Speaking at IDW Publishing's Star Trek panel at this year's San-Diego Comic Con, author Tilly Bridges, who is at the helm of Star Trek: Voyager - Homecoming alongside Susan Bridges and Ángel Hernández, discussed the "intimidating" task of filling in what the finale left open-ended.
"Please don't hate us," Bridges said to the audience of loyal Trek fans. "We're doing our best."
"Voyager - Homecoming" Answers Fans 20-Year-Old Questions About What Happened After Voyager Made It Back To Earth
Star Trek: Voyager - Homecoming #1, From The Creative Team Of Tilly Bridges, Susan Bridges, And Ángel Hernández
Trek fans have wanted the franchise to explore the immediate aftermath of Voyager's seven-year run since the show ended, making Homecoming a massively exciting series; the flip side of that is a great deal of anticipation that has built up over decades, even before Homecoming was announced. According to Tilly Bridges, Homecoming involves providing something "Endgame" denied readers: "catharsis."
As the writer put it:
We really loved the finale of the show. But you spend seven years with these characters who want to get home, and you don't get the catharsis of seeing them reunite with their families. So we thought, wouldn't it be cool if we could actually see that?
In other words, it seems clear that the creative team behind Homecoming is approaching this story from a fan-forward perspective. That is, they seek to scratch the lingering itch felt by generations of Trek fans, who have had to piece together the Voyager crew’s post-Delta Quadrant careers and life trajectories.
There is a reason Voyager’s showrunners decided against following the crew back on Earth, as they reintegrated into the Alpha Quadrant. Simply put, that was not what the show was about. But the legacy of these characters extends far beyond just a TV series, and in that context, Homecoming is an overdue, much-needed missing puzzle piece, finally being slotted into place.
"Voyager - Homecoming" Is The Follow-Up To The Series Finale That Fans Have Waited Decades For; Can It Live Up To The Hype?
Homecoming Debuts In September From IDW Publishing
Tilly Bridges admitted at Comic-Con that, as exciting as it is to write this untold chapter in the lives of the Voyager crew, the opportunity also comes with a lot of pressure. According to Bridges:
It's also very intimidating, because everybody who has been wanting to see that ending, that reunion, for thirty years, has a version of it in their heads. And obviously we can not match all of them. So please don't hate us. We're doing our best.
If nothing else, this highlights the tightrope creators walk when handling parts of Star Trek lore that have existed only in fans’ imaginations for so many years.
Meaning, while the baseline impetus for Homecoming is to fulfill a longstanding fan desire to find out what the immediate aftermath of Voyager’s finale was like, not everything that happens is going to match what fans expected, or wanted, from the story. Still, whatever happens, it is a major milestone for Star Trek continuity.
