IDW Publishing 2016
Written by John Barber
Illustrated by Fico Ossio
Coloured by Sebastian Cheng
Lettered by Tom B. Long
Explosions rip across the Earth—and all signs of blame point to OPTIMUS PRIME and the TRANSFORMERS! G.I. JOE refuses to go quietly—and they assemble heroes big enough to stop the invaders! ACTION MAN and M.A.S.K. fight for humanity—but where do ROM and the MICRONAUTS stand?
If you’ve been a fan of IDW then you’ve seen that they have more than a couple of Hasbro licensed titles in their line-up. For the first time they are going to do a company (Hasbro) wide crossover and the result will be that all Hasbro titles will then become part of a shared universe. Now I don’t know if G.I. Joe A Real American Hero will be part of that or left alone (preferably) but I’ve seen the Joe’s mentioned in Action Man and appear in Rom already so the Revolutions begun on a small scale.
Gosh Fico and Sebastian’s interiors here are amazing! The linework is incredibly tight and detailed and the backgrounds are amazing to see, so filled! I like the way this looks and wished more comics had this level of exceptionalism to them. It doesn’t matter what they are drawing either from the Transformers to the Joe’s it all has this dynamic look to it and i’m thrilled by how good it is.
The Joe’s, namely General Joe Colton (who the Joe’s are named after) and Scarlett are at a monitor going over the events that tie all the titles into this series. The main focus is on the Transformers as they are the catalyst to unite Earth’s forces against them since Optimus Prime has pretty much established himself as Earth’s ruler, though under the guise of guidance and friendship. He wants Earth to enter the cosmic alliance of planets which will undoubtedly bring unwanted attention to the planet.
If this is any indication of how well the stories are going to be told we’re all about to get schooled on how to unite a line into a cohesive universe. John’s storytelling and updating the situation and setting the stage here is exceptional.
Comixology has this issue for FREE right now so if you can’t find it in your local shoppe it is available online. Get this because if it lives up to it’s potential this is going to rewrite how company crossovers are done.