You might have noticed over the last few months that IDW has been picking up more Hasbro franchises to turn into comic books, as ROM, MASK and Micronauts have joined the ranks of Transformers and GI Joe. But later this year, they’re all being mashed together into one universe. Just like the movies!
Revolution art by Fico Ossio, colours by Diego Rodriguez
IDW will bring together GI Joe, Transformers, Micronauts, ROM, Action Man and the newly launching MASK comic series for a five-issue event series called Revolution in September, before soft-rebooting each series back to issue one. This won’t be a reboot in the vein of wiping the slate clean, but instead create a new world, where all these properties are aware of each other and able to interact. This matches what Hasbro plans for these same properties when they eventually come to the big screen. Synergy for everyone!
Still, it’s a pretty cool idea to see all these weird and wonderful characters rubbing shoulders with each other. Will the Transformers encounter Rom out in space? Will MASK because a subdivision of GI Joe? Will Action Man share an adventure in the world of the Micronauts? It remains to be seen. But while we’re a little apprehensive as to how Hasbro’s movie plans will pan out, we’ll take all the Rom crossovers we can get in the comics.
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10 responses to “IDW Is Merging GI Joe, Transformers And Its Other Hasbro Comics Into One Giant Universe”
I literally ordered the first of the IDW Transformers hardcover collections half an hour before reading this. Can’t decide if this news means I picked the wrong or right time to start reading them
Both. The IDW Transformers series is really, really good. The only thing I dislike is one of the artists, I forget the name – he makes them look really.. human. It’s weird.
Wait, what? How does that even work?
EDIT: Oh, it’s just a short thing not some kind of unified IDW Comic Universe or something.
It is, actually. There’s a 5-book series for the event-
Only Hasbro properties though, not IDW properties. So there’s no TMNT in there for example.
There was a Transformers vs GI Joe crossover in the comics 30-odd years ago. Their worlds have always been one and the same. I guess that, aside from four issues, they just ignored each other?
Last one I saw was in the early 90s. And they were never part of the same universe until then, but that was when Marvel was in a bit of trouble due to their 2099 series of comics kind of tanking (amongst other things), so they started joining their competition, like Dark Horse, and mashing franchises together, throwing it at a wall and seeing what stuck. Plus Larry Hama, who’d written and developed the Joe-verse, had left by this point, and so did the good writing. Transformers and Joe is something they could do much better now, especially since we practically saw it in the Transformers movie, but I can’t speak for the other franchises.
Christ, Marvel did that with G.I. Joe and Transformers back 93-94, and it absolutely fucking sucked!! IDW do some great comics, but Joe only worked for me when it existed in a world that paralleled ours, and not a super hero universe. I do hope it works for them this time around, but I won’t be reading it (then again, I was more a Larry Hama fan).
I really dislike this idea.
Individually I enjoy the universes, but don’t believe they should be mashed together.
The G.I. Joe/Transformers was dreadful; the Spider-Man/TF crossover (I think it was issue.. #4-#7 of Transformers UK marvel run) was awkward and weird.
Also the TF universe is pretty unique and already has its own multiverse.
Something about raping childhoods.
Ugh!
so … if it’s all the hasbro properties that have current runs going through with IDW that means there’s a chance I get to see Optimus Prime or Cobra Commander having to deal with unicorns and shit from the my little pony comics