| Star Trek: Countdown | |
|---|---|
 Advert forCountdown displaying the cover of each issue. Clockwise: Nero, Data, Picard, and Spock. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | IDW Publishing |
| Schedule | Monthly |
| Format | Limited series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | January–April 2009 |
| No. of issues | 4 |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Gene Roddenberry |
| Written by | Script: Mike Johnson Tim Jones Plot: Roberto Orci Alex Kurtzman |
| Artist | David Messina |
| Letterer(s) | Chris Mowry Neil Uyetake |
| Colorist(s) | Paolo Maddaleni Giovanna Niro Ilaria Traversi |
| Editor | Andy Schmidt |
| Collected editions | |
| Star Trek: Countdown | ISBN 1-60010-420-7 |
Star Trek: Countdown is a four-issuecomic bookprequel to the 2009 filmStar Trek byIDW Publishing. It follows the characters ofSpock and theRomulanNero during the year 2387, detailing the events that cause them to travel to the 23rd century. The story serves as both a lead up to the film, and as a continuation of theStar Trek: The Next Generation franchise.
The comic came about because Anthony Pascale, editor of TrekMovie.com, kept requesting to the film's co-writerRoberto Orci a way of havingThe Next Generation characters "pass the baton" back to the originals.[1]
Writers Tim Jones and Mike Johnson were fans ofThe Next Generation and worked for Orci and Kurtzman's production company. They were allowed to read parts of the script and watch parts of the film to understand Nero more. They chose to give his Romulan crew informal dialogue to reflect that they are miners, not politicians or warriors. In figuring out whereThe Next Generation characters would be eight years afterStar Trek: Nemesis, Jones and Johnson decided if Picard had left theEnterprise, then Data – whose resurrection in B-4's body was heavily hinted at the end ofNemesis – would become captain since he isStarfleet's most capable strategist. The writers made an error of Spock stating he had lived on Romulus for forty years, which the writers tried to explain by saying Spock might have visited the planet before "Unification".[2] The wordforty was later changed totwenty in the trade paperback.[3]
TheStarfleet uniforms seen in the comic resemble those developed forStar Trek Online.[4]Cryptic Studios is tying into the comic by including Picard's promotion to ambassador to Vulcan and Data's resurrection and promotion in the backstory to its game.[5][6] Another in-joke in the comic is the inclusion of the mascot fromBad Robot –J. J. Abrams' production company – in Picard's quarters.[7]
The third issue ofStar Trek Countdown was the first comic to be released in stores and on theiPhone on the same day.[8] The four-issue comic seriesStar Trek: Nero takes place shortly after the events inCountdown.
In 2013, IDW published the officialStar Trek Into Darkness prequel, the 4-issue mini-seriesStar Trek: Countdown to Darkness, and the official sequel, the 4-issue mini-seriesStar Trek: Khan.
The comic is set in 2387, eight years after the filmStar Trek: Nemesis.Federation andRomulan tensions have generally subsided, withSpock the Federation ambassador to the Romulans.Data is still alive and has become the captain of theEnterprise-E after successfully imprinting his memories onto the prototype android B-4.Jean-Luc Picard is the Federation ambassador toVulcan,Geordi La Forge has retired to develop his own ships, andWorf is a general in theKlingon Empire.
The galaxy is threatened by the Hobus star, which will become asupernova. Spock proposes that the Romulans transport the precious mineral decalithium to Vulcan, where it can be converted into red matter capable of turning the star into a short-livedblack hole, therefore ending its threat. The Romulan Senate opposes Spock, but he finds a comrade in Nero, the leader of the miners. Nero witnessed the Hobus supernova consume a planet first-hand and offers to secretly transport decalithium, noting it would be better than doing nothing and then leaving his wife and unborn son to die. Nero's ship, theNarada, is attacked by theRemans, but theEnterprise rescues them and escorts them to Vulcan with decalithium taken from the Reman ships. The Vulcan Council opposes Romulan use of red matter, infuriating Nero; he vows if Romulus is destroyed, he shall hold them accountable.
Nero returns to Romulus to discover Hobus has gone supernova and destroyed his home world. Driven mad by his loss, he attacks FederationOlympic class hospital ships that have arrived to give aid, believing they have come to claim his people's territory. He beams surviving Romulan senators onto his ship and kills them for not listening to Spock, and then claims the Praetor's ancient trident, theDebrune Teral'n, which is the greatest symbol of Romulus. He and his crew then shave their heads and apply tattoos to signify their loss. Nero goes to theVault, a secretive Romulan base, and has theNarada outfitted withBorg technology to begin a rampage against his perceived enemies.
With the supernova expanding, Spock decides to deploy the red matter weapon. He takes theJellyfish, a ship developed by La Forge that can withstand extreme environmental conditions. TheNarada goes about destroying Federation, Klingon, andCardassian ships alike, wounding Worf and damaging theEnterprise in the process. When Spock successfully destroys the supernova, theNarada appears to attack when the black hole flings it and theJellyfish back in time, leaving Picard and the crew of theEnterprise as witnesses to Spock's sacrifice.
Reviews of the first issue ofCountdown byIGN,Ain't It Cool News, TrekMovie.com and TrekWeb were positive.[9][10][11][12] IDW editor-in-chief Chris Ryall blogged that although more than the intended volume had been printed,Countdown sold out within two weeks of its publication.[13]IGN also positively reviewed the third and fourth issues,[14][15] whileio9 also published a positive review of the entire series.[16]
When asked whether the filmmakers' involvement in the comic made itcanonical,Roberto Orci stated he was in no position to declare whether it was, though he felt it could easily remain as such unless it was contradicted in a future film.[17] The first season ofStar Trek: Picard contradicts several plot points ofCountdown, making the supernova the Romulan sun rather than the Hobus star, and establishes that Data's memories were never successfully imprinted into B-4, who was disassembled after a ban on synthetics in 2385. The ban prompted Picard, an admiral rather than an ambassador, to resign from Starfleet. The third season ofPicard also states that Worf, rather than Data, succeeded Picard as the captain of theEnterprise-E and later worked for Starfleet Intelligence rather than becoming a Klingon general.[18]
The series has been collected intotrade paperback andhardcover editions:
