[ScottyHawkeye]

With the licenses of Transformers, GI Joe, Rom The Space Knight, MASK, and Macronaughts officially having left IDW I thought it would be interesting to pontificate what the next publisher of those comic lines should do presumably Skybound. All that is known is that the next publisher is continuing Larry Hama's ARAH run. So here are a few things I'd like to see.


Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, and Rom The Space Knight in Unicron
A Skybound Hasbroverse: IDW's Hasbroverse was a fun little venture where they made a shared universe with Hasbro properties such as GI Joe, Transformers, MASK, Macronaughts, and Rom The Space Knight. Miniseries like Revolution, Revolutionaries, First Strike, and Transformers Unicron were good miniseries they were able to have the Autobots and Joes exist together and gave the characters good chemistry. It even brought the Adventure Team rebranded Adventure Force from the 1970s back into the fray in the Revolutionaries and Revolution miniseries. While the Hasbroverse was a good venture from IDW it did have its faults. When IDW launched its Hasbroverse it relaunched the Transformers & GI Joe lines and it put the Joes in the ranks of the Autobots and vise versa. It's awesome to have these properties in one shared universe and it makes the Universe of these characters richer. However, Skywarp felt so out of place on the GI Joe Team he effectively made the rest of the Joe Team feel useless. It's fine to feature Transformers in a GI Joe and vise versa, but the line should be largely self-contained. Skywarp being on the Joe Team felt like featuring Superman in the Batman family or Thor in the X-Men a teammate who just overpowers the rest of the team. What Skybound (if it is indeed Skybound that has the Hasbro titles) should do if they pursue a Hasbroverse is emulated the Marvel & DC Universes did and establish a shared universe well while maintaining a sense of self-containment in the individual lines. We don't have members of the Fantastic Four randomly on the X-Men team for an X-Men line to establish that it is part of the Marvel Universe or vise versa. That should be the case with a GI Joe or Transformers line. We can have arcs in those lines that feature the Transformers in a GI Joe line or an arc where the Joes & COBRA appear in Transformers and then when the arc ends they go back to their lines.


First Strike in the Hasbroverse
Larry Hama did this with his ARAH line at Marvel with issues 139-142 which were collected in Classic GI Joe Volume 14 where Cobra Commander upgrades Megatron and Optimus Prime sends the Protectobots to help the Joes with Megatron. That is a great way to establish that GI Joe and Transformers are part of the same universe without sacrificing the sense of self-containment in the GI Joe line at Marvel. This sets the precedent to build a new Hasbroverse off of the continuation of Hama's ARAH run at Skybound just relaunch the Transformers Generation One line maybe have Simon Furman write it (if he wants to of course). Then start a Rom and MASK line that is part of this universe. If Larry doesn't want to have his ARAH part of a shared universe with Transformers and Rom then I guess we could have a separate GI Joe line part of this Universe. I prefer not to do that because it would force the two GI Joe lines to compete against each other like with the DDP GI Joe ARAH line and GI Joe Reloaded. Preferably have a new Hasbroverse built off of Hama's ARAH run, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if a separate GI Joe line was started to be part of this Hasbroverse.


Classic GI Joe TPB cover which collects the Transformers arc in Larry Hama's GI Joe ARAH run at Marvel
A good line to merge the various Hasbro properties to have them paired together would be an Adventure Team line or Adventure Force where we have the membership of a Joe, Autobot, Space Knight, and members of MASK & Action Force to save the world from various threats. Adventure Team could serve as the Justice League or Avengers of the Hasbroverse. Keep in mind teams like the Avengers include members of the X-Men and Fantastic Four within the team. Heck even members of the Squadron Supreme, Marvel's Justice League, were included in the Avengers like Hyperion. So Adventure Team could provide that opening to feature a mixed team of Hasbro Heroes. Skybound could even give Adventure Team a Guardians of the Globe complex where the original Adventure Team was GI Joe/General Colton, Bulletman, Atomic Man, Stalker, and Hawk and then was disbanded because the heroes retired or moved on to other ventures. They can have a new Adventure Team form in the Hasbroverse to fill the void of the original Adventure Team. A lineup I'd like to see for this team would be Flint (team leader), Lady Jaye, Rom, Julio Lopez, Gloria Baker, Bulletman, Action Man, Prowl, and Hot Spot which exist to protect the world from the combined threats of COBRA, SKAR, VENOM, Red Shadows, Decepticons, and Dire Wraiths. This is a good way to merge those properties in one line and maintain the self-contained nature of standalone GI Joe, Transformers, MASK, Rom, and Action Force lines.


