants to unpack it. All of a sudden, we don't
all have to be like, oh, how do we how
do we go between the rain drops? It's like, no,
like they didn't ye here, there's no storm at all.
This is dry to bring the storm, yeah, damn storit

(13:03):
we get to be the storm, we get to be
the gardeners, like however you want to make that metaphor, right,
We get to grow something new, and Discovery gave us
that operational freedom. So I'm very thankful to Discovery season three.
I've been pretty i think, even on this podcast, I've
been pretty overt about like, I'm not a huge fan
of the burn as a plot line. I think that
it hurts as a Star Trek fan to be like, oh,

(13:26):
it's all everything I knew is gone, And that hurt
is exactly what we wanted to mine as writers and
discover why we felt that way and take characters through
that to make something new and ideally something that then
is universal. Right, isn't, as Colin said it, like, it's
not a Discovery prequel, like it is if you're talking
to somebody and you really need to just break it

(13:46):
down to brass tacks as a Star Trek person, like,
what is this? Okay? Yeah, technically it's the story of
this thing you heard about Discovery. But for a new reader,
it's the story of a civilization falling apart and the
one group of people who are trying to hold it together.
That's it.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Boom, Absolutely, man, no, I love it. And again you
guys take the familiar and the general aliens of Star
Trek and Qutney spins on him. Collins start telling me
about this crew, starting with Captain Sodo.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
Captain Delacorte Sodo.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
We fans of our work will realize that this is
the This is the second Soda we have created, but
the third in the Sato line.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
We kind of uplifted Hoshi Sado's family from the original
enterprise into a legacy that's last and for almost nine
hundred years within the Federation. That is one of our
questions here was how do we create a protagonist who
is going to as a man of now being then
right in the future, but has all the legacy behind

(14:47):
him and is truly going to feel this this pain
from this perspective, And thought, well, this man has a
nine hundred year legacy of trek. He is himself an
embodiment of the Federation, being Vulcan human, trill and Orian right.
He is the polyglot of the species. He is the
dream of the Federation, and we even get to catch

(15:08):
up with him as he is bringing the last civilization,
the Gorn, into the Federation to bring peace. This is
his He is the embodiment of everything the Federation has
ever wanted. And you know, we've drawn written a lot
of kind of sexy captains, a lot of you know.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Cool captains.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
We wanted to write for sake of a better argument
up a card, not a lot of Maybe some people
might argue with.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Me, he's very sexy. What are you saying?

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, I apologize to the internet. Card is very sexy.
But what he is is competent, rational. He is the
adult in every room, and that is the kind of
character that we really wanted to bring to the table.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
We love him, Oh go ahead, but he recognizes, if
I may, the problems with his modern day Starfleet and Federation.
They are not used to war, they are not used
to conflict, or certainly a kladomy on this scale where
it seems a lot of the former allies of that

(16:11):
were turned into allies of Starfleet are now enemies again,
and there's a klingon faction that I think we're comfortable
to mention because tuitions in.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Issue to being out, we can we can talk a
little bit about about them. We call them the black Mind.
They're kind of a reframe of a lot of the
Red Path stuff that we worked out in our previous
Star Trek books. Any any fan of our work is
kind of aware. We're very interested, especially as regards Klingons,
at the sort of like cult mentality that seems to

(16:42):
stem up very easily for Klingons hit Traditionally and historically,
it's just a thing we've seen over and over again
with the Klingons, like new leadership suddenly leads to like
very like like bloody situations very quickly, leads to a
lot of like really intense loyalty, very hard. They're they're
sort of honor system means that when you are in

(17:02):
a violent or dangerous scenario, Klingons get into action very
quick and know how to react to that action. But
that also means that their leaders can be pretty cavalier,
and it means they get stuck with leaders like Gwron
a lot more than they get stuck with leaders like
Martok and so and so. We thought, you know, given this,

(17:24):
it felt like at the you know, at the at
the outset of the burn, what are the species who
are going to react to that like an attack, who
are going to see that as a as as an
assault that they need to push back on. And the
Klingons are like it's like in their in their species,
dnatually to experience a tragedy, reframe the tragedy as an attack,

(17:49):
and then get that counter attack mobilized as quickly as
humanly possible, right or kling only possible. And so that
really felt like a great opportunity to look at that.
But the Black mind is a little deeper than that,
and that's something we're going to get into. An issue
three is that the Red Path was all about creating,
taking that and making it a sense of purpose. What
is it to be a Klingon and be honorable and

(18:11):
be and be loyal and be quick to judge and
all these kind of things, but also be like a
good person, a person who's interested in self reflection, in
self analysis and growing oneself. Like the Redpath goes from
being an exercise in kless his ego to being the
way kles redeems himself. And by the end of it,
he sort of rethought what the Red Path is and

(18:32):
begins to teach that to the cling On empire. The
Black mind is what happens when that Klingon loyalty and
honor and and and quickness to fight becomes nihilism. What
happens when you watch all your friends and family die
very suddenly, and.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Not die in glorious battle, but die in in an
accident across the goal. Not a single one of them'll
ever see stovacore right.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
What does that mean for you? How does that mobilize you?
And what do you do with the time you have left?
That's what the black mind becomes. I think it's a
really sympathetic uh, Like like four Villains, they're a very
sympathetic I think rationale. And that's again what we're always
looking for in the Last Arship. No one's a bad guy.
Everyone's just reacting to tragedy differently, and that that reaction

(19:27):
to tragedy creates some really unfortunate events that we know
we're going to dissolve most of the federation by the
end of the century, So getting to sort of step
those things out is very fun.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
And then from that entire relation, or that entire Klingon
kind of perspective comes to a head through our character Valcus,
who is our uh let's see an issue too, Let's
keep calling her our helms are our comms officer?

