Succession is back! The second issue of IDW’s Star Trek: Discovery Mirrorverse series, written by Mike Johnson and Kirsten Beyer with art by Angel Hernandez, takes us further into the battle for the universe between Michael Burnam and Emperor Alexander.
The last issue revealed Michael Burnam was secretly alive and in hiding, and has come back to take the Terran Empire away from Emporor Alexander. In a flashback, we see Burnham being trained by her adopted mother, Emperor Georgiou. Alexander rubbed Burnham’s adoption into her face, saying she’ll never be Georgiou’s true heir and inherit the throne.
Burnham and Alexander’s hatred clearly runs deep. This memory is propelling Burnham to take him down, and across the galaxy, Emperor Alexander is having nightmares about Burnham trying to take him down. They may be cousins, but their relationship is more like an intense sibling rivalry. The fact that Alexander is still worrying about Burnham, long after she supposedly died and he won, just shows how much their relationship impacted him. It’s almost like he wishes she were still alive so he could beat her all over again.
Alexander will be in luck soon enough — he doesn’t know Burnham is still alive, but he’s about to! Emporer Alexander’s plan to kill all species except humans is about to be enacted, and humans have secretly fled the planet of Qo’nos. It’s here that Burnham teams up with L’rell, who has also noticed something is up. They decided to take down the Governor of Qo’nos before heading on to Emperor Alexander. Unfortunately, the governor beams away and escapes their attack, but not before learning Burnham is alive. It looks like the element of surprise is gone, and Emperor Alexander will know his cousin is back and on her way to take him down — with a little help from the Klingons.
Like I predicted last week, the Succession storyline is moving pretty quickly. We already have Burnham and L’rell working together, and Alexander’s plan to kill off other species is about to be tested on a planet. There’s still a few more mysteries left to unravel – like who is the mole working with Alexander that L’rell mentioned? – and, I assume, one major showdown coming between Michael Burnham and Emperor Alexander.