The Adventure Team
Experimenting with the properties: One of the things I appreciated about Devil's Due, Dreamwave, and IDW's handling of the Hasbro properties was that they were willing to experiment and take these franchises in interesting directions in addition to having more mainstream takes. Some really good examples from the Dreamwave and DDP eras of the Hasbro franchises were GI Joe Reloaded and Transformers the War Within. These titles provided good alternatives to Generation 1 and A Real American Hero lines published by those respective publishers. Transformers The War Within was a prequel comic that delved into Transformers lore and took place entirely on Cybertron which was a chapter in Transformers that Marvel never really explored. GI Joe Reloaded was a more grounded take on the GI Joe and COBRA war where the two factions exhibit characteristics of real-world counter-terrorist agencies and terrorist groups. These two series showed the creative potential of the franchises.


Transformers The War Within

GI Joe Reloaded
When IDW obtained the licenses they started the gates with the original takes on these properties before rekindling the Marvel iterations of them with the original writers. The new takes IDW had taken bold approaches to the characters from introducing a COBRA council that selects the next Cobra Commander after the Cobra Commander is killed by Chuckles to having Megatron switch allegiances from Decepticon to Autobot after he is betrayed by Shockwave. These were bold directions for the properties and provided interesting takes on the properties and these were the interpretations IDW intended to be their primary iterations of these properties with the continuations of the Marvel lines being alternative takes. Given that both interpretations came in the form of ongoing runs it forced the runs to compete with each other and the new IDW takes fell below their continuations of the Marvel runs. In the case of GI Joe, the ARAH run outlasted the original IDW GI Joe runs. Transformers Regeneration One ended at issue 100 which was Simon Furman's goal when he was at Marvel, but Marvel's editorial board canceled the run at issue 80 to start Generation 2 which was a failure. So IDW allowed Furman to finish the Marvel run at issue 100. If Furman decided to keep writing Transformers Regeneration One after Issue 100, I have a feeling it too would've outlasted the original IDW takes on Transformers like Hama's GI Joe run did all of the IDW GI Joe runs. So what is the solution?


IDW Transformers

IDW GI Joe
The solution is to do these bold and original takes on the properties in the form of miniseries so they won't be forced to compete with other ongoing lines in the same franchises. Let's face it these properties aren't Batman or Spider-Man where you can have an ongoing line of these titles set in a separate continuity and have it not compete with the main ongoing line. Even though DC doesn't do that with Batman, Marvel did it with Spider-Man having Ultimate Spider-Man run at the same time as Amazing Spider-Man. GI Joe and Transformers don't have that kind of staying power and Transformers is very popular, GI Joe is a bit more niche but neither franchise is on the level of Batman & Spider-Man. So the solution is to have these bold and original takes in the form of miniseries like DC did with the recent Batman White Knight books which are great. IDW did this recently with Snake Eyes Deadgame which according to the book's author* & illustrator Rob Leifeld was the most successful GI Joe comic in recent years in terms of sales (unfortunately it wasn't very good). That's the way original takes on GI Joe and Transformers should be approached just with better creative teams. I would to see a GI Joe miniseries centered on GI Joe himself General Joe Colton about his time in the US military and another that places GI Joe and COBRA in WWII. For Transformers, I'd like to see a miniseries that further explores the pre-Earth Autobots & Decepticons maybe even the Autobots before Optimus Prime was their leader further exploring the leaderships of Sentinel Prime and Zeta Prime. A revitalization of Transformers Headmasters would be great bringing back the Hedamsters and the Targetmasters. Maybe even a Beast Wars miniseries about the Maximals & Predacons to break up the Autobot vs. Decepticon monotony. The possibilities are endless.

