“The Seeds of Salvation” #1 Takes Strange New Worlds to Exciting New Depths

Listen, it’s me. There was going to be a pun in there somewhere

It also dawns on me that "The Seeds of Salvation" is dropping the same day as a brand-new episode of Alien: Earth. That means fans of Trek, Alien, and sci-fi in general are going to be eating well over the next few months, especially if Lovecraftian/HR Giger horror-sci-fi stories are your thing. Here’s the official synopsis:

Here comes a Lovecraftian horror the likes of which the crew of the Enterprise has never seen before! Christine Chapel is itching for a real adventure. So, when an opportunity to reunite with her old scientist friend Jinare for research on the planet Poilant crops up, Chapel is excited to finally do what Starfleet does best: explore strange new worlds. However, when the Enterprise arrives in Poilant’s space, the crew cannot make contact with Jinare or any of her researchers. Chapel, Una, Spock, La’An, and Scotty beam down, and they are greeted by… nothing… no one… and no signs of what caused their disappearance, only a robot named D6 who urges them to descend into the planet’s depths in search of his friends. But there’s more than scientists lurking in the watery abyss. Ancient life-forms and behemoths await-and they might mean more adventure than even Chapel can handle.

Me? I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with this style of film, television, and media in general. On one hand, there are aspects of the Alien franchise I find fascinating, and I’m also loving Alien: Earth. On the other hand, sometimes it’s gross just for the sake of being gross. Star Trek, though? Yeah, it needs more of this. And if issue one of "The Seeds of Salvation" is any indication, we’re about to get plenty of it.

When writer Robbie Thompson said at San Diego Comic-Con this past July that the Enterprise and crew were heading to a Europa-like planet, I got anime eyes immediately. I know I’m name-dropping a lot of franchises here, but there’s a reason: Europa is one of my favorite locations in the video game Destiny 2. It’s frozen, full of secrets buried beneath the ice, and has this haunting, atmospheric vibe that gets me every time I used to land there.

When the Enterprise finally arrives at Poilant, the Europa-like planet mentioned above, I felt the same chills as when I landed on Europa in Destiny. Watching the away team of Una, Spock, Chapel, La’an, and Scotty descend a long, frozen staircase instantly triggered that “secrets-buried-under-the-ice” feeling. It makes me think of all the wonders, and in all likelihood, horrors, waiting below.

Speaking of Christine, all of this starts because she’s… bored. Exploring strange new worlds has been, for lack of a better term, as Una puts it on the very first page, “safe.” I’m not sure if that really tracks for Christine after everything she went through with the Gorn in season two. Honestly, the same goes for the rest of the crew. They’ve seen some things recently. Maybe boring is good? But then again, we wouldn’t have a comic book miniseries to read if it stayed that way.

I do wish the opening issue got to the action a little faster. With this being only a five-issue miniseries, the story could have jumped into the Giger-inspired stuff with a touch more urgency. Instead, we spend a fair amount of time on the exposition of why the Enterprise comes to Poilant in the first place and meeting D6, a very Star Wars-like droid who essentially points the away team in the right direction.

Does a droid work in Star Trek? I don’t know. Trek has had plenty of androids, robots, and the like in its nearly 60-year history, so who am I to say? At first, I was taken aback, but the more D6 talked, the more I liked him; his brutal honesty really grew on me. Honestly, he sounds like me sometimes, which might be why I warmed up to him so quickly.

Lack of action aside, I’m still excited to see where this goes. Travis Mercer’s art style feels perfect for the Lovecraftian horror tone, and I especially appreciated both Mercer and JP Jordan’s attention to detail on things like the uniforms, Pike’s Peak, and yes, even the bedding onboard the Enterprise.

And if I was a little too eager for the horror to kick in, that’s okay. The final page of issue one promises we won’t have to wait much longer for the real action to begin in issue two.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: "The Seeds of Salvation" #1 drops at your local comic shop tomorrow, Wednesday, 8/27.