Author: andersonh1

It didn’t take long for details to emerge about the forthcoming new Transformers comic book series, once again published by IDW. It will go back to before the war ever began and explore the road to the conflict.

The war between Autobots and Decepticons will start all over again in 2019, but IDW Publishing’s ambitious Transformers comic book relaunch is, fittingly, more than meets the eye — expanding the franchise in new directions by revealing the origins of the conflict that traveled from Cybertron to Earth and beyond.

The new series, titled simply Transformers, will see writer Brian Ruckley and artists Angel Hernandez and Ron Joseph tell the story of Cybertron before the war, and of the mysterious death that ended an age of peace on the planet. Bumblebee, soon to star in his own movie, will be one of the protagonists of the new title, which will publish twice a month.

“We are eager to begin this new chapter in Transformers storytelling,” Michael Kelly, Hasbro’s vp global publishing, said in a statement about the new series. “We are excited to begin a tale that will be accessible and appealing to readers unfamiliar with Transformers lore, while still providing the depth and drama that our longtime fans expect. It’s a big responsibility, but we’ve got the right team and the right characters to do it.”

The remainder of the article can be read at the Hollywood Reporter website.

Another article, along with larger images of the covers, can be found at CBR.com.

Free Comic Book Day interviewed John Barber and Alex Milne about the upcoming Unicron comic from IDW.

John Barber: This is the end of the story we’ve been telling for over a decade. The IDW Transformers comics are the longest-lasting iteration Transformers characters ever—there’s more fiction in this universe than anywhere else in the history of the brand—and it all comes crashing down with Transformers: Unicron.

The question of what Unicron is—of what could be so big as to threaten all of reality—is central to the story. Everybody writing Transformers comics right now got together to figure out how to pull this off—me, James Roberts, Mairghread Scott, Nick Roche, plus the great editorial teams at IDW and Hasbro, and I think we’ve made something with depth, action, pathos, tragedy, and—maybe, if the Transformers are lucky—ultimately some triumph.

Alex Milne: I feel it’s the biggest story due to the stake being so high. It’s not just the Transformers and Cybertron that have to worry about Unicron, but the Earth and the other colony worlds as well. It really is something that affects this shared universe that IDW has created. Unicron is the destroyer of worlds, and not everyone will survive this encounter. Will out heroes even be able to stop him? I guess you’ll have to read to find out.

Read the entire interview here.