G.I. Joe Energon Universe 2025 Special story
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| Publisher | Image Comics Skybound Entertainment | ||||||||||||
| First published | May 3, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Joshua Williamson | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Andrea Milana | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Lee Loughridge | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Rus Wooton | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Energon Universe | ||||||||||||
Clutch makes a new friend, and reconnects with an old one.
Synopsis
As the Ark crashes to Earth, Hound is thrown from the ship, crashing to the planet and laying dormant for centuries until he is awoken by a signal from Jetfire. The Autobot scout wanders the planet looking for his people until he comes across a battle at a secret military base. Taking the form of a jeep, he hides and waits, gathering information until one day, when a human returns to the base... with Energon in hand!
Hound throws Clutch from the seat of his vehicle mode and transforms, demanding to know how the human has Energon. Clutch, terrified, grabs his pistol and immediately opens fire. Hound, annoyed, fires back. Clutch crawls to his bag and fishes out the souvenir he took from Cobra: an Energon grenade! He tosses it at Hound, critically injuring him, but the momentary pause allows him to get in a few words to talk Clutch down. Realizing his mistake, Clutch decides to help repair the Autobot. Knowing he can’t take him back to the Pit, he decides to take him to an old friend: Matt Trakker.
Clutch finds Trakker at a garage in the middle of nowhere, working on some kind of mask. Trakker isn’t happy to see Clutch, but when Clutch shows him the reason he sought him out, he simply responds “finally.” As Matt repairs Hound, Clutch catches him up on his recent adventures with G.I. Joe. Matt is surprised that Clutch has joined the service, and when he offers to put in a word for him, Matt declines, preferring to work alone. Clutch asks how Matt knows how to work on Cybertronian tech, to which Matt coldly replies that if he told him, he’d have to kill him.
As he nears completion of the repairs, Hound suddenly detects an incoming enemy. Ravage then bursts into Trakker’s garage. Matt fires on the Decepticon, but Clutch tells him that bullets won’t work. Ravage pounces on Clutch, trying to get the Energon in his bag, only for Hound to pull him off the human. After a couple of blasts from Hound’s blaster, Ravage scuttles away. As the sun rises, Clutch and Hound decide to head back to the Pit, and Matt prepares to leave his now ruined garage. Before they part, Matt tells Clutch not to tell anyone he saw him. As Clutch and Hound drive off together, Clutch begins to bring Hound up to speed about Cobra.
Meanwhile, in the Florida Everglades, a Cobra Trooper crawls from the wreckage of a Stinger. The Trooper tells his attacker that they were just moving the leftover Energon in the swamps. The attacker asks if they work for Destro, but the Trooper tells them that Cobra Commander has taken over Destro’s operations. Buzzer is happy to hear that. The Commander took everything from the Dreadnoks. Now they’re going to war against Cobra!
Featured characters
Characters in italic text appear only in photographs.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | G.I. Joe | Others |
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Quotes
"Hey, how do you know how to work on this tech anyway?"
"If I told you, I’d have to kill you."
- –Clutch and Matt Trakker
Notes
Continuity notes
- The opening page flashes back to several key moments from earlier Energon Universe stories:
- The Ark crashing and the battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron was first seen in the Transformers portion of the Energon Universe 2024 Special. This makes Hound the third known Transformer to be thrown from the Ark during its crash, alongside Megatron and Beachcomber.
- Jetfire reviving the Autobots and Decepticons in Transformers #1.
- Hound is seen watching the battle between the soon-to-be Joes and Major Bludd’s Blood Hounds from Duke #4.
- When Clutch mentions the Transformers killing people, we flash back to Starscream’s murder of Frosting from Transformers #2.
- Clutch uses the Energon grenade we saw in his bag at the end of G.I. Joe #6.
- Ravage has been out of commission for most of the Energon Universe since getting blasted by Optimus Prime in the first issue of Transformers. When last readers saw him, he was revived by Megatron in Transformers #18. Since then, he’s been fully repaired and is back to his usual predatory ways.
- We last saw Buzzer and the rest of the Dreadnoks back in Cobra Commander #4, wherein the Commander (and Nemesis Enforcer) utterly decimated them.
Transformers references
- Hound’s admiration of Earth’s beauty is a character trait that goes back to his original Generation 1 toy bio by Bob Budiansky.
- Hound facing off against Ravage echoes their adversarial interactions from the Generation 1 cartoon episode “More than Meets the Eye, Part 3”.
G.I. Joe (and other Hasbro franchise) references
- In a surprise reveal, this story features the Energon Universe debut of Matt Trakker from M.A.S.K.! The leader of the titular Mobile Armored Strike Kommand has crossed over with G.I. Joe before, notably being introduced in the G.I. Joe: 25th Anniversary toyline under the title “Specialist Trakker”, and later starring in the IDW Publishing M.A.S.K.: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand series as part of IDW’s Hasbro Universe. Notably, while the outfit Trakker wears is based more on his classic appearance, he is depicted as an African-American man like the IDW version.
- The 1:50 incentive cover for the special, which features Trakker as designed by regular G.I. Joe series artist Tom Reilly, lists his specialties as "advanced technology" and "vehicle design", taken directly from the filecard for Specialist Trakker.