Speaker 4 (19:53):
Yeah, yeah, officer. There she is on the cover.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
She is a fervent, passionate follower of the Red Pas,
of the Red Path of seven hundred years from now,
where it has become a path of peace, a path
of a calm rationality. Right, almost more vulcan than Klingon
you would expect, But these perspectives.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Of the Black Mind really will shake her to her core.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
And we're going to see a very real kind of
Red Path the Black Mind pipeline. Right, She's gonna get
radicalized in an interesting way that we're very excited to
explore as the story continues.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Well and again, these people who are facing this modern problem.
Sado's solution is to go back to that space station
that we saw in Picard season three and that wonderful
Easter egg of Hey, look they have Kirk's DNA. They
grabbed it from Veridian three, and there is DNA there
of Kirk. Let's clone Kirk, and I love that now
and then forgive me, guys, I'm going to show a

(20:50):
variant cover for issue three because it's already out there.
But you know, it's not Star Trek six on Discovered
Country Kirk. It's our generation's Kirk. It's ts Kirk that
they have resurrected with the memories, with the memories life.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
All of Undiscovered Country Kirk. And I think that's the
thing that we're really excited about with Kirk, is that
this is a new version of him. This is not
the guy you knew, It's not the guy you grew
to know. This is a new being with his memories
and an understanding of his legacy at a very fraught
emotional framework, and none of his support system, his best friend,

(21:29):
not his crew, not there, his ship not there, like
all of the things that made If we know anything
about James Kirk, it's that the one place he never
wants to be is all alone with his thoughts and feelings.
He's really bad at that. Historically, he's very bad at that, right,
like unless he's climbing a mountain, right Like, that's like

(21:51):
the only place he wants to be like alone. So
our whole, our whole framework with him is like, now
this guy's fully isolated and is having to reckon with
like what does he have to bring to bear in
this world? And I think that's maybe the hardest part
of issue too, and the part that I'm curious about,
how Star Trek fans follow us. There is that the

(22:11):
Kirk of Undiscovered Country, which you know, I sort of
think of as like the landing point of that character,
which is, I face my bigotry against the Klingons. I
recognize that it is bigotry, and I understand that things
are not as black and white as I thought. And
then here he is, seven hundred years in the future

(22:33):
and the Klingons are about to kill everything that's left
is his power, then his bigotry. That's a really terrible thought.
That's a hard place to live. That's certainly not a
very Star Trek idea, and it's not a very Kirk idea.
But in this moment of intense crisis, where there are
no good answers and there are only bad ones, is

(22:56):
the thing that makes Kirk special That the I mean,
as we say in Issue Too, that the Klingons killed
his son, and that hatred is still inside of him somewhere,
and that that can allow him to fight in ways
that other people can't. That's a really interesting conversation. That's
a question mark for us. And when we started to
dig onto that, that started to unveil what Issue three
could look like. And I think When people see how

(23:17):
that lands in issue three, they'll get a better sense
of what we're doing with that character because that sense
of confusion about self and identity and righteousness. These are
the Kirk who's having to relearn what he believes about
all those things.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Well and further. And then Guy's minuscule, because I believe
it's addressed in three. Kirk goes to Sado and goes,
what kind of hell did you put me in? Why
did you bring me back to this? And that is
essentially your master thesis in terms of what this James
Kirk is dealing with. I want to put up a

(23:50):
comment because I'm so glad that already people are on
board like I am, and Joshua says, I just want
to say I love the book. I work in a
comic shop and I been relentlessly singing the books praises Amen,
josh Well, way to go, because.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Thank I hope, I hope the book is moving at
your stores. We we hear good things about the retail
on this book. We will. We are doing everything we
can to get boots into your stores. So thank you
for doing the other half of that that work. We
are partners of this. Uh, thank you, and.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
I mean, you know, the retailer support has been incredible.
News is kind of coming out already that our orders
on issue three are larger than our orders on issue two,
which any comics person out there is.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Like, well, happened exactly. The order of Tick is it
was a big surprise, dolls.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's the unicorn of comics retailing. And then our first
issue is going back to with second printing. So you know,
the fact that it is hitting with audiences as hard
as it is is just absolutely incredible. We know that
we've been living in this, we've been loving it, and
we you can kind of you definitely can sense our
excitement just in our conversation here.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
But we're putting it on the page like this story.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
We're doing every step of the story because it's because
it gets us so excited we have to write this.
And I'm really glad that it's kind of showing up
and that people are feeling that.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
And the scale of the story because it's a comic book,
you guys and Adrian can go to these crazy places
and give us incredibly intense ship battles, incredibly intense personal battles.
But I want to continue with the crew because this
is a great interesting group of new people. And you

(25:33):
guys said it. Kirk is alone, but thankfully the star Trek,
reader and fan will see familiar aliens. And in a
way that I really felt Discovery blew it. And I'm
underlining my negativity by saying blew it because we got
a Firangi and this was the Firangi depiction. Here's an
imitation and silent, so you gotta watch the video, but
here's the Farrangi. He just stood there in the background.

(25:56):
He was a background actor. Thank god. We got a
little bit of Frangi in Picard, but again that was
more contemporary to familiar territory of Next Gen and the
other shows. And let's start with your chief medical officer,
who's a John.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
Do you like doctor Zed?

