Star Trek fans are getting even more Jean-Luc Picard ahead of his small screen appearance. Before Star Trek: Picard takes off in 2020, parts of his life will be revealed in print. Due to a partnership between CBS Consumer Products, IDW Publishing and Simon & Schuster's Galley Books, fans can get their hands on stories that fill the gaps between the upcoming CBS All-Access series and our last bout with the captain in Star Trek: Nemesis.
The first prequel will come in the form of a three-issue comic book series. "Star Trek: Picard-Countdown" is written by Mike Johnson and Picard supervising producer, Kristen Beyer. The books will reportedly focus on one mission that would change Picard's life forever. It will launch in November and run through January 2020.
Next, we'll get a novel that is a continuation of "Countdown" and leads directly into the television series Star Trek: Picard. Written by Una McCormack, The Last Best Hope will fill in the last of the gaps by introducing us to some of the new characters we'll meet in the show. McCormack is a trusted voice to tell this story considering she has written 8 novels that tie into the iconic Star Trek universe already. The Last Best Hope should arrive in February 2020. CBS Consumer Products Executive VP of global franchise management, Veronica Hart, said this a statement.
"From the moment we announced this series we've seen a groundswell of support from our fan base who are thrilled to have Jean-Luc Picard back on their screens. Having this brand new original backstory play out through both comic book and novel formats will set the stage for the new series in an exciting way while also showcasing the work of our talented partners at Simon & Schuster and IDW."
The highly anticipated series that follows the masterful Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard was first announced nearly a year ago, and story speculation has run rampant. Luckily, executive producer Alex Kurtzman and the studio behind him took Comic-Con International by storm this year. The panel was full of updates on Star Trek: Discovery and the new adult animated series Lower Decks, but none of them garnered as much excitement as the Picard Trailer.
Rebooting a beloved franchise is always a risk, but rebooting a Star Trek franchise raises the stakes. In 2009, J.J. Abrams along with writers Kurtzman and Roberto Orci gambled, and it paid off. They sparked another Star Trek renaissance, but most importantly, they maintained the original timeline. Abrams' Star Trek delineates itself from the popular Next Generation rather than rewrite it. The film picks up about 8 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis when a supernova threatens to destroy the galaxy. Spock attempts to create a black hole to destroy the supernova, but he isn't able to save Romulan, and it is destroyed. Eric Bana's Nero goes through the wormhole to arrive over a hundred years in the past and attack Captain George Kirk's ship, killing him just after James T. is born. This started the new timeline that Abrams and crew could play in.
Whereas Leonard Nemoy's Spock appeared in the Abrams Star Trek films, having gone through the wormhole himself, Patrick Stewart's Picard stayed home. This is where Star Trek: Picard picks up. Kurtzman has said that Picard's life was radically altered by the destruction of the Romulan Empire; could this be the "mission that changed Picard's life forever"? We'll have to wait until November to find out. This news comes to us from The Hollywood reporter.