This week’s Void Rivals #1 featured a huge piece of news: Skybound has picked up the license to publish comics featuring Hasbro’s Transformers and G.I. Joe properties. The reveal, which happens two-thirds of the way through the debut issue of the new series from Robert Kirkman, Lorenzo De Felici, Matheus Lopes, and Rus Wooton, came in the form of the surprise appearance of a Transformer, the Autobot Jetfire, on the alien planet where the book’s two protagonists are stranded.
Jetfire’s appearance lasts five of Void Rivals #1’s 26 pages, and is an exciting, if somewhat out-of-the-blue, intro to the Transformers’ time at Skybound. It got us thinking about how the publisher might continue this rollout [pun 100% intended], with Transformers popping up for minor scenes in other Skybound titles. After all, what comic wouldn’t be made better by the presence of a shape-shifting robot in disguise?
Here, then, are five other Skybound titles where the Transformers should appear next.
1. Fire Power
With Robert Kirkman bringing the Transformers to Skybound in Void Rivals, it would make sense for him to continue the introduction of the Autobots and Decepticons to the publisher in another book he’s already writing, Fire Power. The Kirkman, Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson, and Wooton series, which follows fire-wielding martial arts expert Owen Johnson and his family as they’re dragged back into the conflicts of Owen’s past, has already seen Owen fight an ancient dragon. Why couldn’t he also meet a kung-fu-fighting Transformer? Perhaps Yoketron, master of the Cybertonian martial art Tekkaido, comes to Owen on behalf of the Cyber-Ninja Corp to ask for human aid against the Decepticons.
2. Dark Ride
Writer Joshua Williamson has also been announced as a writer in the Energon Universe, working on at least two miniseries detailing the origins of G.I. Joe and Cobra. Williamson’s current Skybound series, Dark Ride with Andrei Bressan, Adriano Lucas, and Pat Brosseau, is a horror comic about a twisted amusement park filled with terrifying rides. What if one of those rides just happened to be a robot in disguise? There’s already one rail-riding Transformer out there, the Decepticon called Astrotrain, leader of the Astroforce, a group of drones built from human trains. Maybe Astrotrain also recruited a roller coaster for the team – a coaster that happens to be a resident of Devil Land.
3. Everyday Hero Machine Boy
If the team at Skybound is smart, they won’t limit their Transformers content to just single-issue comics. Everyday Hero Machine Boy is a middle-grade graphic novel from Skybound’s Comet imprint. Co-created by writer/artist Tri Vuong and writer/colorist Irma Kniivila, and lettered by Aditya Bidikar, the book follows a young robot stranded on a strange planet as he tries to fit in and become the hero he’s always wanted to be. This was a self-contained book, but what better character to have meet a Transformer or two in a future installment? A team-up between Machine Boy and, say, Bumblebee could be a really fun introduction for young readers to the world of the Transformers.
4. Radiant Black
Okay, so Radiant Black, the flagship title of writer Kyle Higgins’s Massive-Verse of shared universe Image superhero comics, isn’t technically a Skybound title. But it is published by Image Comics, so it’s at least kind of in the family? Whatever, shut up, how cool would it be to see these characters team up with Optimus Prime or fight Starscream? Series artists Marcolo Costa and Igor Monti would absolutely hit that out of the park. Radiant Black and the other Radiants already have space shenanigans, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they might run into a Transformer at some point.
5. The Walking Dead
Two words: zombie Transformer.
Robert Kirkman loves surprises. He’s said in a recent interview with The Beat that part of what inspired his approach to character deaths in The Walking Dead is the death of Optimus Prime in the original Transformers: The Movie. What bigger surprise would there be than to add a robot in disguise to a series that’s been over and done with for more than four years? Skybound is still releasing issues of The Walking Dead in new, full-color versions for the first time. Why not sneak a Transformer into the background of one of those issues, as a treat? Colorist Dave McCaig could even just give an existing object the color scheme of a Transformer. Maybe a boom box is secretly Blaster, or a tank is Brawl. The possibilities are endless.
Which Skybound comics would you like to see a Transformers character pop up in? Sound off in the comments!
(Editor’s Note: an earlier version of this article incorrectly suggested that a boom box could secretly be Soundwave, not Blaster. Soundwave is a walkman. The Beat sincerely apologies for this error.)
