The timing couldn’t have been better: IDW has a brand-new Transformers series (issue #2 is out now!) and the Binary System Podcast team was in Anaheim last week to hear three of IDW’s editors tell us all about it. Click the jump for a rundown of the Transformers panel at WonderCon 2019.
The panel was led by IDW’s David Mariott, Megan Brown, and none other than our favorite editor-in-chief John Barber. (Artist E.J. Su was originally scheduled as one of the panelists but ended up getting caught in traffic. Friend of the podcast and Pixelated Geek writer Jada suffered through three hours of California gridlock to get to WonderCon, so she can sympathize.)
Launching a new Transformers continuity can be a little daunting, and this one is trying something new. The latest series is starting earlier than any previous title, introducing us to the world of the Transformers before the millennia-long war between the Autobots and Decepticons has even started. The story features a Cybertron untouched by war (something we’ve only ever seen before in flashbacks), and the evolving relationship between the leader of the growing Ascenticon faction (Senator Megatron) and a conflicted senator who goes by the name of Orion Pax.
In addition to the senators and some returning favorites like Windblade and Bumblebee (that name was met with a cheer from the audience and at least one “Don’t kill him this time!”), the series will be introducing characters like Rubble, the newly-minted Autobot who’ll give the readers a ground-level view of this pristine Cybertron, and the surveyor Geomotus, a peaceful bot who also happens to be the first openly-disabled Transformers character.
Writer Brian Ruckely hinted about some of the twists and turns that the new series holds in a recorded video segment from Scotland (David Mariott joked that the challenging bi-monthly release schedule means Mr. Ruckely is forbidden to travel), and John Barber elaborated on the “Shakespearean” conflict that’s going to develop between Orion Pax and Megatron.
In addition to the story, the panelists gave us some tantalizing information about the upcoming artwork on the series. E.J. Su was the cover artist for the convention-exclusive issue (which gives us a nice bit of continuity, considering that E.J. Su did the art and some of the first covers for the Infiltration series way back in 2005), and artist Guido Guidi will be be teaming up with the legendary Simon Furman for the upcoming Transformers ’84 #0, a one-shot issue celebrating the 35th anniversary of the series. Angel Hernandez and Cachet Whitman will be doing the interior art for the first few issues, and we’ll also see the return of Guidi doing the odd-numbered covers of the next few issues, while the even-numbered covers will be done by Jefferey Vereggee in the style of Cybertronian travel posters.
The panelists also casually mentioned that Sara Pitre Deroche will be returning to the Transformers, which makes the Binary System Podcast team all kinds of happy.
There are also several IDW series that either just wrapped up or are just about to start: Star Trek/Transformers, Transformers/Ghostbusters, Go-Bots, and Megan Brown talked a little about the upcoming one-shot issue Synergy, a Hasbro Creators Showcase celebrating some of our favorite women in the Hasbro universe.
It’s clear that the panelists are all looking forward to this as-yet unnamed Transformers reboot (Transformers 2019? Pre-War Continuity? Come to think of it, what the heck are we calling the continuity that just wrapped up?), while at the same time they acknowledge that IDW’s last Transformers run provided a lot of good ideas that may make their way into the new series. David Mariott in particular talked about how much he loved bringing in characters from every iteration of Transformers into IDW, and he’s really hoping he can do more of that in this new series. But he can neither confirm nor deny that the Quintessons are going to make an appearance. This time.
