IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
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JediTricks
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IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by JediTricks »

Come this September, Ore 13 will be the cause of IDW merging Transformers, GI Joe, ROM Space Knight, Micronauts, Action Man, and MASK into a single shared universe comic series that will then relaunch each line with new #1s.

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/01/id ... o-universe

It starts with a 5-part, bi-weekly series, Revolution, which uses ol' Ore 13 to merge all those properties into one shared universe.

After the Revolution miniseries, each property will have a new #1 comic series and won't be actively sharing storylines, but will exist within a shared universe, just not interacting much.

Nothing has been said about the other Transformers books, MTMTE and Till All Are One, Chris Ryall claims this isn't a reboot but says there are all new #1s after the event for every series.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by andersonh1 »

Probably a good marketing strategy for Hasbro and IDW to merge all of these properties into one shared universe, whether or not it makes a lot of dramatic sense. Transformers is really the only property I'm interested in out of all of those, and whether or not I start buying again depends on whether or not IDW gets some new talent with new ideas on the book. If it's the same writers doing the same thing they're doing now, I doubt I'll bother. I do wonder how this will affect the ongoing storylines in MTMTE and formerly RID for those of you who are still reading though. I hope the writers have time to wrap them up.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Dominic »

Best case scenario is that this helps everything but TF.

IDW should probably just do a clean relaunch of TF, after giving the current series proper endings rather than trying to paper over what is effectively a reboot.

And, given that "Rom" just relaunched, this smells of a last minute mandate.

Now, to wait for creative teams to be announced.a

-edit: AllSpark has the teams listed.
http://www.allspark.com/2016/06/idw-ann ... ion-event/

"Micronauts" is the only thing that is promising. (I will give Sitterson credit for honesty. But, not much else.)
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Onslaught Six »

Dom is right. As much as I hate reboots for the sake of reboots, the current IDW continuity has become rather convoluted in the last four years or so with all of the caste system ideas and huge revisionist history that Roberts and Barber have brought to the table. I'm not saying it's not good, but there's a LOT of new information that they brought in, is all, and I think a large reason Roberts and Barber have managed to stay on the book so long (longer than even Furman's run in IDW) is because the continuity may be too convoluted for someone else to step in to after the fact. I'd miss MTMTE if it were to end, but it's had a great run in an era where most comics don't make it past issue 12, 16 or 24. (That said, it looks like it's not ending, just continuing on under new, more confusing numbering, so whatever.) Rebooting TF under a new creative team may not be the worst thing that could happen, but IDW seems happy with its audience at this point--which may not exactly be people like Dom or Anderson necessarily, and that's alright.

EDIT: Hold up, Aubrey Sitterson is writing the GI Joe book? Consider me fucking hyped as shit. I listen to Aubrey bullshit about pro wrestling every week on his podcast Straight Shoot, and I've been waiting for his ridiculous-sounding Street Fighter vs. GI Joe book to get collected so I could buy it sight unseen.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by JediTricks »

So you saw that they were using the same production teams, the same titles, and the convoluted Ore-13 macguffin from Transformers, then add in all the existing backstory for GI Joe and ROM Space Knight, and thought that was going to SIMPLIFY???

Based on the confirmation of titles and teams, my new theory is that Transformers is not going to change much of anything that's come before from IDW in the main 'verse. MTMTE and TF/RID will remain intact, Windblade-themed titles will continue on from where that series left off. This is just a slightly bigger Dark Cybertron event now, and leave the universe broader.

As for MTMTE, I think that book survives because it tells real stories of real character, not because of its convoluted past. It's a very rich storytelling background now. Compare that to how complex and misfiring The Transformers book has become, handing off post-war political writing entirely to the Windblade team hasn't helped either title much.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Dominic »

EDIT: Hold up, Aubrey Sitterson is writing the GI Joe book? Consider me fucking hyped as shit. I listen to Aubrey bullshit about pro wrestling every week on his podcast Straight Shoot, and I've been waiting for his ridiculous-sounding Street Fighter vs. GI Joe book to get collected so I could buy it sight unseen.
I see the name Aubrey, and I keep thinking it is a woman's name. Ah well.

