Written by Scott Tipton & David Tipton
Drawn by Rachael Stott
Published by IDW Publishing with Boom! Studios

Well, this is quite an interesting crossover, although not as improbable as it initially seems. In all variations of the Star Trek universe, concepts like time travel and parallel universes/timelines have long been utilized. And for the record I’ll state that this series portrays the Star Trek Enterprise crew of the original TV series (the time given is stardate 6815.3, don’t ask me to translate that to real time), not the movie reboot version, and the “Planet of the Apes” as portrayed in the original film, not any of the remakes.

The plot is that the Klingons have somehow discovered a wormhole in space that takes them into the future of the parallel Earth where Apes rule the planet and humans are treated like slaves. For reasons which are currently unexplained, the Klingons are giving advanced weapons to a Gorilla General in order to facilitate a military takeover of the ape society.

The Federation figures out that the Klingon Empire is up to something, but they don’t know exactly what, so the Starship Enterprise is sent to investigate. After Uhura and Sulu go undercover on the Klingon Homeworld and steal some data files, the Enterprise heads to the secret location in space where the Klingons are guarding the wormhole. And that’s when the Enterprise finds itself under attack by a squad of Klingon Birds of Prey. HOW WILL THEY SURVIVE?!? Well, I don’t want to spoil the ending, you’ll have to read that for yourself.

Pretty solid first issue to this miniseries. It is a tad light on the “Planet of the Apes” side of this crossover, as we only get a few pages of activity on that world. This is primarily a Star Trek adventure to start with, and from that side I don’t have any complaints. Scott and David Tipton provide us with a story that feels like it fits right in with classic Trek lore. All characterization of the crew are spot-on, especially in the way they interact with each other. And we get plenty of action in the dramatic space battle near the end.

The Tipton’s are ably backed by artist Rachael Stott, who has the unenviable task of not just illustrating the story but capturing the likenesses of the actors who portrayed the Enterprise crew, but she more than rises to the occasion, and handles the quiet character scenes just as well as she does the climactic action scenes. With these creative team involved, I’m excited to see how this crossover unfolds…

Star Trek/Planet Of The Apes #1