Speaker 1 (26:12):
Are you that I'm intrigued because we're finally seeing just
like Klar being this Klingon meditator or mediator rather not
a meditator, but but this like, oh now, now, of
course they have doctors on Ferengi and everything. What's that like?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
What is he like? And I think one of the
things that I'm really intrigued about with Z is that
so Z is the shorthand for doctor z ed is Uh.
He's the last doctor left. They like like like the
Omega is the last starship. Zen is like the last
doctor you want on your ship. But unfortunately all the
other doctors are dead, and we're gonna sort of get

(26:53):
into that as we go on. There's there's actually a
great scene in issue five that's all really about out
this zed is Uh was really an opportunity for us
to say, look, we love Frangi. We think that Frank
and R is a really interesting idea and the Frangi
is a general concept, are really interesting. But if we

(27:14):
know that they've joined the Federation by this stage, then
we know that like some of the things that we
think about when we think about the Frangie, capitalism, the negus,
the rules of acquisition, that's all gone. They've they got
away from that hundreds of years ago. The they are
now a federation planet. So what are the Frangi in

(27:36):
this world? Well, then they're your They're the ones who
still think like that sometimes, who break the rules, who
have old like who sort of hold on to little
aspects of their culture that that their federation is never
gonna make them get rid of, and who have that
sort of like roguish sense about them. Zed gets to
be a great, I think representation of that because he

(27:59):
is We're not We're not constantly thrown around money jokes
with him, right, That's not what he's about. His thing
is that he is a doctor who self medicates constantly.
He is a doctor who has just lost all of
his friends and family, who doesn't really know his place
in the world anymore, who has a huge chip on
his shoulder for things that we will learn later on
in the book. And so as a result, he the

(28:21):
first thing he does when he beams up to the
Omega is get high and and then and then and
then walk out of the room to go take his
hyper hyper nap. Like that's who he is. He's a
uh he is a roguish, weird, kind of outside the
box guy. And he's allowed to be in Federation circles
because he's a Ferengi. But what that means generally is

(28:43):
he's really able to mask his grief. And so what
we're what we're encountering from him as we go is
more and more of an understanding of that. As for
the wider Ferengi political context, that's going to be coming
in a little bit later in the book. The second
chapter of our book is very much about how the
various worlds of the Federation hold or don't hold together.

(29:04):
And so we're gonna get a better idea of what's
going on with a lot of those planets. But for
Rangin aar In specific, there it go.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
That's fantastic, man, All right, let's move on another. Oh
I'm sorry, Jock's colin. Please. No.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
We always use a.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Kind of a shorthand of like, he's Anthony Bourdain if
Anthony Bourdain was a Ferengi, a Ferangi doctor. But I
also just love he also just kind of comes from
that idea of like, well, infinite you know, infinite diversity
in a culture where every drug is replicatable, every experience
is replicatable, and every one of them can be negated instantly. Right,

(29:42):
how many times have we seen them at ten forward
and they're like, oh shit, emergency since the hall, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
It is a in the future.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
There's this this concept of what utopia can mean, and
the Federation needs to embrace all aspects of that. So
one of the things that I think we really like
is the idea that he can be a high functioning
drug addict, and the Federation would be like, are you
still great?

Speaker 4 (30:06):
Doctor, Like yes, okay, we accept you for who you are,
which is that kind.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
Of like radical acceptance that can actually turn on you
if you're not being authentic with yourself. You trust you,
but you do need to be responsible for that trust.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
Yeah, and that is something you know.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
There's no one.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Sadder in the room than the clown, So like zeb
very funny, isn't he?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Dude?

Speaker 1 (30:33):
I'm telling you, honestly, both of you dudes, way to go,
because seriously, all these characters are really really interesting and folks,
they were IDW, Greg goot IDW and the guys have
been kind enough to even give me an advance look
at three and it only gets better and this this
crew only gets more interesting. So again without spoiling because

(30:56):
it happens in an issue too, chief Engineer, very interesting
choice and again taking this weird kernel of Picard season
two and it's like what what And you guys are like,
all right, fine, if that's who this person is, now
guess what we're gonna play with her? Talk about Agnes?

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, I mean all right, so right, we're doing deep cuts.
I actually had I Eric.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well, he knows about this because his sister, of course,
first officer of the Orville thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
One of the best, one of the best contracts.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
But Bob, yes, Agnes Gerardi. So we knew that one
of the first and foremost one of the things that
we hadn't touched, hadn't played with, had been the Borg
and the Borg. I think everyone who grew up at
a certain age that was your nightmare fuel, right, like
that was one of the things that absolutely stuck with you.
And the fact that we hadn't touched them yet we

(31:57):
did primarily because we wanted to the hits have been
played so well with the Borg. Doing something new was
the only way to approach it. And then in this
time space we really got to thinking about how it
would have played out, because from Picard we do know
they got accepted in the Federation. There was like there
was this they've they've vanished, they wandered off to go

(32:20):
maintain a wormhole of cosmic whatever was out there, and
that what was really intriguing because it was able then
if we were able to return to that concept, we
wouldn't be telling a classic Borg collective story, but rather
the Borg Cooperative, and now we get to build something
new and exciting, and then we get to build it

(32:41):
around Alison Phil who is great. Right, you have that
image in your head of who this character is, and
we get to kind of bring her to the page
while also being like, yes, but this is her after
seven hundred years of stewing in a Borg collective and
a Boord just stalt consciousness, what can that mean?

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I think also a great opportunity for us to just
to just put a real lantern on that, to use
Alison Pill. This is a you know, this is an
actor who we really like. She's been in a million
things I love, and when she was included in the
card cast, at first that was the big exciting casting
news for me, Like I was like, oh shit, Alison
Bill in Star Trek, I'm here for sure. And then

(33:23):
they left her on such a bizarre note that it
felt like if you didn't follow that up, if you
didn't go back to that character and really reckon with
what that had meant, then I would always be dissatisfied
with that plotline. And instead, this gives us a chance
to come in and be very satisfied with that plotline
because we get to take her to a place that
we think she deserves to go. So I'm I'm just

(33:45):
really thankful that we were able to use the likeness.
And I hope someday Alison Pill learns about the book.
I can't imagine she knows it exists. Yeah, I understand,
but I hope she sees herself on the cover of
a Joel Jones comic looking totally dope some day and goes, oh,
what's that, because yeah, big pan program. I'd love to

(34:06):
see what she thinks of the book.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
And yeah, you get your will to do a variant
and everything. That's fantastic. And by the way, again I
had I had the image earlier, one of Michael Chose
covers and of course Francisco Francavillia one of my favorite
people in comics, and he's killing it on the covers
as well. Yeah, I cover it's crazy, but but again
what's great is uh and I and I don't think again.

