Space: the ol’ near infinite panel gutter. These are the carefully recorded Star Trek voyages of Ensign Avery Kaplan. Her mission? To dutifully observe and analyze the various arms and evolutions of the best sci-fi Franchise to ever grace the screen. This week, she’s reviewing the final issue of Star Trek: Voyager — Homecoming. Plus also: Star Trek Lower Decks #16.
…well, let’s boldly get on with it, then!
Ensign’s Log — Stardate 21126
Star Trek: Voyager — Homecoming #5
Star Trek: Voyager — Homecoming #5Written by: Susan Bridges & Tilly Bridges
Art by: Ángel Hernández
Colors by: Charlie Kirchoff
Letters & Design: Neil Uyetake
Publisher: IDW
Please note that this review contains spoilers for the entirety of Voyager — Homecoming’s five-issue run.
The explosive finale of the Voyager — Homecoming miniseries arrives at your LCS this week, and it’s worth the wait. Overall, the miniseries has offered a sort of second series finale for Star Trek: Voyager. While the actual series finale pitted Captain Janeway against the Borg, Voyager — Homecoming offers an action-packed adventure that sees Janeway stepping into the role of Borg defender against Species 8472. I thought this was an interesting way to reflect the character’s journey in the series, which saw her reevaluating her relationship with the Borg at the beginning of VOY Season 4 in light of the arrival of Seven of Nine.
Speaking of Seven, I appreciated how this miniseries showed a spark of attraction between her and a female drone, hinting at the sapphic evolution of the character on Star Trek: Picard. In Voyager — Homecoming #5, our heroes defeat Species 8472 relatively quickly, finally arriving back on Earth. This leads to a lovely sequence in which we get to see epilogues for each of the main characters.
Since the show’s finale ended with the U.S.S. Voyager approaching Earth orbit, it’s incredibly welcome to get to see our heroes reunited with their friends and family. It’s easy to imagine Voyager — Homecoming as a multi-part opening episode that begins an eighth season of VOY that shows the crew re-integrating into the Alpha Quadrant after so long away from home. But obviously, that ship went to warp when the show ended two decades ago, making comics an ideal venue for telling this tale. And hey, it’s always nice to see Dr. Pulaski, an underrated character who doesn’t deserve the blame for pushing Beverly out of TNG.
Special shout-out to this unfortunately relevant Janeway line: “My own people had hateful tyrants in our past, who would see our rights and bodily autonomy stripped away. We fought them. And we won.” Overall, this final issue did an exceptional job of pulling plenty of details from the whole of the VOY canon and using them in clever and appropriate ways. And the inclusion of the real-life Janeway statue in Bloomington — not to mention having Erin MacDonald’s fictionalized counterpart be mentored by Janeway — were strokes of Easter egg genius.
Home, Home Again
Kudos to Susan Bridges & Tilly Bridges, who completely nailed this miniseries. I am hopeful that this excellent writing team will not only get more work in the IDW Star Trek universe, but also, despite my preference for stories based on original characters, I would welcome any further VOY stories from their imaginations. Ad astra per aspera.
Meanwhile, both Ángel Hernández and Charlie Kirchoff did excellent work with the art and colors, respectively. It was never difficult to recognize a character or discern what was happening with the action. Finally, Neil Uyetake did a great job with the lettering and design for the miniseries — I especially enjoyed the lettering for Tuvok’s song in this final issue.
As I’ve shared in the past, VOY is an incredibly important and formative series for me. When things look especially grim — as they did in 2020 and do once again in 2026 — Janeway’s leadership is a source of invaluable inspiration for me.
I could not be more pleased that IDW’s Star Trek comics have furnished the closest thing that anyone could ask for to a continuation of the series. In a way, Voyager — Homecoming has seemed like a couple of bonus episodes of VOY. For that, I cannot thank the creators, Heather Antos and the rest of the IDW Star Trek team enough. I sincerely hope this five-issue miniseries is released as a trade paperback, so even more VOY diehards get the chance to read it in the years to come.
Star Trek: Lower Decks #16
Star Trek: Lower Decks #16Written by: Tim Sheridan
Art by: Vernon Smith
Colors by: Charlie Kirchoff
Letters by: Clayton Cowles
Design & Production by: Johanna Nattalie
Publisher: IDW
Get ready for a double dose of Pulaski this week, thanks to Voyager — Homecoming #5 and Lower Decks #16. This issue is the next chapter in the ongoing six-part story that has been unfolding the past few months in the panels of Lower Decks. But it’s also just a bang-up issue that shows off a lot of what an ongoing serialized Lower Decks comic can do.
Not only does the story pull from the previous issue, using the cliffhanger as a springboard to this month’s antics, but it also pulls from Lower Decks #7 – 8 to great effect, and utilizes Franchise canon very adeptly. And that’s not to mention a subplot from earlier in this six-part series that hilariously returns for some very funny, occasionally filthy antics.
The artistic team does some great work on this issue, which introduces Starbase 77, a starship junkyard. The junkyard itself look fantastic, with plenty of familiar ships at which to snicker. Plus, the Starbase 77 workout gear is a wonderful original addition to the Star Trek sartorial tradition. And in that vein, I also appreciated the undercover outfits worn by Mariner, T’Ana, Shax, Rutherford and Billups during the mission. Great stuff, with the promise of more great stuff to come.
For the rest of this week’s single-issue reviews, be sure and keep up with The Beat’s Wednesday Weekly Reviews column!
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
