Review: Star Trek #500 (Star Trek #400)

Description: Celebrate IDW’s 500th issue of Star Trek comics (and an early Star Trek Day!) with this landmark oversized anthology issue! This collection of five short stories spans through fan-favorite eras of the beloved franchise from Lower Decks to Strange New Worlds, legacy characters from The Next Generation and the original series, written and illustrated by Star Trek comics veterans and new voices alike. Plus, don’t miss out on the prelude to 2025’s big Star Trek and Defiant comic crossover event written by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, and Christopher Cantwell!

The Stories

The celebratory issue includes 7 new stories from the various Star Trek crews and gets this started with ‘I Knew You Were Tribble When You Walked In’ by Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt. This fun little story is a continuation of ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’ but very much from the point of view of a Tribble who has fallen in love with Captain Kirk. Its a fun read with some really interesting observations about life as a Tribble.

The second story moves onto the universe of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and is set shortly after the events seen in ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’. In this story, we see La’an Noonian Sigh still struggle with loss of the alternate universe Captain Kirk and to try and work through her feelings, but covertly she arranges for a chat with Kirks older brother Sam. Written by Jodie Houser the story ‘Yesterday’s Shadow’ delves a little deeper into the frustration and anguish that La’an is feeling.

‘Unexpected Mentor’ is the third story and is set in the Star Trek: Discovery timeline. Written by Stephanie Williams the story sees Captain Michael Burnham and her crew on a rescue mission. Having rescued most of the settlements people from a series of Earthquakes. Michael finds herself going after a vulnerable girl who has been left behind and is to frightened of the aftershocks to move. This story is a great explanation for how human vulnerability can lead to connections and the building of solid relationships.

The above only makes up the first three stories in the book. The other stories ‘Latnum Glove’, ‘Go See Cal’, ‘What’s A Q To You?’, and ‘The Final Masterpiece’ all explore different moral dilemmas and characters from the extended Star Trek Universe. Indeed ‘The Final Masterpiece’ shows us a snippet of what we’ll likely see in future Star Trek comics.

The Artwork

Each story in the book had its own art team and by and large, the artwork was solid throughout. I particularly enjoyed the artwork in the first two stories, but was not so keen on the art style used in the Star Trek: Discovery story as it felt a little bit too cartoonish for my liking.

Overall

This anthology collection that makes up Star Trek #500 gets a solid thumbs up from me as the stories were varied and all had some pretty nice points to make. On the downside, though we didn’t really get to see to much of The Next Generation crew or The Voyager and Enterprise Crews, but hopefully we’ll get those in the future or maybe a mini-series if IDW are able to come up with a good enough story.