Review - Star Trek: Red Shirts #3
From IDW Publishing
This excellent series continues, but who will die next in Star Trek: Red Shirts #3 from IDW Publishing?
It’s a race to the top as the anti-Federation spies and the Red Shirts summit the towering antenna on Arkonia 89. The spies seek to escape a transporter disrupter and make it back to their ship with their stolen data, and Raad, Grash, Vesta, and Miller will try to stop them by any means necessary. The climb is made all the more difficult by fire raining from above via a cloaked Warbird captained by a young Romulan and a mysterious Tal Shiar officer.
Meanwhile, on the ground, Lanier, Amiga, and DeMatrio realize a hidden secret about the deceased Cromarty’s base. It just might be their ticket out of this mess alive, but as more lives are senselessly lost, the Red Shirts start to wonder if Starfleet would even care if they made it back at all.
by Christopher Cantwell (Author), Megan Levens (Artist)
Wow, what a ride! Star Trek: Red Shirts #3 kept me hooked from start to finish—it’s pure chaotic energy wrapped in classic Trek mayhem.
The body count is racking up fast, and true to the trope, our Red Shirts are dropping left and right. What’s really interesting, though, is how much the lack of Starfleet support amplifies the desperation. Usually, you can count on the cavalry swooping in with a shuttlecraft or a last-minute beam-out, but here it feels like these officers have been left to fend for themselves, which raises the stakes hugely.
And yes—more Red Shirts die this issue! At this point, it’s becoming a grim guessing game: who (if anyone) will be left standing when this arc is over? The sense of inevitability is darkly funny, but also strangely compelling—like watching the cliché turned up to eleven.
We also finally peek behind the curtain at the mysterious spies’ command. There’s still no solid ID on their species, or exactly why they’re teaming up in this alliance, but what little we get is tantalising. And the fact that some of them also bite the dust? That’s Trek storytelling at its finest—nobody is safe, and every reveal comes with a price.
The action itself is relentless and varied: Red Shirts dangle off precarious towers, get shot at from every direction, trigger explosives, and even that wild (and pretty gruesome) sequence with transporter tech gone wrong. That moment really sells the danger—technology that’s usually portrayed as safe and routine becomes another weapon in this meat-grinder of a mission.
And then there’s that final-page cliffhanger. The sudden appearance of a third party changes everything. When you think you’ve got a handle on the battle lines, the board receives scrambled again. It’s a perfect Trek-style twist that keeps the tension building issue to issue.
Visually, this book is a knockout. The jungle setting against all the sleek, deadly tech creates a gorgeous clash of natural and artificial. The pacing of the panels really drives the action, and the big explosion sequence was not only dramatic but cleverly staged—like a cinematic beat frozen on the page. You can almost hear the sound design in your head.
In short: this issue nails what a Red Shirts story should be—fun, fast-paced, darkly funny, and surprisingly brutal. The combination of trope awareness and real tension makes it a standout, and I cannot wait to see what chaos the next issue brings.
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