Snake Eyes Deadgame

Batman White Knight
Great talent on these books: One of the very important things is to have great writers and artists on these franchises. Of course, we know that whoever the next publisher is all signs point to Skybound that they have already agreed to have Larry Hama write GI Joe and he is proven to be a great writer for the line. Hama effectively made GI Joe iconic. On the Transformers side, Simon Furman should be brought in to write Transformers given his history with Transformers at Marvel, Dreamwave, and IDW and being the only person aside from Bob Budiansky who can claim to be the Larry Hama for Transformers. Given that Bob Budiansky has exited the world of comics it is safe to say he won't return to the world of Transformers. Aside from Furman and Hama, writers such as Mike Costa, John Barber, John Ney Reiber, Joe Casey, and Brad Mick would be to have returned to these franchises. On the artist side, Robert Atkins, Pat Lee, Don Figueroa, Josh Medors, Stefano Caselli, Tim Seely, Livio Ramondelli, and Andrew Griffith because these artists have proven that they know how to illustrate these characters. In addition to returning talent Skybound or whoever should look to having new talent on board and maybe even some big names. One of the benefits of Snake Eyes Deadgame was that Rob Liefeld is a big name in the comic book world even if it is mostly for bad comics like Youngblood and Heroes Reborn. Enough people recognized his name and bought Snake Eyes Deadgame and read it. Skybound is owned by Robert Kirkman who is a huge fan of Transformers & GI Joe and is also a very competent writer look at his work on Ultimate X-Men, Marvel Zombies, The Walking Dead, and Invincible his finest work. However, there is so far no expectation for him to write the comics for the respective franchises if Skybound gets the licenses, I hope he does end up writing the comics. Other new personnel I'd like to see the join, both writers and artists, would include Ed Brubaker, Jeph Loeb, Ed McGuinness, and Goran Parlov. I know these are good artists & writers and I am hopeful that they are fans of these franchises too because I think they'd be great on these titles in addition to the proven talent.

Emulate the Toys: It is important to remember that Transformers, GI Joe, Rom, MASK, Action Force, Macronaughts, etc. are technically still toy properties even if the lore of these franchises were established through comics and animation. The initial goals of the comic lines and the later cartoon series in the 1980s & 1990s were to help sell more toys by featuring toys in iconic stories. This practice of promoting toys through comics & cartoons would bleed into Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, and DC Super Heroes titles in the 1980s and 1990s as well despite not originally being conceived of as toylines. So there was a heavy incentive to feature the current toys of characters like Optimus Prime and Snake Eyes in the comics & cartoons or have special appearances of popular toys in comics & cartoons. That has since toned down, especially with the Avengers United They Stand cartoon & comic demonstrating how prioritizing toy sales can negatively impact the storytelling in a comic. It still peaked through in the Devil's Due GI Joe line with Duke and Roadblock being drawn to resemble the current toys during that era, but not being so overbearing that it takes away from the storytelling. Which is ideally how toy promotion in comics should be. Given the popularity of the GI Joe Classified Series, it would be nice to see the Classified designs make their way into comics especially when you consider that comic books artists like Phil Noto, Tony Daniel, and Francesco Francavilla drew the box art for the Classified figures and honestly those artists should work on these lines now that I think of it. At least have them be cover artists. Now that being said I would also like it if Hasbro brought some cool designs from the comics into the toylines I want Classifieds of the Phoenix Guard and the Joes from Fred Van Lente's GI Joe run.











Reach out to Young readers in addition to maintaining older readers: Given that these are toy properties Hasbro should be trying to get young readers into their properties with comics as well as cartoons. Now, this doesn't mean Hasbro should have Skybound make these main lines and miniseries for these franchises more childish. If anything they should try publishing one-shots and miniseries that are more kid-friendly and kid-oriented in addition to the more mature and adolescent-geared runs and miniseries that are prominent. Try learning a few things from the Marvel Age and Marvel Adventures runs on how to make comics oriented toward children. Now it is true that adults have become a huge source of revenue for the toy industry in recent years so it keeping older readers would be wise. That shouldn't stop Hasbro from trying to rekindle the children's interest in toys and using comics as that vehicle emulating the Marvel Adventures & Marvel Age approaches would be a good path forward.


Marvel Age Spider-Man

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man
Give attention to underutilized characters: This is a criticism I have of all comics and companies in how cool characters get sidelined for no reason most of the time. However, in many cases that is pretty much going to be the status quo until management changes. Given the nature that these are licensed comics editorial mandates to overuse and underuse certain characters don't last between publishers. The IP owners still dictate most of the directions these franchises go in. However, the publishers do have a lot of say in who does and doesn't get elevated. When Devil's Due had GI Joe they promoted the hell out of Wraith then when IDW obtained the license they never touched that character aside from printing the Disavowed trades. So the editorial boards at these publishers do have a say in what characters get the spotlight in what they print. Also, Hasbro should make toys for some of these characters too why haven't Wraith, Mad Monk, Krake, and General Rey made it into the GI Joe Classified line yet since we got Kamakura so why not these four? How about a Throwdown figure too? Given that Throwdown was the codename Larry Hama gave Sean Collins in his ARAH run instead of Kamakura. Maybe more of a spotlight in the comics will incentivize Hasbro to increase its profile in its toy lines.




