IDW to Lose the Transformers License?

[Superomegaprime]

Well, Image did have GI Joe at one point, so its not totally out of their wheelhouse.

If IDW is losing TF and Joe, I hope they can get most of their stories resolved first. At least to a satisfying stopping point.

Its a case of wait and see, besides, there has been nothing offical from Hasbro or IDW, YET, thou I get the feeling that Image isn't where the licenses are going to land as Image office staff have attempted to form a Union so that they can control what the company puts out, that is not a good sign if you ask me.

 

[MrBlud]

How is a Union not a good sign???

 

[Superomegaprime]

How is a Union not a good sign???

Given that this attempt of forming a union is made up of people whose job isn't creating the products and one of thier items on their list of demands is to pretty much veto anyone they deem promatic and pretty much take control of the company away from the people who are meant to be running it (AKA the managers), from what I gather, kickstarter had a similar thing happen and as a result, their profits and projects, nose dived as a result because they weren't intersted in the company's best intersts, just their own and would prevent projects from happening, based primary on how they voted in the last election, not the content of their work as its really meant to be down to the people wanting to back the project or not to decide if the project is worth backing when it comes to comics, when the vrius stuck, Kickstarter used that as a excuse to lay a bunch of people off, primary the union people! I'm not saying a Union is a bad thing but when the demands include pretty much trying to prevent the company from making profits, then they become a problem!

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

...New rumor (again). Bleeding Cool says Image might be the ones to get the Transformers license.

Image Comics, The New Publishers Of Transformers And GI Joe?

Last week, spinning out of San Diego Comic-Con, Bleeding Cool reported that Hasbro was pulling both their Transformers and GI Joe licenses from IDW in

bleedingcool.com

Feels like a odder choice, if true. Image is mostly creator-owned stuff. Not a lot of licensed stuff.

They have put out some of my favorite books, though (Die, Un-Sacred, Chew, Crossover, Curse Words, Descender/Ascender, Invincible, God County, I Hate Fairyland, Monstress, Prophet, Saga, Stray Dogs, etc).

So...they have the talent, but it depends on who they actually get to do the books, I guess. I'm less inclined to believe this one, personally, but stranger things have happened. (But not the Stranger Things comic, that's Dark Horse ).

Oh boy, I can't wait for Ironhide to get half his face blown off before dressing up as Megatron and leading the Decepticons in his absence.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Me, I'm looking forward to the inevitable romance between Bumblebee and She-Spawn.

Spoiler

We're referencing the Image Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles run. Which IDW actually republished and gave a new ending to as Urban Legends. It's a ride, folks.

 

[Maruten]

For many years now Image has been publishing many of the best books on the shelves, so I have no doubt they could do great work with Transformers and Joe. It is a weirder fit than Boom or Dark Horse or even Marvel really. But it would be good news.

 

[LiamA]

Transformers: Walking Dead

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

Didn't Image do GI Joe before, through Devil's Due or something?

Before that, it was Dark Horse who gave us GI Joe EXTREME.

Spoiler

EXTREEEEEEEME!!!

 

[Undead Scottsman]

IDW2 is only a couple years old so I'd prefer not rebooting already. Also I don't even know what you would do with a new series. It'd obvious be G1 focused (I'm not going to kid myself) but I feel like IDW2 was a decent compromise in starting with the beginning of the war instead of starting right before they hit earth, and not being shy about incorporating elements from all across the franchise.

I feel like if a new set of hands gets ahold of the property, they're going to go right back to G1 toon redux.

 

[Superomegaprime]

IDW2 is only a couple years old so I'd prefer not rebooting already. Also I don't even know what you would do with a new series. It'd obvious be G1 focused (I'm not going to kid myself) but I feel like IDW2 was a decent compromise in starting with the beginning of the war instead of starting right before they hit earth, and not being shy about incorporating elements from all across the franchise.

I feel like if a new set of hands gets ahold of the property, they're going to go right back to G1 toon redux.

They could start just as the two sides awaken after the Ark crashes on Earth or prehaps have the Ark & the Nemesis locked in battle above Earth but instead of four million years ago, present day and the two ships cripple each other and loose oribit and earth's weapons are powerless to prevent the crash landings of the ships as they are made of to quote Primal "Diecast construction" AKA the lost art and then deal with the very public arrival of two alien ships burning through the atmosphere and flying/falling across major cities and the groverments unable to cover up their arrival when lots of people have smart phones and take pictures of this arrival and then go from there because we haven't really had anything so serious in terms of the two factions arrival to Earth, most takes have been more of covert/off the grid type arrival, so start with a major arrival and have the cons not giving a dam about the humans and going about their business, to collect energon, it could be a sort of spirtual follow up to IDW2, where they barely reference events in the comic and focus more on current events, until they bring in certain Time machine transformer!

