Just in time for the Franchise’s 60th anniversary on September 8th, 2026, a new era of Star Trek comics is launching at IDW. Previously, Comics Beat brought you a conversation with Christopher Cantwell, who will be penning the flagship title’s relaunch. And now, The Beat is pleased to bring you an interview with the writer of the flagship title’s sister comic Star Trek: Zero Point, Charlie Jane Anders.
Zero Point is set five years after the events of Star Trek: Picard Season 3, and it follows Captain Raffaela “Raffi” Musiker and her crew aboard the U.S.S. Endeavor. Preorders for Zero Point are due Monday, September 7th, 2026, so contact your local comic shop and tell them you want a copy of Zero Point #1 now!
AVERY KAPLAN: Can you tell us about your personal history with the Star Trek Franchise?
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS: I have been a Star Trek fan for as long as I can remember. When I was in first or second grade, I had a Starfleet uniform shirt that I wore literally all the time, including to school. Somewhere in my pile of old trade paperbacks there’s a collection of the Gold Key Star Trek comics that I doodled all over as a little kid.
Since then, my fandom has ebbed and flowed, but I’ve always held on to a deep love for Trek. And a big part of keeping that love going has been the constant stream of novels and comics by some of my favorite creators in any universe, that always gave me new reasons to keep coming back.
KAPLAN: How did you come to be involved with Star Trek: Zero Point?
ANDERS: I have Christopher Cantwell to thank for this gig. He and I both had our first comics gigs at the same time, contributing to a war of the realms anthology for marvel. He wrote Doctor Doom, I wrote She-Hulk and Punisher. He was incredibly kind and generous about my story, and we stayed in touch.
When he got moved to the main Star Trek comic after a few years of doing the secondary title, defiant, he thought of me and suggested me as the writer of a brand new “B” comic, which became Zero Point. Editor extraordinaire Heather Antos reached out to me, and the rest is galactic history.
KAPLAN: As a devoted Lower Decker (and specifically, as an accolade of the Mistress of the Winter Constellations), I have to ask: were you a part of the decision to include D’Vana Tendi on the crew? What was it like working with the character?
ANDERS: I had pitched a handful of characters that I wanted to include in my comic, and Tendi was very much one of them. She’s such a fantastic character, and it feels like such a gift to pick her up 25 years after the end of Lower Decks and show her as a middle-aged person. Her love of science has been a fantastic element to keep coming back to, in a comic where I’m making an effort to talk to real life physicists and exoplanet experts to try my best to present scientifically accurate details as much as possible.
Tendi chose Starfleet over the life her family wanted for her, so she is very clear on what Starfleet means to her – – and she makes a great foil for Captain Raffi Musiker, with the two of them having some pretty intense debates about ethics and the nature of their mission.
KAPLAN: How has the collaborative process on the series been, both with the rest of the creative team on Zero Point and with Christopher Cantwell and the rest of the creative team for the flagship Star Trek comic launching next month?
ANDERS: It’s been so much fun, and I’m really grateful to Chris for helping me find my feet in this rich but challenging universe. Everybody loves Star Trek, so a lot of our editorial discussions devolve into citing things that happened in various episodes back and forth to litigate plot details.
Recently, we’ve all been putting our heads together to figure out the first big crossover between our titles, which is a very long way off but it’s helpful to know what we’re steering toward. And I’ve been loving the stuff that’s come out of those conversations, including some moments that I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for us to get to.
KAPLAN: Is there any preexisting Star Trek that particularly informs Zero Point (including but not limited to Star Trek: Picard Season 3)?
ANDERS: I rewatched Picard season three before I started planning this comic, and it inevitably informed a lot of what I’m doing. It gave me a lot of insight into Raffi as a character, someone who has tried over and over to prevent horrific atrocities and disasters – – only to be too late every time. It also just gave me a strong sense of just how desperate Starfleet would have to be, after all of the horrible setbacks and nightmares that happened in all three seasons of Picard and the shows before it.
That said, there’s also a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation in this comic, especially in the running debates over ethics and how to stay true to yourself in an increasingly dangerous universe. Plus my fictional computer, Sybil, has a lot in common with Data.
KAPLAN: Conversely, were there any non-Star Trek speculative fiction stories that were influential to your work on Zero Point?
ANDERS: Person of Interest, for sure. That TV show has only become more relevant and more prescient as time has gone by. There’s been a lot of media in the past two decades dealing with questions around what we’re willing to do to safeguard the future and the people we care about — it’s very much part of the time we’re living in. But the way that person of interest approached those questions and especially the way it dealt with its threat-seeking supercomputer, seemed to speak directly to what I’m doing in Zero Point.
KAPLAN: In the ashcan edition of Zero Point #1 I picked up at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, I noticed that you named a ship after Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. Just in case any Trekkies aren’t familiar with her work, can you explain why you chose to name a Starfleet ship after her?
ANDERS: She’s an incredible physicist who’s writings have helped me to understand a lot of gnarly concepts in physics and especially astrophysics that I had long struggled with. I always learn so much from reading her and listening to her speech.
Her most recent book, The Edge Of Space-Time, does an incredible job of weaving together big ideas about the nature of the universe and spacetime with poetry and art that illustrate them. I love the way she weaves art and science together to create something truly remarkable and meaningful. And it just made sense that Starfleet would name a science vessel after her.
KAPLAN: You’ve written plenty of prose works (long and short form) as well as plenty of comics. I’m curious if there’s anything that is unique to writing a Star Trek serialized periodical comic?
ANDERS: Comics are a whole new challenge in general. Even if you’ve written television scripts, as I have, there’s still a whole extra set of skills that you have to learn to write a good comic book. You have to think visually in a whole different way then the sort of visual thinking you might engage in for a TV show or prose story. Every panel needs to convey a lot of information and lead seamlessly to the next panel.
A Star Trek comic, in particular, has to pack in a lot of information because the technical details really matter in Trek. And you have to make space for those complicated philosophical arguments I mentioned earlier. You also tend to have a large ensemble cast, all of whom need to have something to do in every issue.
KAPLAN: Since this is the Franchise’s 60th anniversary, I am curious: what’s your hope for Star Trek in the future (whether that is regarding representation, content or any other facet)? Why and how is the Franchise still relevant?
ANDERS: I’ll take the last one first. Star Trek is still relevant because it promises that we can get better – – not just better at building things or creating exciting new technologies, but better as people. From the earliest episodes, Star Trek has always said that we will make it to the stars and we will be building alliances and connections and celebrating difference wherever we find it.
My hope for the future of Star Trek is that it keeps doing what Chris and I are doing in our comics: exploring the future of the franchise, venturing into places that we’ve never gone before and showcasing curiosity and people struggling with the big questions of how to leave a place better than we found it.
KAPLAN: Do you have a single favorite Star Trek (a) character, (b) ship, (c) episode and (d) series?
ANDERS: Michael Burnham. The Protostar. “Arena”. Lower Decks.
KAPLAN: Is there anything else you’d like me to include?
ANDERS: I’ll just mention that when I pitched this comic, my initial pitch document started out by saying that it’s a story about hope versus paranoia. And that has held true as I’ve written the thing.
Hope keeps us boldly going, paranoia is how we survive in the dangers of space. But which one should be our guiding principle? That’s kind of what the comic is about.
Preorders for Star Trek: Zero Point #1 are due Monday, September 7th, 2026 and the issue is scheduled for release at your local comic shop and/or public library beginning on Wednesday, October 14th, 2026.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
