Transformers vs. G.I. Joe
Transformers vs. G.I. Joe is an ongoing comic book series published by IDW Publishing. It represents the first crossover between the two brands since IDW gained control of both licenses, and takes place in a separate continuity unrelated to either of the "main" universes the company has developed for the 'bots and Joes. The series is distinguished by its retro-styled artwork and storytelling, emulating the look and feel of the Silver Age of Comic Books.
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Overview
The series begins with issue #0, released on Free Comic Book Day 2014, which acts as a prologue for the ongoing
Creative team
IDW senior Transformers editor John Barber co-writes the series with artist Tom Scioli. Scioli's artwork is heavily inspired by comic book legend Jack Kirby, and the artist previously made his name emulating Kirby on the Image Comics series Gødland. While Kirby's kinetic artistic style is the primary influence on the look of title, it is not carbon-copied; many other artistic influences shape the book, including Jim Steranko, Herb Trimpe, and Frank Miller. In terms of writing and tone, the cast is populated with bombastic Silver Age characters and over-the-top dialogue, while the plots are a steady flow of Kirby-style wild, outlandish cosmic sci-fi ideas delivered with escalatingly frenetic pace.
The series is carving out an identity for itself as one with a visual style entirely unlike past Transformers and G.I. Joe comics; in-keeping with that, a variety of atypical artists provide variant covers for the series, including noted alternative comics artist Ed Piskor and 1990s trend-setter Rob Liefeld.
The series is also noted for it's hypercompression; story-lines are rapidly paced, with page compositions with up to as many as several dozen characters. This style was designed in emulation of film adaption comics (such as the aforementioned Kirby's 2001 a Space Odyssey) and was chosen to compensate for the large casts and limited page-count of 20.[1]
Continuity
Although described as a Generation 1 story by other fiction , Transformers vs. Gi Joe presents perhaps the most radical reinvention of Transformers fiction to date. Characters are reinvented with the thought process of a child playing with toys, stripped of their usual fictional context and reimagined—Soundwave's opening chest, for example, is used as a prison to hold Joes, while Destro's metal mask is reinterpreted as indicative of his being a cyborg. Scioli heavily researched Transformers and G.I. Joe lore during production, and remixed and interpreted into a holistic new whole and includes multiple references to both in the book. The result is a storyline whose production reflects the original Transformers fiction produced at Marvel, crafting a narrative from looking at the toys with virgin eyes.
Described as " the central hub that all universes originate from like spokes in the cosmic wheel"[2] by artist and co writer Scioli, the series uses elements of Transformers and Gi Joe lore, stitched together with aspects of Judeo Christian and Indo European myth anchored in several key elements of the Transformers and GI Joe mythos recontexualized. Primus for example is the spawn of a horned Yemic demiurge named for Transformer ancestor Diaclone which in turn evokes the "Unicron" entity of Transformers: The Ultimate Guide with The One's place taken by Quintessons. On the Gi Joe side, the narrative extends the Snake Men and Cobra-La aspects seen in that franchises movie and the Lovecraftian horrors seen in Destro's mansion into the titanic Devil God Koh-Buru Lah and then further stitching these elements together into a glorious Amalgam that Scioli crafted from a "very long outline."[3] At the end of the day the goal with the story was to create "the most important universe there is."[4]
Collections
- Transformers vs. G.I. Joe Volume 1 TPB (December 24, 2014) ISBN 1631401904 / ISBN 978-1631401909
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