Either way, I am curious if Sitterson can write more than genre riffs. The SF/Joe cross-over is about as direct a translation of a fighting game to a comic that one could expect. It reads like somebody played a fighting game, and adapted it to be a comic. I get the joke, but it is not worth more than one or two issues.

So you saw that they were using the same production teams, the same titles, and the convoluted Ore-13 macguffin from Transformers, then add in all the existing backstory for GI Joe and ROM Space Knight, and thought that was going to SIMPLIFY???
Yeah. This is going to be a "Flashpoint" style reboot (but totally not a reboot, honest). No way around it, stuff is getting discarded and over-written. That is how stuff like this works.

"Transformers" (as a property) could go one of two ways with this. IDW might treat TF similar to how DC treated "Batman" or "Green Lantern" in 2011, carrying over as much backstory as possible. On the other hand, the current TF comics are far removed from what casual, lapsed or new readers would expect. (Assume that many of them will be Gee-Whiners.)

I would expect "All Hail Megatron" and Costa's run to be disposed of. Similarly, "Megatron as an Autobot" is not necessarily baggage that needs to be carried over.


As for MTMTE, I think that book survives because it tells real stories of real character, not because of its convoluted past. It's a very rich storytelling background now.
Any attempt by IDW to keep "More than Meets the Eye" *and* reboot would lead to a cluster-fuck along the lines of 90s Supergirl. (Remember, she was not really Supergirl. She was a shape-shifting blob or snot from an alternate universe and....derpaderpaherpadoodlederp.)


So long as the current "More than Meets the Eye" and "Transformers" series get proper endings, I think that the best option would be clean reboots.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by JediTricks »

Dominic wrote:Yeah. This is going to be a "Flashpoint" style reboot (but totally not a reboot, honest). No way around it, stuff is getting discarded and over-written. That is how stuff like this works.

"Transformers" (as a property) could go one of two ways with this. IDW might treat TF similar to how DC treated "Batman" or "Green Lantern" in 2011, carrying over as much backstory as possible. On the other hand, the current TF comics are far removed from what casual, lapsed or new readers would expect. (Assume that many of them will be Gee-Whiners.)

I would expect "All Hail Megatron" and Costa's run to be disposed of. Similarly, "Megatron as an Autobot" is not necessarily baggage that needs to be carried over.

As for MTMTE, I think that book survives because it tells real stories of real character, not because of its convoluted past. It's a very rich storytelling background now.
Any attempt by IDW to keep "More than Meets the Eye" *and* reboot would lead to a cluster-fuck along the lines of 90s Supergirl. (Remember, she was not really Supergirl. She was a shape-shifting blob or snot from an alternate universe and....derpaderpaherpadoodlederp.)


So long as the current "More than Meets the Eye" and "Transformers" series get proper endings, I think that the best option would be clean reboots.
This whole reply suggests you're in for a very disappointing turn of events come September. Did they put the brakes on either title before Dark Cybertron or Combiner Wars? No. I don't think we'll get Supergirl as a blob OR as an angel-level stupidity, but I really doubt they're going to throw out their existing history on TF or GI Joe, they'll just massage them into each other's universes. Keep in mind, the press release quoted as saying that after the event they're not expected to share much, they're each going to stay in their own corners of the universe so they COULD meet later, but won't necessarily be sharing that space.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Dominic »

IDW's most successful effort with Joe has either been Costa's early "Cobra" stuff (which has been done for a few years) or Hama's wankfest. "Rom" and "Micronauts" are barely out of the gate. "MASK" has no recent context.

I highly doubt that IDW is going to be keeping much, if any previous Joe content. This has all the markings of a "Flashpoint" style reset. Stuff is getting tossed. The real question is how much of recent TF IDW wants to keep. Do they prioritize for keeping existing readers happy, or for making it accessible for the new readers they are hoping for?