More Crossovers: This is more of a fanboyish thing of mine because I love crossovers. Of course, we'll get Transformers/GI Joe crossovers to the end of time because Hasbro loves those and those have finally reached their way into the toylines. If we do see Skybound pick up the tab on GI Joe and Transformers that means these titles will share the nest that The Walking Dead and Invincible occupy which could enable crossovers with those franchises. I would love to see Transformers, GI Joe, or both franchises crossover with Invincible. Also, Skybound is part of the Image apparatus which means that in addition to potential crossovers with Walking Dead and Invincible, there is potential for Spawn, Savage Dragon, and Shadow Hawk crossovers with Transformers & GI Joe. I mean Marvel did feature Duke in Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man in Transformers when they had the licenses so what's to stop Skybound from doing likewise, Also Skybound and Image today are on rather good terms with Marve & DC after there was the Invincible/Spider-Man crossover from a while back and the recent Batman/Spawn crossover is happening too. So the door is open for a proper crossover with GI Joe and the Avengers or better yet the Invaders. Maybe the canceled Transformers/Justice League crossover can come to fruition. Do plenty of crossovers because those are always fun.


Canceled Justice League/Transformers crossover artwork
Make better shows & movies (Skybound only): One of the perks of the possibility of Skybound obtaining the licenses to Transformers, GI Joe, and other Hasbro titles is that Skybound doesn't only make comics. They're also actively involved in creating television, film, and games for their products. Skybound worked on the Walking Dead & Invincible shows and the Renfield film and didn't just leave a studio in charge of those projects. So this could mean that Skybound would take an active role in shaping the film & television franchise for these properties which is desperately needed especially after Snake Eyes GI Joe Origins flopped. Also, too many of Hasbro's current shows are aimed squarely at kids now instead of having some adult appeal. This was a benefit Hasbro had when they were working with Marvel back in the 1980s having Marvel Comics make Transformers & GI Joe comics and having Marvel Productions make Transformers and GI Joe cartoons in collaboration with Sunbow Productions. We could see a return to that kind of cooperation which means we have a good chance to say goodbye to Lorenzo Di Bonaventura and have him stop putting out Michael Bay movies with Hasbro characters. That will be a relief.

Those are my thoughts on the subject curious to see what everyone else thinks. I'm curious to see what everyone else thinks.

[AWOL]

I just want cool missions starring an elite unit of soldiers using state-of-art gear. No soap opera drama.

[vxc961]

Wow--great post, and the pics are getting me excited about Joe coming back! You also got me interested in going back and reading some Transformers; I remember hearing about some of the Simon Furman stuff and thinking it was interesting, then also hearing rave reviews about some of the IDW stuff, but I always got sort of lost with a thousand different titles, and not knowing what was related to what, what universes were separate, and where all the series were chronologically. I had a similar problem when I got back to reading GI Joe, but I was motivated to research it and buy things in order.

One thing I don't want however is crossovers. I try to keep an open mind, but I've never liked any of the GI Joe/TF crossovers. I guess my ideal Joe is a little more reality based, so introducing giant cybertronians is just a bridge too far. I can see how MASK *might* work, but I still feel like I'd find the hasbro properties more enjoyable if they remain separate. I'm interested in Rom, MASK, TF and Joe, but putting them all together just doesn't float my boat.

I haven't totally loved a lot of Hama's recent work, but I owe him so much that I'll probably buy whatever Joe he writes forever; I do hope the next publisher puts out another continuity. I loved RELOADED, I loved Dixon's run, COBRA, Allor's Joe and...I'm reading Karen Traviss' run and am really enjoying that too!

[ScottyHawkeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

I just want cool missions starring an elite unit of soldiers using state-of-art gear. No soap opera drama.

Just wanna keep it simple.

[ScottyHawkeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vxc961

Wow--great post and the pics are getting me excited about Joe coming back! You also got me interested in going back and reading some Transformers; I remember hearing about some of the Simon Furman stuff and thinking it was interesting, then also hearing rave reviews about some of the IDW stuff, but I always got sort of lost with a thousand different titles, and not knowing what was related to what, what universes were separate, and where all the series were chronological. I had a similar problem when I got back to reading GI Joe, but I was motivated to research it and buy things in order.

