Welcome to your mid-week edition of Comics Relief, comics fans. To start things off this week, we have news on IDW’s plans to celebrate the big Five-oh of one of sci-fi’s most enduring franchises. Read on for all the details…

IDW Celebrates 50 Years of Star Trek with Waypoint Anthology

In honor of the franchise’s 50th Anniversary this year, the crew from Star Trek: The Original Series are coming back to the comics’ page, right alongside Captain Picard and the crew from The Next Generation, thanks to IDW. The publisher will release Star Trek: Waypoint, a new bi-monthly anthology series from Donny Cates, Sandra Lanz, and Mack Chater, with the idea being that the new series will explore every Star Trek era and series. The first issue will feature a original series story and an Next Gen story, but the contents of the following five issues is still a mystery. The first issue of Star Trek: Waypoint hits in September. [CBR]

Marvel Announces New Anti-Hero Series Mosaic

Marvel Comics have announced their plans for the all-new series Mosaic, which will be an ongoing book written by Geoffrey Thorne and drawn by Khary Randolph. The new series is about a brand new body-jumping African-American anti-hero. Before Marvel launches the new Mosaic series in October, the publisher is releasing a 10-page origin story for their latest new character, which will go on sale at Barnes & Nobles this coming August 6.

The new series will follow a character who creator Khary Randolph describes as “a man named Morris Sackett. He starts out as a beautiful and successful professional basketball player, a selfish jerk, and — unbeknownst to him — a latent Inhuman, who, upon discovery of his powers, finds he no longer has his handsome body. Instead, he’s become a free-floating entity that needs to occupy other people’s bodies in order to survive.” In an interview, Randolph elaborated “people always ask for more diversity and strong characters of color, so that is what we aim to deliver. But that aspect is just the outer layer — the more important thing is creating an interesting person that people will want to know more about month to month.” Mosaic #1 hits in October. [Vulture]

Vertigo’s Fables Returns with Everafter

Beloved Vertigo series Fables ended its run with issue #150, but apparently that is not the end of the Fables universe. DC and Vertigo have just announced Everafter: From The Pages of Fables, a new ongoing series by the Fables: Wolf Among Us writing team of Matthew Sturges and Dave Justus, with art from Travis Moore, and covers from Tula Lotay.

The new book will center on The Shadow Players, an organization dedicated to policing magic in the enchanted post-Fables world. Fables creator Bill Willingham endorsed the new series and creative team, saying “The terrific job Matt Sturges, Dave Justus, and Travis Moore did on the comic adaptations of the Wolf Among Us video games made them the perfect team to carry this new spin-off series.” Said co-writer Matthew Sturges –“we’ve always hated that feeling of getting to the end of a great book and wondering, ‘But then what happened? Bill Willingham planted so many seeds in the final issue of Fables that it was impossible for us to let it lie.” Everafter: From the Pages of Fables comes out in September. [Nerdist]

Marvel Honors Prostate Cancer Awareness Month

Coming up this September, Marvel Comics will promote Prostate Cancer Awareness Month with variant covers for several of their most prominent books. The variants will feature special light blue-colored costumes in order to bring awareness to one of the most common cancers among men. In a statement from Marvel’s David Gabriel, he said “Working with The American Cancer Society, we learned that more than 2 million men in the US count themselves as prostate cancer survivors and it’s an honor to continue bringing awareness to further increase the survival rate. We hope that all our fans take a moment during the month of September to educate themselves, as well as their loved ones, on how they can work with their healthcare provider on how to combat this disease.” For a full list of the issues participating, click on the following link: [CBR]

Image Collects CBLDF’s Liberty Annuals in August

Publisher Image Comics has announced plans to publish a trade paperback collection of five years’ worth of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund‘s Liberty Annuals this August. Titled CBLDF Presents Liberty, the new collection includes comics originally published between 200 and 2012.The collection includes an exclusive Walking Dead story by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard, an exclusive Criminal tale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, and other notable comics from the past few years.

While these annuals are available for individual purchase — if you can manage to find them, that is — this is the first time they’ve ever been collected together in one handy volume. All proceeds from sales of the trade will go to benefit the CBLDF and help them in their mission of protecting the First Amendment rights of comics creators, publishers and readers. [Comics Alliance]

Dave Sims’ Cerebus Returns This Fall

One of the longest running independent comic books was Dave Sim‘s Cerebus, and now it’s getting ready to make a big comeback in time for its 40th anniversary. Sims is reviving the fan favorite character for a new four-issue miniseries titled Cerebus in Hell. The book is scheduled to start in 2017, but preceding that will be a special #0 issue set to be released September 28. Cerebus in Hell will be written and drawn by Sims, with the help of several artists-to-be-named. More news about the book is scheduled to drop sometime this week. [Newsarama]

September is Defenders Month at Marvel

Marvel Studios is bringing together the Defenders on Netflix, and in celebration, Marvel Comics has announced they are planning 20 Defenders-themed variant covers for September, featuring various members from past incarnations of the team, as well as a few who seemed destined to be part of a future line-up, on TV or otherwise. For a full rundown of participating titles, click on the following link: [Newsarama]

Images: Marvel Comics/DC Comics/Images Comics/IDW Publishing/Dave Sims