IDW Publishing

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Idea and Design Works, LLC currently owns the Transformers comic book license as of May 2005, following the financial collapse of the previous license holder, Dreamwave Productions, at the tail-end of 2004.

IDW's flagship storyline is a rebooted Generation 1 continuity, which started out being written by longtime Transformers scribe Simon Furman and told through a succession of mini-series and one-shot Spotlights, before finally producing a monthly comic in 2009. IDW has also been authorized to re-release trade paperbacks published by Dreamwave Productions, such as the War and Peace mini-series and The War Within and War Within: The Dark Ages. In May 2008, IDW's relationship with Hasbro proved to be quite healthy indeed as they snapped up the G.I. Joe comic book license as well, and in 2010 obtained the license to Dungeons & Dragons. Then in 2012 they started publishing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comics. Hasbro definitely seems to like them.

IDW used to mock your nerdy belief that writers and editors should be able to remember things that happened in previous issues, but then they hired John Barber.

Series published

G1 rebooted

Initial ideas for IDW's Transformer line included a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style story crossing over with the new Cybertron toyline, starting ongoings in both G1 and Cybertron continuity. The G1 cast would suffer Cybertron's destruction and learn Unicron's death had destabilized the entire omniverse, forcing them to try and assemble an artifact called the "Decepticon Matrix" in order to resurrect Unicron. This would parallel with the Cybertron plot, in which the Autobots seek out the Cyber Planet Keys to revive Primus, and Vector Prime would have appeared as a guide in both series. It seems that series would then have come together with the concurrent Cybertron comic as Transformers from across the multiverse were brought together for a final, epic clash.[1]

This was considered too confusing for new readers, however, and dropped for a continuity reboot of Generation 1. Furman mostly oversaw this, creating a more sophisticated universe around the familiar characters and tropes: Marvel Comics' Ultimate line was the inspiration, and Furman deliberately borrowed the more leisurely pacing of Ultimate Marvel.[2]

Instead of an ongoing civil war on Cybertron which spills over to Earth by accident, Furman presented us with an interstellar war between the Autobots and Decepticons, a war of Code of Interplanetary Conflict and alt-form-and-dagger covert operations, with energon the prize and whole planets at stake. A surprising development on Earth heats up the war and turns our planet from just another proxy battleground into the ultimate prize.

This slow, measured storyline was eventually abandoned in an attempt to bring in more casual fans with a more G1 Cartoon-inspired revamp in All Hail Megatron. This failed to have the desired effect both in terms of sales and fan-response, so another revamp was attempted with the start of The Transformers ongoing series. It was met with sharp fan criticism as well. Yet another revamp was attempted with two concurrent ongoing series, More Than Meets The Eye and Robots In Disguise. Positive fan response came at last.

The general order of publications to date is as follows:

The sequel to Revelation at one point was to be titled Expansion, but it was canceled in favor of All Hail Megatron. However, Furman stated that some of the ideas from the series may pop up in other series.

See also

Beast Wars

Taking place within the Beast Wars cartoon universe, this line eschews the previous 3H Productions fan club comics that previously continued the show's story to strike out in a new direction, focusing mainly on the non-show toy characters.

See also

Evolutions

Intended to be a series of Elseworlds-like stories that exist in their own separate continuities, each taking different takes on Transformers. Only one has so-far been produced. (Reportedly, Hasbro has asked IDW to hold back on Evolutions as to not confuse customers looking for merchandise based on the 2007 film.)[citation needed] Chris Ryall stated that with the Movie and Animated series, it is unlikely we will see any more of these series.[3]

  • Hearts of Steel (2006) Places the Generation 1 Transformers in the American West during the Industrial Revolution.
  • Infestation 2 (2012) The sequel to Infestation. This time, it's Lovecraftian demons that invade the various licensed properties. The Transformers-specific issues take place in the Hearts of Steel universe.

Live-action film series

Transformers Animated

Regeneration One

Aligned continuity family

Reprint series

Others

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Pitch printed in The Transformers: The Best of Simon Furman
  2. ↑ Moonbase 2m AA2010 interview
  3. ↑ Post by Chris Ryall at IDW's forums
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