Transformers: Collision Course

The Graggle Simpson of IDW.

Transformers: Collision Course is an unpublished miniseries from IDW Publishing that would've focused on the Transformers multiverse in some capacity.

Overview

Little is known about the plot of Collision Course: as the miniseries would've seen release in 2022, the final year of IDW's tenure on the Transformers license, it would've presumably acted as a capstone to seventeen years of IDW's Transformers storytelling and, possibly, Transformers as a whole. An unproduced cover by Alex Milne depicts characters from IDW's first and second ongoing Transformers universes, various familiar faces from the original Transformers cartoon and comic, Animated, and the "Aligned" continuity, characters from the Beast Wars cartoon, its anime spinoffs, and IDW's 2021 comic reboot, and a few oddball miniseries like Transformers vs. The Terminator, Hearts of Steel, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, and even Last Bot Standing. Another proposed cover by Guido Guidi features characters explicitly identified as "Armada Megatron" and "Regeneration One Starscream," <ref>Transformers: Best of the Rarities</ref> and an unfinished cover by Geoff Senior depicts Beast Wars Megatron battling "Generation 1" Grimlock, <ref>Geoff Senior panel at TFcon 2022</ref> though it's unclear what, if any, role these characters might've played in the overall story.

Collision Course must've been cut very late in production, enough so that artists had already completed several covers. As late as January 2022, an article reporting on IDW's impending loss of the Transformers license noted that the company had two "event" miniseries set to release after the end of their ongoing Transformers comic <ref>IDW to Lose ‘G.I. Joe,’ ‘Transformers’ License at End of 2022 (Exclusive) — The Hollywood Reporter</ref>—it's unclear whether this refers to Last Bot Standing, Transformers: Shattered Glass II, or possibly Collision Course, although Last Bot Standing is a largely self-contained story ostensibly divorced from any other part of the Transformers multiverse. That same month, a letters page in Beast Wars #12 teased the possibility of a "crossover event" when asked about a potential crossover between the cast of Beast Wars and IDW's 2019 Transformers reboot. <ref> "You never know... we may be seeing the Maximals and Predacons in a crossover event in the near future..." </ref> Solicits for 2022's Fate of Cybertron, advertised as the grand finale for IDW's aforementioned Transformers reboot, hinted at a potential next instalment that never materialized—it's possible that Collision Course would've continued the story in some capacity. <ref>"The War for Cybertron may end here, but the Autobots and Decepticons aren't done yet!"</ref>

The reasons behind Collision Course's cancellation remain unclear—with only months left on the Transformers license, it may have come down to time concerns, or simply a desire to have both Transformers and Beast Wars stories end on an organic note instead of forcing them into a contrived crossover scenario. Alternately, it's possible that IDW chose to market Last Bot Standing, written with the intent of acting as the "final Transformers story", as a more subdued response to the end of IDW's Transformers mythos.

Notes

• When IDW first obtained the Transformers license in 2005, Simon Furman originally proposed a multiverse crossover story that would've brought together the casts of both Cybertron and Generation 1, although IDW turned down his pitch. <ref>Transformers, a New Direction, Simon Furman's Transformers proposal printed in The Best of Simon Furman</ref> It's only fitting that what would've been the last IDW book met the same fate...

References

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