(34:28):
Issue two's out, so uh di lithium is out. How
are these guys gonna warp around where they need to go?

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Girardi is there with transwarp uh board technology and that's
what's powering the Omega. Now I wanted to ask, and
here's a very deep cut nerd question, because something God
bless you guys. This is what this is what would
drive me nuts about New Trick. They would ignore things,
and it it felt like that di lithium was used
by everybody as we Uber Trek nerds know that the

(34:57):
romulents used a different kind of energy, and I don't
know if the ole it's killing me. Obviously you're talking.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
About you're talking about contained singularity drives John, We're.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
Talking about these guys know. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
that's the thing, it's like, And that's what drove me
nuts about some of the things, like Agnes's fate, that
new Trek Kurtsman Trek sorry kids, I will call it
Kurtsman Trek have left unresolved those tentacles at the end
of season one of Putkart. What does that mean, Oh,
we don't care next story, Well, Girardi with the board,

(35:30):
we don't care next story. And it's like, the great
thing is comics and novels and tie ins.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
What we're here for. That's what we're here. Yeah, it's
a big part of our purview and like part of
our mandate as a medium. Uh, when you're dealing with
license stuff, is if all that stuff up and that
can be kind of minimizing, right, Like that can mean
that our job, as you say, is to walk between
those rain drops. I think what's been really exciting for
us is in finding this area where there was no
rain is then deciding what rain drops we want to

(35:59):
bring in to walk around. And GANI is a big one.
We have a lot of plot to go with that character. Uh,
the last page of MISSU three you've seen no one
else has seen is a big wider turn turn up
on that character. You're gonna see much more of a
turn up on that character in five. You're gonna see
a much bigger turn up on that character in seven

(36:20):
and eight, Like we're can she's a slow boil, yeah,
and we're really slowly building up ah here for you.
But I think one of the things that I'm really
excited about with taking with taking a plot line like
that and being able to drive it forward is also
finding the places to subvert, to find those places to

(36:42):
be like you didn't think that this is where this
plot line was going. Because I don't need to worry
about what the card was doing. The cards finished its
version of this plot. What we are doing now is
picking this up and saying, okay, given where that ended,
what's a great place to take this as an ending?
And we and we knew the ending for every character
of Last Starship before we started. We know how this
book works. That's why I that's why I call it

(37:03):
a maxi series that's still kind of an ongoing because
it's probably twelve, but who knows it's but we know that,
you know, like we know what it is, however wrong
it takes us to get there. We know how we
land and Jerani is one of those landings where we've
we've known it from the start. We've been able to
wrap the book around it. And I think by the
time that we get there, you'll be able to look

(37:24):
back and go like, oh wow, this even connects to
her enjoyment or to her plotlines in the card that
it builds that out. But it also just very you
know about this book, and I think, like we're doing
that across the board. You not to spoil anything, but
you brought up Romeolin singularity drives. We are aware we
are doing something with that, like we're not that's you

(37:47):
don't leave that on the table. That's a great bit
of work, Like why not use it? It's not going
to be the center of our story. It's not like
we were like, how do we how do we do
romelin singular drives? That was what we did. What we
did was we built a plot, and then as we
were building the plot, we went, hah, what about romulin

(38:08):
singularity drive? And because we know that that's there and
we want to play with that, we get to we
get to like fold it into the recipe rather than
being like, rather than starting the recipe like, wow, I
got I got so many rommelin singularity drives in the fridge.
I really got to make something out of these? What
am I gonna do? You know?

Speaker 3 (38:25):
It's sort of like, yeah, I was actually at a
pool party once a little bit ago, and I was
telling one of the people there about the book and
I was getting it was still nascent and kind of
described it and he pulls me aside and he's like,
what about the romulin singularity drives? They don't make?

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Why did Discovery forget about that?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
And I was like, I don't know, many you don't know?

Speaker 3 (38:49):
And I was like, I I can't I literally can't
talk to you about this stuff, like I don't, I
don't wanna. He's like, let me tell you what the
Singularity drive should have been, and I was like, I
certainly can't hear.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
What you think.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Oh sure, yeah, God forbid, I don't want to be
a flul through your story.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Absolutely aggressive about telling me how he thinks the lomulent
Singularity drives. I was like, thank you, sir, I'm so
glad you're excited. I have to leave this party. I
just would not stop.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Oh boys, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I hear you though.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
The passion for the the the Singularity drives.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Man.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Everybody who's like, oh, prequel, but what about the Singularity drives? Like,
my guys, we know about the Singularity drives.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Just but guys, get there.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's and again, this is why you guys. I just
had David Mcon a couple of weeks ago talking about
the Con podcast drama, and I certainly later we'll ask
you guys before we wrap up your thoughts on that.
But this is my frustration as my teith clench about
Kurtzman Trek. They don't know and they don't care, and

(39:56):
that's okay, that's a choice and that's fine. They're the
guys who with the control and the power, and but
it does frustrate the chess master, uber Trek nerds like myself,
like your guy at your pool party, and like yourselves
in terms of no press. And that's the great thing.
You guys can come in with the tie and stuff

(40:17):
and go we got it, don't worry. And that's what
I mean. David Mack was the same way when I
was talking to him, to him about his novels and
the and the podcast drama and stuff, and that's great.
And I am really excited for the new regime as
far as the potential because we've had eight years at
Kurtzman Goodbye, time to go. I'm sorry, you've made your imprint,

