Star Trek: Countdown
Star Trek: Countdown is a four-issue comics miniseries published by IDW Publishing and released in . Written by Mike Johnson and , based on a story by screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the series is a prequel to the film , detailing the back-story of Nero. It takes place in the year 2387, eight years after , and connects the era of  to the continuity of the film (inspired by  and ), and explains how Nero and Spock ended up in the 23rd century. 

A  was released in , shortly after the last issue of the series, followed by a hardback release in ; the series was also collected in the first volume of the Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection in .

Summary 
Solicitation blurb
The countdown to the motion picture event of 2009 begins here, in the exclusive comics prequel to STAR TREK, the upcoming blockbuster film from Paramount Pictures! JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman present the origin of Nero, the mysterious Romulan who will ultimately threaten the survival of the entire universe. Don't miss this story that brings STAR TREK back to the big screen!

Creators 

 Written by:
  and Mike Johnson (#1-4)
 Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (story #1-4)
 Artists:
 David Messina (#1-4)
 Color artists:
 David Messina (#1)
 Giovanna Niro (#1-4)
 Paolo Maddaleni (#1)
 Ilaria Traversi (#2-4)
 Letter artists:
 Chris Mowry (#1)
 Neil Uyetake (#2)
 Robbie Robbins (#3-4)
 Editors:
 Andy Schmidt (#1-2)
 Scott Dunbier (#3-4)

Issues 
 "Countdown, Number One"
 "Countdown, Number Two"
 "Countdown, Number Three"
 "Countdown, Number Four"

Background information 
Countdown came about after Anthony Pascale of  kept asking the film's writers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, to create a means for the characters of The Next Generation to "pass the baton" back to the characters of .  

 Johnson and co-writer Tim Jones worked for Kurtzman and Orci at their production company, K/O Productions, and, being fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, were asked to come up with a way to honor The Next Generation while connecting it with the new movie. Orci, Kurtzman, and J.J. Abrams provided direction for the comic, while Orci supervised the project. Johnson and Jones were permitted to read parts of the script and watch parts of the film in order to write the comic, particularly those parts which dealt with Nero.  

 According to Johnson, every scene Nero has in the film fed into the comic book, while the comic gives much more subtext to his scenes. The writers chose to give his Romulan crew informal dialogue to reflect they are miners, not politicians or warriors. Although it involves characters from The Next Generation, the main purpose of the comic was to explain Nero's motives in the film, to show the character's journey "from a proud Romulan patriot to a murderous arch villain."  

 According to IDW editor-in-chief Chris Ryall, the first issue of the series sold out within two weeks of its publication, despite the fact that more copies of the book were printed than originally intended.  

 Digital editions of the issues were released through iTunes. The third issue was the first comic to be released in stores and in digital format on the same day. 
 
 Countdown was republished in issues 1-3 of Star Trek Comic. The first issue contained parts One and Two, issues 2 and 3 contained parts Three and Four, respectively.

 Although co-writer Mike Johnson considered Countdown to be canon, Orci stated he was in no position to declare whether it was, though he felt it could be considered canon unless it was contradicted in a later film or TV episode.  He later implied it wasn't canon before stating, with encouragement from the interviewer, that it was.  
 Portions of Countdown would later be confirmed as non-canon with the release of Star Trek: Picard (notably co-produced and co-written by Alex Kurtzman, who helped come up with the premise of the comic) which directly contradicted several elements of the comic (the most notable being that Data's memories and personality did not eventually emerge in B-4, the transfer instead failing leading to B-4 being dismantled). Some elements however, were seemingly retained and possibly inspired by the comic, such as the idea of a Romulan faction utilizing Borg technology in the aftermath of Romulus' destruction. 

 The  comic-book adaptation of the film contains further connections to this series; the scene in which Spock Prime mind-melds with young  is portrayed as a collage overview of the Countdown story line.

Most of the team for the comic reunited for the four-issue miniseries Star Trek: Nero, which told the story of Nero and his crew's capture by the Klingon Empire after the Kelvin's sacrifice, until their subsequent escape and the fulfillment of their quest to find Ambassador Spock.

Star Trek Online follows the continuity of this comic, although altering the meaning of a few details, such as Worf's rank of general being a temporary commission. Game developers have said that they intervened to ensure that the comic's story only destroyed the Prime timeline version of Romulus, not other planets such as Vulcan and Earth.

Characters

See also 
Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness, the prequel comic miniseries for .

External links 
 
 Tim Jones and Mike Johnson Interview at AMCtv.com

fr:Countdown (IDW Publishing)
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Comic series