Particularly when you have stories like COBRA Civil War and COBRA Command where part one of the arc was GI Joe #9 then have part two be Snake Eyes #9 and part three be COBRA #9. Yeah, that can be jarring it is part of the reason I just decided to collect comics in the form of Trades and Hardcovers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vxc961

One thing I don't want however is crossovers. I try to keep an open mind, but I've never liked any of the GI Joe/TF crossovers. I guess my ideal Joe is a little more reality-based, so introducing giant Cybertronians is just a bridge too far. I can see how MASK *might* work, but I still feel like I'd find the Hasbro properties more enjoyable if they remain separate. I'm interested in Rom, MASK, TF, and Joe, but putting them all together just doesn't float my boat.

I'm a guy who thinks both are possible. GI Joe itself has been more fantastical and sci-fi heavy with cloning, artificial intelligence, and Battle Android Troopers existing within the world. So Cybertronians and Space Knights aren't that far-fetched in a world where cloning and BATs exist. However, I also like an interpretation of GI Joe that's more realistic and takes the android soldiers and clones out of the world to ground the world and give the Joes characteristics of real counterterrorism units and COBRA the traits of real terrorist groups. So I would have the ongoing line feature BATs and clones in it while a miniseries can have the more realistic takes on the characters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vxc961

I haven't totally loved a lot of Hama's recent work, but I owe him so much that I'll probably buy whatever Joe writes forever; I do hope the next publisher puts out another continuity. I loved RELOADED, I loved Dixon's run, COBRA, Allor's Joe, and...I'm reading Karen Traviss' run and am really enjoying that too!

It's gotten pretty hit or miss lately. Issue 300 was underwhelming. However, as a Joe I will forever be in Hama's debt for the franchise.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottyHawkeye

So Cybertronians and Space Knights aren't that far-fetched in a world where cloning and BATs exist. However, I also like an interpretation of GI Joe that's more realistic and takes the android soldiers and clones out of the world to ground the world and give the Joes characteristics of real counterterrorism units and COBRA the traits of real terrorist groups. So I would have the ongoing line feature BATs and clones in it while a miniseries can have the more realistic takes on the characters.

The Dixon/Costaverse was doing just fine until they crossed it over with the other Hasbro properties. It was a bit more serious, but still had all the sci-fi and ninjas. The latter I can do without, but they didn't overdo it. The next publisher will hopefully do something similar.

[ScottyHawkeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

The Dixon/Costaverse was doing just fine until they crossed it over with the other Hasbro properties. It was a bit more serious, but still had all the sci-fi and ninjas. The latter I can do without, but they didn't overdo it. The next publisher will hopefully do something similar.

That is true. I think the problems that arose there were placing Skywarp on the Joe team when he didn't really belong there and also trying to establish 9 years into your GI Joe continuity and 11 years into your Transformers continuity that they are in fact set in the same universe when there was no indication they were in the same universe in the previous 9-11 years. It raises questions like where was the GI Joe Team when the Decepticons killed 2 billion people during All Hail Megatron and where were the Autobots during Cobra Command. Think establishing a shared continuity should be executed before major crisis events otherwise you just create unnecessary questions.

[AWOL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottyHawkeye

That is true. I think the problems that arose there were placing Skywarp on the Joe team when he didn't really belong there and also trying to establish 9 years into your GI Joe continuity and 11 years into your Transformers continuity that they are in fact set in the same universe when there was no indication they were in the same universe in the previous 9-11 years. It raises questions like where was the GI Joe Team when the Decepticons killed 2 billion people during All Hail Megatron and where were the Autobots during Cobra Command. Think establishing a shared continuity should be executed before major crisis events otherwise you just create unnecessary questions.

Giant sentient robots fighting along side little army guys...I guess it works...in that goofy way. It's just not for me. I hope the two will be kept separate.

[stopdead]

Does anyone here have a direct line to Hama? Maybe he can at least give us a hint as to when we’ll get an announcement?

[ScottyHawkeye]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AWOL

Giant sentient robots fighting along side little army guys...I guess it works...in that goofy way. It's just not for me. I hope the two will be kept separate.

It all boils down to execution in the end. I just want it all self-contained stories and crossovers.