 

[Platypus Prime]

You mean where Mr. Peabody and Sherman re-engineer Mainframe into the wall-like Wayback machine from the old cartoon? That would be awesome, and an excellent reuse of the Ark/Telletraan design for him.

...unless you were talking about something else, in which case, never mind.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Robert Kirkman’s Skybound in Talks to Acquire G.I. Joe, Transformers Publishing License (Exclusive)

IDW had been publishing comics based on the Hasbro toys since the mid-2000s.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[MrBlud]

I’m very confused by

Kirkman, who is known to be a major fan of the toy brands and is said to have personally gotten involved in chasing the rights

being followed up with

is not expected to write any of the new comics.

Why be so hands on to then be hands off?

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

They could start just as the two sides awaken after the Ark crashes on Earth or prehaps have the Ark & the Nemesis locked in battle above Earth but instead of four million years ago, present day and the two ships cripple each other and loose oribit and earth's weapons are powerless to prevent the crash landings of the ships as they are made of to quote Primal "Diecast construction" AKA the lost art and then deal with the very public arrival of two alien ships burning through the atmosphere and flying/falling across major cities and the groverments unable to cover up their arrival when lots of people have smart phones and take pictures of this arrival and then go from there because we haven't really had anything so serious in terms of the two factions arrival to Earth, most takes have been more of covert/off the grid type arrival, so start with a major arrival and have the cons not giving a dam about the humans and going about their business, to collect energon, it could be a sort of spirtual follow up to IDW2, where they barely reference events in the comic and focus more on current events, until they bring in certain Time machine transformer!

 

[CrockAlley]

I don't take "he's a huge fan" as an automatic positive.

 

[Glitch]

I'd have believed him if he phrased it as "ginormous."

 

[ZakuConvoy]

I’m very confused by

Kirkman, who is known to be a major fan of the toy brands and is said to have personally gotten involved in chasing the rights

being followed up with

is not expected to write any of the new comics.

Why be so hands on to then be hands off?

I get the feeling that it's kind of like Steven Spielberg being credited on Tiny Toons and Animaniacs. He's kind of overseeing things, he enjoys these type of things and wants to see more of them around, and he's willing to lend his name to the project to give it a bit of clout...but he doesn't really want to be involved in the minutia of doing the work all by himself. And this is the same guy who created Super Dinosaur, he definitely has some love for old-school toyetic properties.

Again, it's going to come down to who they actually get on the book...but they could do worse. The Trover and Summoner's War books have been pretty good, and some really nice art to boot, fitting to each property. I didn't really think of those being licensed books, I guess, but if they put the same care into the Transformers book, we might be pretty solid.

 

[Exatron]

I've been taking the time to finally catalog all the TF comics I already owned digitally between Humble Bundles and Comixology. I also finally started looking into the non-TF portion of the Hasbro Universe while I was at it, and discovered a few things. Got me jumping down more and more rabbit holes and wondering what else I might be missing. With that in mind, I was hoping to ask a few questions:

• I wasn't able to find the Action Man, MASK, and Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook series on Comixology. I also can't find them on IDW's page. I take it these series must have been pulled down some time ago, and are now effectively lost for buying digitally?
• The wiki says that the digital version of Transformers Classics Vol. 1 omitted issues 3 and 9 due to Spider-Man and Circuit Breaker. I just checked, and the backup copy I downloaded from Comixology has both of those issues. I'm guessing the rights issue just got cleaned up at some point after that page was written. Any other issues along those lines though that would be worth checking?
• I know there are six additional stories tied into LSotW that appear in various publications. I also know that there's a Director's Cut version of Spotlight: Drift in one of the trades, though I'm not clear if there are any differences in the actual story itself. Are there any similar cases where it's worth noting what specific version of a story I have? I know various things are fixed here and there in trades in general, but I mean larger changes to the actual content that's included.
• I'd seen before that Josh Burcham went and illustrated a deleted scene from MTMTE #22, but was delighted when I just rediscovered it. Any other cool tidbits like that that aren't part of the official publications that would be worth looking into?
• I knew that Scarlett's Strike Force had been canceled early, but hadn't been aware of the issue #4 script and the outline of the rest of the series being released by Sitterson. The wiki describes their contents, but I don't see any links to the actual documents themselves. Is there somewhere to go read this material?
• I just found out about ROM: Dire Wraiths coming out last year. That's the only additional 2005-universe content that's come out since it wrapped up in 2018, right?
• Any other oddities like these that would be worth looking into now before they could potentially be lost?

 

[LordGigaIce]

I’m very confused by



being followed up with



Why be so hands on to then be hands off?

That's what Ted Turner did with WCW.
I know, that's a weird comparison. I just bring it up to say it's not an unusual practice in the world of business.

 

[Echowarrior]

...this speaks for me so very well.

Anyway, I hope that we get some clarification and an end to these rumors soon, one way or another.