(40:38):
You've got your impact on Trek. No one will take
that away whatever they decide to do in the future.
Just like Berman Trek, this is an era of Star Trek,
for better or for worse. I stress the ladder, but
that's okay because thankfully you guys are keeping me sane
with the story. Like the last stars here.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Here to help you know, we're we I think we
talk about this every time we've we've we've come in
to talk about Star Trek. So I'm a bit of
a broken record on this, but like I really am
a big fan of using.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
The whole.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
How right, Yeah? Yeah, So when when I when I
look at at current Star Trek, are there plots? I don't? Like? Absolutely?
Are there plots? I do like? Absolutely? Are there characters
who I think are as good as anything that's been
on Star Trek one hundred percent? Do I think there's
characters I would throw out an air lock, of course,
And I think that that's true. I'm sorry, Rathi, but

(41:31):
I think that. But I think, but I think it's true. Truthfully,
I think it is true that every Star Trek fan
feels that way about every Star Trek series at some
point or another. I would I could say as many
mean things about Voyager or Enterprise as I could say
about Discovery or you know, first.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
First season t first season TNNG. It was a struggle.
It was a struggle.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Again, I think, like the my my feeling about Kurtsman
Trek is that he has kept it alive in a
period where it did not need to have wide reach,
or it did not need to have its own brand,
where it didn't need where it didn't need to do
an animated series or a kids series. I love that
we got Lowered X out of this. I love that
we got Prodigy out of this. I love that we

(42:18):
want strange new worlds out of this. I think there's
and certainly I'm very thankful we got Discovery out of
this because it gave us the opportunity to something like this,
right Like, I I think The Cards Season three is
a wild experience. I'm very very glad I got to
watch it as an old nation generalising fan, right Like,
There's a million things along this way that I'm very
happy for. I'm really excited to see what they do next.

(42:39):
We will be at the door asking to be let in,
right Like, that's my my big thing now is great.
I'm really glad that Jonathan Daly and and I shouldn't do.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
I forget his name too. Yeah. But the new guys,
the guys that are directing the new movie Everybody and
then also directs Dungeons and Dragons and Gas, two guys.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Who love Star Trek and Dungeons and Dragons, who are
very experienced and in the comic book.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
I'm a huge place I'm a huge fan of them.
I think I Yeah, I think we might be duplicative
of them, unfortunately, but I do. But I would really
love to. Uh, you know, we've sort of said, like
Last Starships our last star Trek book for a minute, okay,
on some other things on the Starship has done. Whenever
that is, we're gonna be paying our attention to some

(43:27):
other things. You're gonna hear. We we we just signed
on to our first non star trek thing in like
a year because this is the only comic we're doing.
Everything you said, yeah you tell games or a secret
or whatever. This we have one new book we like
just signed up to do. That's a big ip and
we're really excited. It's something we've never touched. I think
that'll be really fun. We'll dive in, we'll have a
good time. Yeah. But I I know that when we stop,

(43:52):
like as soon as we write the end, at the
end of whatever the last issue of Last Starship is, uh,
we're gonna want to get right back in the Captains. Yeah.
Like I know, I know, I know us we're immediately
going to turn around and be like, where do we
write a warp drive next? Right? So my hope is
that when we do that, we'll be able to turn
around and go, you know, we have an office on
the Paramount lot. Like I want to be able to

(44:13):
just walk down the way to the Star Trek offices
and be like, hey, guys, what's up right, and like
that's hopefully that's where I hope so we are. That's
hopefully where we are going in time. Let them build,
let them tendency what they are, and when they need
the support of like long standing Star Trek heads who
love this stuff and want to do it, we will be, uh,

(44:34):
you know, we'll be the first people there.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
I'm with you guys absolutely. And you know, Judith and
Gara Reeve Stevens got their opportunity I think on Voyager
for Enterprise or both. And uh, you know, David David Mack,
who I just talked to head is two deep Space,
nine ninety stories that happened, And no, that's great, and
again it's time for new blood. Hey, these guys are
going to need a writer's room. Well, I should say
Paramount is going to need a writer's room eventually. It

(44:58):
can't just be done by two people. Uh, but again,
the opportunity seem to be there in a great way,
and I'm with you on the animated stuff that has
happened during Kirtsman track. Yeah, it took me a while
more up to lower decks, but I did. And Prodigy
is excellent and really, much like the original animated series,
is a feast for adults as much as trying to

(45:20):
get kids. And it's a shame I got cut short
on only two seasons, but we got literally forty episodes. Yeah,
I mean, in today's streaming a lot of environment. Yeah,
that's that's a lot. So how that's four seasons of
streaming when you think about it, So, yeah, it's a
different world that way. No, I love it all right,
first officer, tell me about the first officer, Carter.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Carter right now, So, yeah, they are a the core.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Pardon me when you say they they are.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, they're not binary. Yeah, they're not binary. The they've lived,
they've lived basically their whole life non binary. We're gonna
kind of get into that a little bit of Issue
for Issue for. You're going to learn a lot about Wowie.
Wowie is a UH is our deep dive character in
Issue for and you're you're really going to get UH
for the first time over the course of last persion.
I think our first real single character deep dive, Uh,

(46:15):
right on that one. Ultimately, what we wanted to do
with Wowie was twofold. The first was it's really important
to continue the premise of Gene Roddenberry's evolved humanity and
something that we see in uh Discovery three. Again, this
is like one of the only rain drops we really
have in the places we can we can backfill there,

