It doesn't look like we'll be getting Star Trek 2 until late 2012 at the earliest, but fans who need their fix can head down to their local comic shop.  IDW Publishing recently launched a new Star Trek comic series that takes episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series and tweaks them to accommodate the Enterprise crew created in the new timeline from 2009's Star Trek.  This makes absolutely no sense since the whole point of the alternate timeline was to create new adventures.  "The first few issues of the series are adaptations of TOS episodes, as the 'new' crew encounters some of the same threats the original crew did," explains Star Trek 2 co-writer Bob Orci, "but with differences that reflect things like Kirk being a younger captain and Spock losing his homeworld."But not all the comics will undermine the benefit of an alternate timeline.  Hit the jump for details on how the comics will set up the sequel.Orci tells StarTrek.com:

As we get closer to the next movie, the stories will begin to foreshadow the events of the movie, such as possibly introducing new characters we will see onscreen... pun very much intended.

Mike Johnson, who is writing the comic series, said that the new comics will be similar to 2009's Countdown, which led into J.J. Abrams' 2009 re-boot:

How much, if at all, will what you're doing ultimately tie into the next film and its story?

Johnson: Very much so, much in the way that the “Countdown” series set up backstory for the last movie. It’s fantastic to have Bob’s input, because he can steer us clear of story elements that might conflict with what’s coming up in the next movie, and we can lay in subtle clues to what’s coming up so that once you see the new movie you can go back and see how it evolved in the comics.

Before I get too sour on redoing TOS episodes and my fear that character development will be shuttled off to the comics (the upcoming video game will also be a bridge), there's is a silver lining.  If the comics are pulling from TOS episodes to lead into a sequel, that may lend credence to an earlier rumor that the villain in Star Trek 2 will be a character from the original series.  If that's the case, then these comics became far more interesting.