While I was doing some research for my “More IDW Comics in Star Trek Adventures?” blog post, I came across an interesting tidbit in Memory-Alpha. There was a comic released by IDW in 2019 called Star Trek: Sky’s The Limit. This concerned me. My local comic book store had been very good about making sure that all new Star Trek titles from IDW Publishing was put into my hold. I had also not seen digital versions of this comic come up on Amazon.
So I inquired with some of the online Star Trek comic discussion boards and was pointed in the direction of the Star Trek Picard Movie & TV Collection. The Blu-Ray set contained TNG episodes “The Best of Both Worlds” and “Chain of Command” along with all of the TNG movies. But included in the set was the 16-page Sky’s The Limit comic. This is why I didn’t see it in the comic store, it was a special item.
So to the online shopping sites I went. And luckily I was able to find the set with the comic at a reasonable price. A week later, it arrived. So this is my review of the comic (and a few notes about the movies/episodes).
It shouldn’t of surprised me, but the issue is only 5.25 inches across and just under 7 inches high. This was so it would fit into the Blu-Ray slip-case. The story was written by Thomas Zahler, art by Carlos Nieto and colored by Charlie Kirchoff. As mentioned above there are only 16 pages in the issue, but I think this gave the story an advantage. Set in Stardate: 48516.7 (just after the events in “All Good Things…“) Picard has to protect a Federation colony from a Maquis cell. The story is pretty quick and it reminds me of reading a short story. The writer only had so many words (or in this case panels) to tell the story so they got right to it. There were still a few tidbits that would be recognized by Star Trek fans (General Order 24 anyone?) plus some new things that I’ll probably need to update on Memory-Beta. When I was done reading the comic, I was glad that I had picked it up. This is one of two (that I’m aware of) IDW Comics that have not been made available digitally. The other being the Loot Crate “Star Trek: The Next Generation – Mirror Broken: Origin of Data” comic that was released in 2017. I had to jump through some hoops to get a copy of that issue. I really wish that IDW would release digital versions of these two books since they were both released several years ago.
As for the disks, well they were just the episodes and movies. I enjoyed watching the gag reel and documentary on Best of Both Worlds. But when I compared the movies to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Motion Picture Movie Collection I already owned on Blu-Ray, they were practically the same disks with the same specials and bonus features. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping for new material.
On the Star Trek comic message boards, someone responded to me that the comic would be worth it if you were a collector who needed all of the issues. While I don’t feel the need to collect every variant cover (what I want is on the inside) I did want a copy of Sky’s The Limit so that I could read it again at my leisure. Of this, I was not disappointed. If you are looking for the movies, well the Picard collection is slightly cheaper than the movie collection. It’s a little thinner for placing on the shelf, but it doesn’t come with the 5th disk of specials (called Evolutions) that the movie collection does. I’d probably recommend the movie collection over the Picard TV & Movie collection. But both would fulfill the mission of watching the movies.
Did I miss an IDW comic that hasn’t been released digitally? Have you read Sky’s The Limit? If so, what did you think about it? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
