With Star Trek Beyond only a month away and news of next year’s television series trickling out every now and then, Star Trek is in the pop culture zeitgeist more than it has been in years.  Since 2009’s Star Trek established the alternate timeline versions of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise crew, IDW has been chronicling their ongoing adventures between the films.  Manifest Destiny, the latest miniseries featuring this version of the crew, distills everything that’s fun about this take on the seminal sci-fi franchise into a single package full of phasers, Klingons, and Doctor McCoy being cantankerous.

The Enterprise is at the edge of explored space, going where no Federation starship has gone before.  When a distress call draws them into a trap laid by a rogue Klingon, Kirk and the rest of the crew must fight for their ship, their freedom, and their lives against overwhelming odds.  The four-issue story features plenty of the action, desperate gambles, and moments of levity that the current films have become known for, while still offering plenty of extra details that long-time Star Trek fans will appreciate, and it works as a major event for the ongoing Star Trek series as well.  The extras are pretty fun, too: a version of the first issue with all text written in Klingon script, as well as a cover gallery featuring some cool, alternative covers for each issue that recreate the movie posters for the first four Star Trek films using the likenesses and ship designs from the current films.

Coupled with all this is a villain that feels more credible than the films’ villains have (though he’s still cut from the same cloth), Mike Johnson’s solid handle on the characters of Kirk and crew, and attractive art from Angel Hernandez.  While long-time Star Trek fans may find that Manifest Destiny suffers from the same focus on action at the expense of story that the current films themselves do, it’s ultimately hard to speak ill of this fun, fast, flashy Star Trek adventure.