(46:36):
right should we know, uh that Earth is not just
going to leave the Federation, but it's going to become
something of a military dictatorship, and we we we know
that that's it's eventually going to result in a in
a presidency and whatever, but like probably takes some time
to get there, and it's probably kind of kind of
a rough rough ride as like a separatist Earth first military.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
And they step out of the federation. They were actually one.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Of the first.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, so we know that to step right, to step
out Yeah yeah, yeah, so we.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Know that, yeah exactly. So we know it's early, and
we know that it's intense, and we know that their
civilization goes in a really different direction than what Roddenberry
would have sort of premised as like where where humans
would go. We also, however, love the premise of Roddenberry
is sort of like, I don't know if it's a

(47:25):
misunderstanding of evolution, but it's a very like esoteric understanding evolution,
which is, oh, we can evolve past individualized emotions. We
can evolve past grief. We can evolve past you know,
uh eny, the seven deadly right or self interest. We
can evolve past that stuff. What we wanted to do

(47:47):
with wow we would say, Okay, after we've done all
of that, what is left to evolve past? And we
looked at a character and said, what does it mean
if a character at least believes that they cannot feel
fear that they are, that they've evolved past fear, that
the idea of second guessing oneself, of not throwing oneself
one hundred percent into something because they know what they're doing,

(48:07):
Like how perfect can a human get? And that was
where we wanted to go with Wowie, because that makes
for such a great conversation if you know that Earth
is going to leave quickly, because that means they have
to be afraid. You don't do that if you're not afraid.
So if we have a character who is human who
is saying, no, we're evolving past this, and you have
the rest of the human race saying, no, we believe

(48:28):
in this. That conversation makes such a good arc, and
that's really where we're that. That's what Wowie is premised on.
It also just means that we get to have a
kick ass, like young kind of Wesley Crusher style character,
except he's the first officer of the ship. He's he can.
He does some action stuff in issues two and three,
especially in issue three that I just am like, is

(48:50):
just some of my favorite stuff. Adrian's really every time
you put Wowie into action. So yeah, that's that's what's
up with Wowie Carter. I love them, man.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, Wowie is eminently eminently physically capable, and perhaps has
not done as much emotional analysis as they need to, because,
after all, unfortunately gene, you can't evolve past emotion. Yeah right,
there's no such thing as evolving past greed. It'd be
nice we can socially acclimize ourselves to no longer engage

(49:20):
with it. But it's in the DNA, my friends and
Tony talk on that is a surefire way to discover disaster.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Well, as we've discussed before, it's Kirk's comment in a
taste of arm again. We're killers, but we're not gonna
kill it today, you know.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
And it's and and it's.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
That and I love again having Kirk observe this future
is fascinating to use this spot phrase and it's right.
I mean, it's it's and Wow. He's a great example
of that where there's this level of admiration for this
kid and then first he's like, I don't know, kid,
I'm gonna throw you into something really tough, no problem, sir,
And it's like that. It's great.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yeah, their relationship and Issue three is pretty dynamite. I'm
I'm I'm a big but it leaves Wowie in a
very complicated place in issue for moving forward. And so
I think that again is stuff that I'm really excited
to see play out as we as we continue to
explore that character.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
All Right, I'm gonna ask questions a little bit post,
you know, because I know I'm watching the clock too,
don't worry, guys, And I know you know, I'm trying.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
To think that. I think that's the whole Yeah, that
is the whole guest we talked about, and it's great
because V is the secret nobody can know about the
everything about V's redacted you can just.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Read, okay. And also, by the way, and you've done
this throughout your Star Trek stuff. I love your text
pieces because it gives you an opportunity to go a
little bit further than twenty two pages will allow. And uh,
and it only enriches the story. I was having the
same conversation with Philip Kennedy Johnson with his text pieces
that he's doing in Superman and Batman and Robin and

(50:53):
the like and the half for that matter. So yeah,
it's it's great, And yes, this is a very mysterious
kind of start section thirty one or star pleet intelligence character.
We don't know much about her or yeah, now Romulin
Vulcan we don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yet unvarn uh Navarren because at this point the Romulins
and the Vulcans have created But what that means is
going to be a longer term conversation fantastic again where
she falls on that Vulcan to Romulin binary. Yeah, then
we're gonna we're definitely looking at and I think as
you get as you said, then you're gonna see a

(51:28):
lot more of that much like yeah, yeah, well.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
But obviously there's right.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
You can you can reduce, you can combine, how to
put it, you can combine chocolate and vanilla, but it's
if you're lactose intolerant, it'll still be a bad Yeah,
basically you can. You can take the you can take
the vulcan Science Academy, and you can take the romulins
how she are, and you can put them in the
same place. But that doesn't mean that either of them

(51:55):
go anywhere, right, just you just because you change the
label doesn't mean at the soda different. So what what
she is sitting on, what secrets she is sitting on,
and what that is going to how that's going to unpack. Yeah,
it is going to be a big mystery and part
of how the story progresses.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Navarre another great example of why I don't mind unification.
But again, it's like, okay, and you guys have taken it.
Here's a direction. Yeah. What I like.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
What I like about Navarre is as a as a
as a premise within the premise of Discovery is that
when we go to the future, things should be different.
So I like the idea that if we're going to
go to the future, one of the one of the
main conflicts that we understand as like a core conflict
in the Star Trek universe with the Romulins and the
Vulcans has been resolved and quote unquote resolved, and that

(52:45):
by doing that, it creates a very different place for
everyone to encounter the next time they go to Vulcan
or Romulas or Navarre call it. I think there's a
to me. I think there's a very nice initial threat
of that. What I'm really curious about is what happens
when you really do a story about it, which, by
a large Discovery didn't. They had like that one episode,

(53:08):
the Absolute Candor episode where they yes, they did that,
but I think beyond that it was it was always
kind of like, oh, well they're they're Bromulates. Yeah yeah,
And I think we we really wanted to to look
at that. And again, A Discovery left us a great breadcrumb, right,
which is that uh Navarre uh not only left the

(53:33):
Federation much later, but did so while hiding all of
it self analysis about whether or not it had caused
the burn. Like there's this great bit in Discovery where
they learned like oh yeah, ah, the Romulans and Vulcans,
like as soon as the burn happened, were like, oh,
that was probably us. We probably did a weird science
and that was probably us, and then spent a long

(53:54):
time trying to figure out whether or not it was them.
That part of that story is something we want to
unpack in an interesting way inside the Starship.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
There you go, man, absolutely know, And this is why
I'm enjoying this story as much as I am and
I have I've had faith in you boys since Star
Trek year five, and you continue to impress and astound
me and and and that really everybody and I look
forward to when we talk about other projects with Jackson
and Colin about I mean, I've loved their Marvel stuff.