I am currently reading 4 Marvel series, including 3 with natural ties. "Squadron Supreme" barely references "Hyperion" and "Nighthawk" beyond a quick nod. "Vision" has nothing to do with rest of Marvel. How often does "Batman" cross-over with "Superman", outside of a dedicated "Batman/Superman" title? IDW will not be crossing stuff over every month. But, the best way to reconcile the back-story of those franchises is to discard much of it.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Shockwave »

what specifically would be contradictory? I doubt there would be any stories in any of their books that would outright conflict with each other, so I don't really see why they would need to dump anything from any series.
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Re: IDW merging Transformers with Joe, other Hasbro comics

Post by Dominic »

"All Hail Megatron" and Costa's run would be hard to reconcile with IDW's "GI Joe". Putting aside the generally grounded tone of IDW's Joe series, things like the destruction of New York (and other cities) would have an impact on "GI Joe". (Similarly, just ignore "Infestation".)

Even assuming that "Cobra Civil War" was set before AHM. there would have to be some kind mention of those events. Both Joe and Cobra would have been fighting over ruined cities while trying to capture xenotech. (Van Lente's "GI Joe" series was set primarily in a sun lit NYC, with no signs of alien invasion.)

Hama got away with ignoring TF (in the 80s and 90s) because Joe was a more vital property and Hama was Hama. (Hama was a legit writer. And, he had a very favourable contract with Marvel/Hasbro.) But, the point of "Revolution" is to merge TF, Joe and the other Hasbro licenses, so the Joes being happily oblivious to Cybertronians attacking Earth will not be repeated.

Say what one might about large cross-overs from the big two, but they do allow for a level of cohesion between series in a shared setting. A real draw-back to this is that no series can go too far in its own direction. "All Hail Megatron" and its follow-up would not have happened. The Autobot/Decepticon fight would have returned to spec much more quickly (likely after "Dark Cybertron", if not before) in Barber/Roberts.

TF, Joe and the rest will be more generic comics. They will not be uniformly bad. But, they will not stand out and apart as much as they once did. Similar to the big two, the best comics are going to be the secondary titles. (And, considering that TF and Joe are secondary titles to begin with, the best will be tertiary titles that will be unlikely to gain traction.)


My speculation with TF:
-"All Hail Megatron" and Costa are out. Truth be told, I would not be too upset by this. If anything, I have often wondered if Costa's run did not diminish "All Hail Megatron" by bringing back Thundercracker and redeeming Sunstreaker. (I like what Costa did with Thundercracker. But, I never liked the precedent that it set. Sunstreaker's return was absolutely pointless.)

-Prime will likely be written to a more traditional standard. Prowl will be dialed back, maybe to the level of Black Widow in "Avengers" or some of the harder SHIELD characters. (He might be assumed to be sort-of bad, but his worst actions will be wholly past tense and rarely mentioned/shown.)

-Shockwave and BB will be back almost immediately after "Revolution".

-"More than Meets the Eye" may continue on more or less unmolested, through the power of high sales and McGuffins. (The ship's warp drive may protect it from whatever changes happen, allowing those characters to be the reader's eyes and voice on page.) In the short term, this will make sense, given the popularity of "More than Meets the Eye". But, it will also be evocative of DC's problems with some "Infinity Incorporated" characters (who should have gone away after "Crisis on Infinite Earths"), or Supergirl in the 90s (a character with a convoluted back-story that served only to keep them on page).

-I doubt that much of anything from IDW's previous Joe content is going to carry over. Joe is likely to get a more or less clean start. Costa's run is out. (It is still the best Joe content of recent years. But, I doubt it counts any more.) Snake Eyes will be alive, and a member of the Joe team (counter to both Hama's and Costa's unrelated runs). And, Snake Eyes will never die. His loyalty to the Joes will never be in real doubt.

I doubt there will be much blurring of faction lines for "Transformers" or "GI Joe".
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