First Strike
First Strike is a crossover miniseries by IDW Publishing that debuted in August 2017, focusing on the Transformers, G.I. Joe, and the return of Cobra. A sequel of sorts to Revolution, this crossover begins "year 2" of the Hasbro Universe and serves as a soft relaunch for the line.
When the series concludes, G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K. will relaunch as Scarlett's Strike Force. Likewise, ROM and Micronauts end and relaunch as ROM & The Micronauts. The Transformers titles continue as before, with the exception of Till All Are One, which at the choice of Mairghread Scott is set to conclude with an annual rather than undergo its own soft reboot.
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First Strike
First Strike one-shots
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Buildup
The seeds of First Strike were planted in 2016's pre-Revolution story arcs in The Transformers and Action Man. The former featured Optimus Prime annexing Earth into the Council of Worlds as a means to defend humankind from further extraterrestrial threats, and this continued in the opening arc of succesor series Optimus Prime. The latter revealed human supervillian Doctor X to be working with fellow supervillains Storm Shadow (plus her Red Shadows) and Baron Ironblood in an unspecified plot of world domination. Subsequently, Revolutionaries continued this plot thread as Kup, Action Man, Mayday, and Garrison Blackrock hopscotching across the globe to uncover the secret of the mysterious Talisman, an artifact also desired by the villain coalition.
Overview
A year after Optimus Prime's decision to annex Earth into the Cybertronian Council of Worlds, a unified Earth stands ready to join the interplanetary coalition as equals to the Transformers. However, this event is thrown into chaos by the machinations of Baron Ironblood, who leads a crusade to destroy all Transformers. Now it's up to Scarlett, Optimus Prime, and Soundwave to save both worlds and ensure Earth's status on the Council.
Creative team
Mairghread Scott, writer of Windblade and Till All Are One, and David Rodriguez, co-writer of the 2017 M.A.S.K. Annual jointly write First Strike, while Max Dunbar, artist of Micronauts, handles artistic duties.[1] The various one-shots will mostly be handled by each series's creative team.[2]
Collections
- Transformers/G.I. JOE: First Strike TPB (February 20, 2018 **scheduled**) ISBN 1684051223 / ISBN 978-1684051229
- Collects the First Strike issues
- Bonus material UNKNOWN.
- Transformers/G.I. JOE: First Strike: Champions TPB (February 27, 2018 **scheduled**) ISBN 1684051231 / ISBN 978-1684051236
- Collects the individual First Strike one-shot issues
- Bonus material UNKNOWN.
Notes
- The event appears to have originally been named Insurgency, with a variety of early solicitation texts and filenames referring to it under that title.
References
External links
- First Strike at the IDW Hasbro Wiki
