Did Star Trek waste Benjamin Sisko's return on a comic book?

The folks behind the Star Trek comic franchise really nailed the reboot. They opted when the line was rebooted a few years ago, to focus on the return of Benjamin Sisko from his time with the Prophets. He joined an all-star crew and set out on a glorious mission. The return of Sisko, however, has not seen the comic line reach new heights.

It's fair to say that the line is probably doing as well, if not even a bit better (or worse) than the last incarnation of the series, but it's also fair to say that the line hasn't reached new heights where fans are buying up books in droves, forcing three or four rounds of reprints to meet up with the demand.

For such a vaunted event, the return of Sisko, it was fair to wonder if the event was wasted on a comic series. After all, no matter how good the books are, comic books are still a very niche concept still, despite the rise of comic book movies. It's still not a very popular medium compared to other forms of literature and entertainment.

So we're not out of line asking if the return of Sisko was wasted in the comic series. After all, these are supposed to be canon (for now), so this is Sisko's actual return to the franchise. So did Star Trek actually waste Sisko's return?

Yes and no. They wasted it in the sense that there were a dozen ways you could bring the character back, but as we continue on life, it becomes harder and harder to bring the character back with the original actor in mind; Avery Brooks.

Brooks is now 75, and according to Cirroc Lofton, may be blacklisted from acting. Brooks, however, was a teacher for some time after he left acting in the mid-2000s, and is an accomplished musician. So it's not like he hasn't been active. Just not active in acting.

Considering the comic series brought Sisko back shortly after the events of the Next Generation films, it'd be hard to bring in a 75-year-old actor and have him being 20+ years younger. So it makes sense for how they wanted to do his return to do it with the comics, as you can't really do that story in live-action.

More importantly, there would likely be too great of a fan backlash to try that story in live-action, knowing full well you'd have to recast the role. Fans would likely reject any other playing Sisko before Brooks could have a chance to return to the role. Assuming he wanted one.

It's a thing fans tend to do, overreact to recastings. This is why the 2009 Star Trek film did it right, recasting Spock with Zachary Quinto, while also bringing back Leonard Nimoy in the role as well. It helped negate the backlash that would likely have occurred had they not done that.

Since Brooks isn't really asking to come back to do any more Star Trek work, having the comics bring back his iconic character was probably the right move all things considered.