I’m experiencing too much melancholy in this final issue of Star Trek: Boldly Go. I felt for Gary Mitchell, I felt for Jim Kirk — and you know, I really felt sad to see this series conclude far before its time.

I hate to see things I enjoyed come to an end. The Kelvin Timeline is not my favourite Trek, but this comic held stories that were palatable at first, then entertaining and damn it, became downright inviting.

I even managed to get more into the rebooted cinematic version of Star Trek because this comic became a gateway for me to fully perceive the elements of the re-imagined Original Series in it, with more background, information and from a more understanding perspective.

I have every issue, and I enjoyed them immensely. Still, I couldn’t help but be struck by an ‘unfinished’ sense to the end of this series, and that possibly explained my sad apprehension.

I think it’s common for melancholy to bring about apprehension, at least in my experience. The conclusion of this book comes at the same time as the ending of other Star Trek titles, and the departures of editors Chris Ryall and Sarah Gaydos add to my feeling of trepidation about the future of IDW Trek books.

It is not a good time to end this book, in my opinion. I am worried about the future of Star Trek with IDW, and I hope those fears are unfounded with the future work that is to come. Still, I can’t afford to let my sense of ‘gloom and doom’ overwhelm the amount of fun in reading this book and I want to celebrate the final issue with all the appreciation it deserves.

With that said, we see the final confrontation between James Kirk and the super-human Gary Mitchell distilled into a game of skill between the two super-beings after Mitchell has shared some of his power with Kirk. Of course, while Mitchell is focused on defeating Kirk in almost every reality, this allows for Kirk to simply focus on one thing: beating Mitchell at his own multi-dimensional game.

Writer Mike Johnson has allowed for the variety of Kirks and crew in the multiple dimensions we have visited in this series to join forces, combine talents and amalgamate their strength into the Kirk who faces Mitchell.

Mitchell is the ultimate in insecurity. With the power of a god, he still feels slighted and humiliated at his previous defeat by the wily and oh-so-human Kirk. This story is a massive grudge-match on a cosmic level. Yet while Mitchell may have the superhuman powers, his mortal insecurities are apparent and force us to take pity on him.

Despite his abilities, he is still a lesser creature in many ways and Kirk seizes upon those weaknesses, distracts him on many levels of reality and shows him why he was able to beat the “no-win scenario.”

It’s a very clever thing to run several levels within a story. Not only does Johnson operate the individual realities of the different Kirks and Enterprise crews who face their own adversaries (a Klingon-raised Kirk known as ‘The Orphan,’ a female descendant of Khan Noonien Singh, etc.) but he also has to connect all these sub-plots to the prime Kirk’s overall conflict with Mitchell. After all, their reality is dictated by the moves each of these super-beings makes on the transcendental chess board they are playing on. It’s quite the hyper-dimensional perspective twist and is definitely a lot of fun for the reader to follow.

Of course, one of the concepts that triggered my melancholy though, is the fact that as the reader, you know that there are dozens of backstories in these characters that may or may not see the light of day. There are so many possible story directions that Johnson teases us with that were clearly in his writer’s file for possible exploration that I have questions about. Will we ever see them?

But, let’s turn our attention to the art. Ryan Parrott runs the interior art in this issue and I have to say, I’ve really enjoyed his work. It’s clean, definite and even pretty good with the likenesses. It’s been a lot of fun to see his work and I can’t help but wonder what other Star Trek franchises he’d be good with?

• The covers are varied and excellent. Josh Hood presents a wonderful landscape portrayal of a crew with the primary hull of the Enterprise in the background on the ‘A’ cover. However, I find it ironic that the Enterprise never got rebuilt in Johnson’s run and really, this should have been the Endeavour. But, it’s a great cover nonetheless.
   
• The ‘B’ cover looks to address this issue with a scene of Kirk, Spock and Uhura looking at a nearly-completed Enterprise-A behind them. This is by Eoin Marron, whose work I’m not overly familiar with, though it’s a decent cover that looks to employ some degree of story continuity setting up the post-Star Trek Beyond era of Kelvin Timeline adventures.
   
• The ‘A’ retailer-incentive cover is a photo of Zachary Quinto’s Spock on the surface of Altamid, during the crew rescue sequence in Star Trek Beyond. I have very little respect for stock photography used on a comic cover. To me, it’s like taking work opportunities away from working comic artists.
   
• The ‘B’ retailer-incentive cover, by Yoshi Yoshitani, has a combination of perspectives applied to it. In this stylized image of Spock and McCoy facing each other with an Enterprise rampant in the background, there is a bit of a 1960s art style mixed in an almost-propaganda fashion. It’s extremely different but striking, to say the least.

Despite my melancholy, Mike Johnson ends this story on a very positive note. In fact, the ending addresses and resolves one of my biggest complaints with the Kelvin Timeline, which should give me some hope. But what about Jim Kirk? Well, that’s a timeless character who has many things going for him that manage hide a deeper sense of melancholy than I could ever reach.

However, the conclusion of this particular issue should serve somewhat of a comforting balm… and I celebrated it. It was a great series. Thanks to all the artists who worked on it for all their hard work and to Mike Johnson whose writing, thankfully, will continue to boldly go on.