(54:23):
Kang is amazing. Uh and of course DC the Outsiders thing.
I was thinking about that preparing for this conversation and things.
But I do want to and again we'll keep it
Star Treks centric. Hey we I hope you guys did
forgive me for asking you on the air, but I
hope you'll end adultent enough that after every issue comes out,
we can continue the last Starship conversation because really, all right,

(54:45):
because I'm you know, I'm obviously like in withdrawal, not
having new new on camera Star Trek, and also I
got I'm gonna need something to keep me sane because
I'll admit Starfleet Academy. I'm like, well, he's pret card
and maybe maybe maybe my fingers are so crossed. You

(55:05):
have no idea how crossed my fingers aren't, I know
much as you do. My fingers are so crossed. Regardless,
I need, I need, I need, I need the novels.
I need the comics to keep me saying, as Don
Lens have pointed out earlier in the for.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
You, that's again happy to come back anytime talk Star Trek.
I think, especially as we get into the cadence of
the Last Starship, idea of being able to come in
like whether it's every issue, every chapter, however you want
to do it. I think I would love it issue
for us to have a place to like unpack this, uh,
you know, on a regular basis. So happy to.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
Want and I hope it's cathartic for you guys to
you know, be able to share your excitement with me
and you see the smile that it's not left my face.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
And John, we always love.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Yeah, you have a great you have a great sense
of not only what what the.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
The non.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
You're a real head, you want to Star Trek while
also getting really about the little nitty gritty stuff that
most people don't care about.

Speaker 4 (56:03):
But we this triangle. It's like our whole personalities.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
So yes, we are.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
Happy to have a place to go just to kind
of go ham on the stuff.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
My good friend Mitchellick of terrific on Fame, I was
talking to him about it and he's like, I didn't
know there were that many Star Trek YouTube shows and
podcasts out there. I'm like, uh, yeah, there are, because
there are literally thousands of us that are chapter and
verse and think about romulin ships and what powers them
versus dilethium and things. Let me ask you about Star

(56:34):
Trek con. Could you would you guys listen to it
or were you afraid of potential future influenced by the story.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I haven't listened to it yet. Okay, it's one hundred
percent something I want to listen to. That seems so cool.
It is absolutely in my vibe. I'm really excited about
this idea, but I will admit right now I'm actually
really enjoying being in a bit of a Star Trek
four and only focusing on our thing. I actually didn't

(57:03):
watch any of Strange New Worlds four while we were
is it three that they did three? I didn't watch
any of Strange New World's three, which we which I
love and I have friends who were on and like
all this stuff. I didn't watch that show until we
were already well underway, okay, so that I didn't have

(57:26):
any of it bouncing around in my head. I think
so much of what the distinction between all the star
trek work we've done before and Last Starship is that
all the other star trek work was it was it
was enhanced by sitting there and watching Deep Space nine
over and over again, and watching Next Jet over and
over again, and watching TNG over and over again. I'm
like just putting on random episodes and reminding myself of

(57:49):
a voice and getting into it. Like that's a great
frame because it means that every once in a while
you'll find a great line that you're like, oh right, great,
I can echo that here, and I could do a
thing here. With Last Starship, there's no template. It doesn't
help to go back to the to the to the pool.
In fact, going back to ts Kirk is probably the

(58:09):
only place that's useful, and even there not so much
because we're building our own version of him that is
gonna have his own voice and his own ideas. So
the more that we got into it, the more it
became clear to me that the better stuff for me
to be watching during this with stuff that echoed with
the same story that we did. Like I I feel
like probably there is more influence on this book out

(58:33):
of something like The Brutalist or the or Likely to
Talking plur of Us, The New the new show from
Apple Yeah Yeah yeah good still again, and our our
buddy Gordon Smith the is uh one of the head
guys on that show. We wrote and direct episode that
Yeah Uh. One of the producers, Jen Carroll, introduced me

(58:55):
to my wife like I love I love the blur
of his people. They're they're great people. But that show
is about living through trauma, living through grief, dealing with
your anger, dealing with I like, dealing with feeling isolated
inside of like world that move on without you. There's
probably more influence from something like that than there is
from watching another Star Trek show. Sure, Inside Last ar Time,

(59:16):
But I think that's what makes it special. I think
that's what makes it a good book. So I'm I'm
hopeful that that that sort of continues and then you know,
when it's done, then I can watch the next season
Strange World.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
There you go, there you go. Well again, we're excited
for the new movie and the potential new direction, and
we can get more into it the next time we
talk as well. But in the meantime, the great thing
is Last Starship is absolutely if you're a trek fit,
it is absolutely worth your attention, and it hits all
the right notes in the best way that the great
comics and the great novels that tie that tie in

(59:49):
to the big myth of us. It delivers. And again,
you guys are you're proven commodities to me boys, And
I'm really glad that Heather keeps finding and asking you guys,
all right, what else you got? And she doesn't she
ask us what else we got?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Uh Lucky, lucky, lucky us to be uh dialed in
with Heather Antos. I'm telling you, just a one of
those like I don't know what our life would be
if we had not found that editorial partner like she's.

(01:00:26):
She is in so many ways the thing we were
hunting for in comics, where you're like, oh, here's like
a place to live and feel safe and be able
to create and not like like we've worked with a
lot of other great editors. I'm not trying to this
is not a different any editor. But I think the
thing about Heather is she's the only one who like

(01:00:48):
we just like text, We just hang out, we have
we are friends, we have this a really core understanding,
and she's really the only editor I think we've ever
had who will readily call us on our bullshit if
it's apparent and if and like it's it's very hard
for us to go like no, no, no, we're just

(01:01:09):
gonna do this like she we we were with the
will ask question and be unafraid of of of our
ability to handle it, which I really love. I love
not being kid gloved like that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
We work with Tom Berebort, and Heather is the one
who has given us the harshest criticisms. Right correct, because
then she's also going to turn around and look at
Star Trek and look at Paramount of the Eyes and
be like, the boys got it right, right, Like she
throws elbows on our behalf, and thus we will let

(01:01:41):
her punch us in the elbows.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
I don't know, but I did get it. It's exactly
call it and once you get the baby to deal
and so I totally respect that there's only other.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
Of the office banging on the window like uh like
graduates his spuck at the end of Y he's literally
a little hand pressed up and.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
I'm oh nice, I was gonna say, like Riker in
the in the episode where he's in the insane asylum.

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Also good, Also good. These are all great pumps for
a baby.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Yeah, but true last Starship everybody from id W. We
are two issues in issue to just came out, catch
up and good news. The boys are gonna come back
and they're gonna talk issue three with me next hopefully
next month, if not early January. Who's saying hello, Hea.
They're saying hello, Hey, Heather, Thanks for grulating these guys, Heather.

(01:02:40):
Honestly and truly, I know Greg is probably passing along
my well wishes to Ether and not only them, but
also Chris Cantwell and the Bridges and everybody that's working
in I d W for the Star Trek stuff that
they're doing. It's great stories. And believe me, Greg and
I have been talking and saying Hey, you know you

(01:03:02):
want to get you want to get cant Well back. Yes,
you want to get the Bridges back about the Voyager
home coming straight? Yes, So yeah, don't worry. I mean again,
if there's one combook podcast out there that is absolutely
behind what I d W is doing with Star Trek
right here, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
I can't I can't wait to see this, this like
what if series they're doing. I'm like, I'm so in
the tank for what If Star Trek. It's crazy. Stephanie
Williams doing a uh like a Herah version of of
a city on the Edge of Forever count me in.
I'm everyhow are you know you wanna wear? I haven't

(01:03:39):
and and and it's and I appreciate do the Heather.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
I hope they're okay talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
This, but yeah, that's cool. They just announced that they're
doing a Oh great, They're doing a what if based
sort of series. That's gonna be I understand it. One
shots from various creators that take Star Trek and do
like a what if.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
And I got like they did with Star Wars a
few years ago when it was still a dark horse,
and they gave us striking in history. Soever william I
guess doing siphilings Who's Who's just one of my favorite
writers and person to boot just like a really great friend.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
She is apparently doing a or her like what if
Her went back? Rather than kirk uh In.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
For the City on the Edge of Forever the thirty
story feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
A great premise, like it opens up all of interesting avenues. Sure,
I cannot wait to see what she what she?

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Wow? All right, Heather, I heard I have to get
them in the tank. Yep, that's awesome, and Heather promises
a lot more coming. You can get that comment up here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Hates sleep, Heather, I hates sleep, She hates resting. She
only lives for comics and God bless her for it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
While you're watching, I'll be I'll be bugging Greg to
arrange a new talk with Heather as well. And hey,
we're only we're only you know, a month and change
away from the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary Star Trek
A year next year in twenty six yes please, And
I'm and I know that on the novel side, a

(01:05:06):
lot of shit's going on as well. And sorry, kids,
there's gonna be a lot more Trek. Go watch talk
here on Ward Balloon because of it, because of all
these great people that are very talented and providing great
entertainment with the Star Trek franchise. So boyos, well done.
We'll talk in a few weeks and I'll put you
I'm sure looking forward to it. Thank you, guys, Jackson

(01:05:28):
Lansa and Colin Kelly the dynamic duo of Star Trek.
And it's always great to catch up and hear about
new stuff. I gotta scroll down because I dropped my mouse.
You might hurt it clank earlier in the conversation, but
no great stuff. And let's see. I you know this
weekend on Star it's gonna be interesting on Word Balloon.
And you guys will appreciate this, being the futurist that

(01:05:49):
you are. I I decided to have an interesting chat
with AI and do a back and forth. And I
know I and Colin I appreciate the negative face, but
essentially I am calling it and incells look at AI,
and I am not an Incel, but I will adopt
the lonely guy persona of the supposed in cell. And

(01:06:11):
I really want to get inside a robot's head of
because they're your friend and they can talk about anything
you're interested in, So I'm going to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
Yeah, episode watch out down that rabbit hole, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Oh no, I look, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:26):
The Holo deck is just like a neat thing we
can go play like, I don't know, like a video
game or something.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Well, and the entire life and the amount of shit
that they get wrong is fantastic as well. And as
I've been thinking about it and framing this, the future
is not now, but we are about two weeks away
from Skynet taking over the world. Metaphorically speaking, next next time,
next time, we don't have to immediately run. Bring this
back up, and I'll go on a thirty minute rant

(01:06:53):
about why you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
Yeah, I'm I'm excited. Let's dig in.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
I understand you guys don't even have to stick around
for the post show chat. Thank you guys for coming on,
Thank you everybody for watching. It's gonna be a fun weekend,
ed really. To close out November, we also have the
book Click coming up on Sunday. Bennis and I will
be talking about Kelly Thompson's excellent Birds of Prey Volume one,
all that on war Balloon Live this weekend. Join us then,
until then, stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy,