In my opinion the Hasbro Cinematic Universe needs to take inspiration from the Energon Universe.

Skywarp becoming a MENCACE is amazing and I'm all for it.

Jetfire in Void Rivals #1: I must go. My planet needs me. Jetfire died on the way back to his home planet

Ironically love how Bumblebee is killed off instead of Cliffjumper. Like, I'm so tired of them killing Cliffjumper like it's the status quo. Now the script is flipped and we get to see more cool Cliffjumper moments. Which I am loving btw seeing how they show his dynamic with Carly.

man all these books will be great in an omnibus

Glad to see your doing great Doc!

Im not much of a comic guy except the old Bionicle, but i might take interest in this

I actually want to talk about the GiJoe comics thus far, because my interest in GiJoe has always been passive. I'm not interested in normal action figures, so the toy line has never appealed to me, and as far as narrative goes, GiJoe usually presents itself as bargain bin Reagan era military propaganda, So it's never intrigued me. That was however until I learned a kinda lesser talked about piece of GiJoe lore, that being that Cobra is not simply a terrorist organization, but the front for an actual race of subterranean snake people. That was when i actually got a little frustrated, because GiJoe really should be leading with that, seeing as its infinitely more interesting of a pitch then, "army fights terrorists" So when I picked up the Cobra Commander comic to flip through it and saw it straight up opens with the Commander's backstory as scientist in the serpent society, I was already hooked. But what really sold me on the GiJoe stuff was when the Duke comic did what I've always wanted Transformers media to do, which is actually tell a story about the Military learning about the existence of transformers. the movies kinda do this, but its so jingoistic and over the top, it stops being interesting. The Duke comic being an espionage thriller about a star soldier going rouge after witnessing a decepticon kill his men, and watching the government cover it up is exactly the sort of thing I've wanted to see for ages. For one having Duke be on the run trying to learn the truth his country is hiding from him, removes a lot of the uncritical military worship GiJoe tends to get grouped into, and for another it makes Duke an easily relatable protagonist, by starting him off as an underdog character. A ground level story of how the government scrambling to hide the existence of aliens in the transformers universe is already cool enough, but through the lens of GiJoe it makes something I never had interest in before feel way more important. And having Cobra Commander's ambitions be set into motion by Finding Megatron's body and realizing his advanced snake society is nothing in comparison to a vast alien empire, makes Cobra as a group feel way more threatening. A shadowy terrorist group formed by a mythical non-human society, learning of a vast alien power and trying to harness it to further their own ends, unaware that power is staring back at them and grinning manically is an instantly hooking story idea. So now I'm reading GiJoe comics with as much interest as a transformers comic, something I could not have said before Skybound.

26:36 W take and I’m glad more people are realizing it. Great overall assessment. I have to catch up on void rivals and GI Joe cuz I do hear people talking about it. Drawing a hard line with good vs evil is very important and I think they’ve done it here well.

25:06 YOOOOO THATS ME!

thanks for this vid i don’t have access to the comics

I loved IDW2 myself and lament its end. Glad Skybound seems good though, and I look forward to buying and reading the volumes as they release as I did IDW2.

these comics were some of my favorite parts of last year for me personallly void rivals stands out on its own and i love these characters, the transformers stuff is great but the GI joe stuff i was also nervous about but i fell in love for the first time in this franchise hell it even got a couple of friends into the energon universe cant wait for the future

I have worked in a comic store in a small town for about 3 years now and have been into the hobby for 5. Void Rivals was not heavily advertised in the store surprisingly. When the comics came out I didn't notice it was a Kirkman title and thought nothing of it. When Transformers number 1 dropped that cover instantly grabbed my attention as a casual Michael bay movie fan. At the time I was only collecting Star Wars and this is the title that made me finally branch out. I was lucky we still had Void Rivals 1-4 first prints in stock after realizing it's all part of the Energon Universe. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like the EU titles were a great way of introducing new readers like myself to the IPs. As someone who was never into GI Joe, because of the EU I am now a fan and look forward to every issue of Void Rivals, Transformers, Duke, Cobra Commander, Scarlett, Destro and any others to come. Well done Skybound 👏

very interesting on transformers issue 1, soon as starscream killed bumblebee i thought to myself they are probably doing this to signify they are changing things up like, "hey you know bumblebee? i bet you've had enough of him right? well he's dead now in the first goddamn episode", looks like i was right lol. one thing that pissed me off though was killing both thundercracker and skywarp, thundercracker dying in the first comic and skywarp a few issues later. like, i just got fresh off the netflix show where they just killed off skywarp in the second ep or something and it's like damn man. both characters are on screen almost any time decepticons are in the G1 cartoon, they are main decepticons, at least kill them off more dramatically and later on right? to see another transformers media just kill BOTH of them off after the netflix show kills skywarp like a bitch is just too painful. killing bumble bee makes a statement, cause he's gotten so much goddamn screen time lately in everything and has become the default main character, killing off thundercracker and skywarp is just shitting on people's favs, they never get worshiped like bumblebee they are for the most part, side characters that need more love if anything. not to mention since this new series is redoing an old trope in a different way, aka starscream becoming leader for a while (except this time right at the very start) they had an opportunity to explore starscreams relationship with his top two seekers more, they are always seen as a trio, but instead they just got wasted, shame.

Sweet that's how I keep my issues (except in worst bags)

This has easily become one of if not my favorite Transformers comic runs of all time. I've never read any comic books in my life so this was a first for me. I was introduced to this through the youtuber Comicstorian who I know for his dramatic readings of Injustice, Earth one, and World War Hulk. I knew the storyline was gonna be different, when I saw the first few lines of the comic run, but I wasn't expecting the Blood and Guts when Screamer crushed Davy, and I wasn't expecting Bee to be killed off THAT early, not that I had a problem with it, it did happen in ROTB. But when I finished that story, I was like *_WHAT IN ALL OF FUCKING PRIMUS... DID I JUST WALK INTO?!?!_* And I hate to say it, as much as I love Rise of the Beasts, this story OUTSHINES that movie by a long shot. And this story just keeps ramping up. I was told by many friends not to sleep on this and I didn't think much of it until I saw the video from Comicstorian. Now, being the big Zack Snyder and Transformers fan I am, I could easily see this storyline be adapted into a potential Transformers Snyderverse at one point, because this right here is some Frank Miller/Invincible shit too. I can easily see this being directed by Snyder with Daniel Warren Johnson at the writing helm. A true love letter to Transformers fans JUST LIKE ZSJL, KING OF THE MONSTERS, AND FNAF. If you put the love and care into the source material without damaging it, you bring the fans something remarkable like this masterpiece here. FANS AND THE SOURCE MATERIAL ALWAYS COME FIRST!

It's good to remember that Duke and Cobra Commander are mini series while Void Rivals and Transformers are ongoing (despite a few months gap between each arch). They've said that the Energon Universe is gonna consist of up to 4 titles at a time. Once Duke and Cobra Commander are done, we'll likely see it move to an ongoing G.I. Joe title with alternating mini series for Transformers and Joe. I'm enjoying the way they're introducing the Joes, even if I'm not a fan.

At first i was opposed to the skybound take because well it was G1 again but once it came out i quickly grew to love it! And reading them only made me love it more!

3:00 Actually these comics did release before War Within so War Within is a prequel to their Generation 1 universe And the Generation 1 story got better as it went on

I really like and respect how they're handling this new story. But I do have a personal complaint, with all this emphasis on the differences between Autobots and Decepticons really makes the Decepticons but Starscream in particular seem like an irredeemable monster. I understand that some previous incarnations of Starscream act in ways similar to this, but I have a hard time accepting and enjoying Starscreams that aren't at least humanized and understandable in their choices, best case scenario is if they go in a similar direction to Armada or Earthspark

Dear Mr Lock: I beg of you, please review Dreamwave Transformers. This series hasn’t gotten enough light in modern fandom. I’d love to see a diagnose insanity of it. It’s so dark and strange.

this video existing made me go and read the TF comic, now I can watch it and wanna read the new Void Rivals comics

I hope the trade paperbacks are good when they come out tbh I wanna get more into the GI Joe side of things while keeping up with the TF side.

Please keep talking about the energon universe 🙏

got tapes for Soundwave, MP class, also got a old school soundwave coming but gonna get the MP version next Thursday for the cassettes. Got G1 Jetfire/Veritec Macross and a new Veritec. Their practically the same, just the new one is slightly taller.

I like both takes on the Headmasters but character-driven stories like these comics I think better befit the symbiosis angle

Skybound looks like a decent successor to idw, and has the potential to surpass it. Sorry to hear about what happened to you recently on twitter, nobody deserves that level of harassment.

I like that energon universe escape many of the pitfalls that idw face with introducing other properties right out the gate

If you're a comic book fan on any level, & NOT reading these stories, you're doing yourself a huge disservice. This world is a perfect example of why we read, & love reading comics in the 1st place 😬

Man didn't expect the amalee call out towards the end

Skybound has definitely made my favorite Optimus of all time. The blends of the different interpretations of Prime all works so well together under Warren

I really think that Jetfire from Void Rival #1 didn't go to Earth right away. With Transformers living for thousand of years, I am pretty sure at least several years of Earth time pass and if they are going on the Void Rival planet, it would not be at the same time as the serie show on its own timeline but in their future.

I am pretty the guy you said you you look forward to see more of died, It was subtle but when he was backing away from the judge that floating machine kinda ate him or that's what I think happened

I literally got chills and had a nerdgasim😆when i turned the page and Optimus had Megatrons arm and cannon attached to the shoulder of the ripped off arm🤯🥴😁

You really deserve more subs

I never got into either of the IDW runs, so getting to follow a new series from the start has been a lot of fun.

Hope you'll have a good day

I'm really dreading all the GI joe references they're dropping and the fact that IP is coming in, because I can't make myself care about GI joe.

I’m pretty sure I read Starscream slowly descending into Magnus on AO3 once

Void Rivals is not experimental! It is a story that has been done many times before. However, Void Rivals does have some fun with the material, as well as it does some interesting things with it! P.S. I work in a comic book store, We can't keep any of the Energon Universe on our shelves!! It goes sooooo fast!!

Yeah, the deer scene may come across to some as shock value and it inevitably has some of it, but it REALLY understands what Optimus should be, so it's a huge win in my book. Hasbro needs to let go of GI Joe or HEAVILY reinvent it, with all the war in the world right now, most people don't want to follow realistic soldiers no matter how good and honorable they are (will feel as propaganda) or being more grey (everyone will see it as cynicism) so I don't believe the Joes as they have always been have a place in the modern climate. My only issue with the comics is not the art itself but the _designs_ as I feel the nearly Sunbow style character designs clash way too much with the grittier tone of the story, I'm ok with the G1 cast, but I wish they got updated designs kind of how IDW made them look different while still being easy to tell who each character was.

Ngl this video made me very interested in actually reading them myself. I just started with Void Rivals and I like it so far.

2:57 Yeah, as someone who likes both comics and manga. Western comic fans I talk to always have the funniest reactions when I tell them my very first comic was Spider-Man: Sins Past

Hey, just wondering, what tailgate was that? 1:01 thank you!

Pushing 50 and being around since the beginning, I surprisingly had a similar take, especially with Prime. They seem to have taken the best aspects of what makes Optimus worthy of being a Prime. This is something I feel has gotten lost or actually never fully achieved.i personally feel that this iteration of Optimus may become the definitive version. No matter which Prime you look at, they all seem to be missing something. I would say Primes version may have come the closest, but he was missing the battle fatigue. I have real hope that they may just flesh out Prime, the good, the bad, and hopefully... the ugly. Give me a Prime that walks that fine line. That would be just Prime.

I will still never forgive skybound for there twd clementine comics/books

19:39 i love this show

Furthermore!! Void Rivals is actually a really good book, once you get past issue 3!

welp, I'll probs give it a try once the comic run has eitheir ended or is like 200 issues deep. since that'show I generally tend to consume serialized media.

I don't want this to seem nitpicky but at 29:35 he is correct in saying Starscream squished a guy in issue #1. At the very end of the issue Starscream picks up a dude (I think it was Carlie's dad) and squishes him to death after coming to the power plant.

When it comes to Transformers and "Edge" VS "Grit", I like to joke around with friends by going like "Well done, Autobots we stopped the Decepticons with only 50 humans killed in the crossfire..." but when they actually do stuff like that it gets kinda eff'd up because the scale between a human and a Cybertronian is like 10× that normal destruction and stuff. It's messed up to think about especially with characters like Optimus who wants to defend the life and rights of all sentient organisms. Juxtapose to when Cybertronians die in a story, they're robots they can be rebuilt reformatted etc. Ultimately Transformers plot is somewhat of a war story so im not shocked when one of the bots dies thats something that happens and it can be done in like Cynical and Non-Cynical ways all comes down to depiction

29:35 Starscream actually did squish a guy in issue 1.

1:40 Well technically I agree with you about Robert Kirkman since it's true he was the creator of Invincible and The Walking Dead whether in comics or in series because these two licenses have been famous since years But we must not forget that Kirkman had also created other comics like Marvel Zombies since this comic was as popular as he had announced about to make an animated series inspired by the comic or that of the What if series in 2024 reason well before that Robert Kirkman was part of Marvel before he left even if I don't know the reason

My honest bad take, I'm just going to wait till the end. This doesn't really interest me, not a big buyer of comics. If it actually concludes well I might buy the trade. Not really a fan of comics that go on forever. If this has a set endpoint, then I'll buy. P.s. This definitely seems like a story that would have fit well if released with Earthrise.

Optimus Prime was handled really well

Starscream being the universe's strongest racist is great

So far I've been finding Void Rivals a nice ready but dunno how invested I am. Does look superb though and there's some good mysteries in there I wanna see play out. transformers though, loving that. Optimus Prime is so spot on in that comic and shit heel Starscream is a joy to watch be a total dickhole. Read issue one of Cobra Commander and I believe it's just a 4 issue thing so I guess I'll ready it all. Seems to be aiming for the GI Joe is fully of wacky stuff style I like, even if it is very grim. Duek... ehhhh I might.

G.I.Joe ist only a American thing tbh. Next to none of the original shows and what not were even broadcasted in Europe or Asia, or heck, the toys were barely brought over as well, which led to, for example, the first G.I.Joe Live action movie getting actively promoted as a Transformers spinn-off in Germany. Hence why I see so many people think it is a bad idea to completely fuse TF with GIJ because, internationally, the later has no way to actually make a fanbase for itself or rely on nostalgia. Series like Void Rivals, Rom Spaceknight or Micronauts can work in combination with TF because their mechanical nature blends in better with them, so it isn't as jarring to see them side by side, but G.I.Joe characters stick out insanely hard outside of the US because of the show basically being non-existent outside of the US, and the broader audience not being aware of their relationship to each other.

IDW1 was a hot mess. Furman nailed the opening trilogy of miniseries, MTMTE and RID 2012 were great, almost everything Mairghread Scott wrote was solid, I’ve got a soft spot for the ROM/Transformers crossover, and the Wreckers trilogy ranged from “good but a bit tryhard” to “Sins of the Wreckers is legitimately fantastic”. Everything else was either Furman being horrible to Arcee, Shane McCarthy undercutting everything Furman did, Mike Costa being painfully average (he deserves credit for starting Thundercracker’s screenwriter arc, tho), the Visionaries crossover being big yikes, Lost Light being James Roberts going full bad fanfic in regards to the plot progression, and Optimus Prime being 25 issues of Optimus being crapped on because of his ancestry. IDW2, while a bit glacial, was a lot more consistent with quality due to the bulk of its content being from one Brian Ruckley. Great miniseries (Galaxies had banger after banger arc and I wish it was an ongoing thing, Escape used Dai Atlas and Straxus cleverly, Wreckers Tread and Circuits finally gave the Wreckers a new batch of nobodies as their membership and was a fun little adventure, and War’s End deserves credit for giving us more focus on Exarchon), fascinating worldbuilding, a better descent into evil for Megatron, and the single best Optimus Prime moment in the franchise’s history (issue 25). Also it gave us chaotic short queen Flamewar and I think that decision alone deserves praise. But Skybound? If Skybound’s Transformers is as good as those first four issues, I’m getting every trade. This is the back to basics take the franchise needed after six years of post-war comics and three years of pre-war comics that struggled to find their footing. The characters feel like themselves (Optimus is the best he’s been since Animated and I can HEAR Peter Cullen) and the art is fantastic. No mucking about with moral greys, no “misunderstood” bad guys, no “morally ambiguous” good guys- just Autobots waging their battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons, translated for this modern age. You needn’t worry about Skybound going full G1, Doc. Robert Kirkman loves Bulkhead and wants to slot him into the Energon Universe at some point, so it’s not going to be “hehehehe GEEWUN go brrrr” the whole time.

24:44 because the trans community was so peaceful when hogwarts legacy releases.

What's the background music used during the Conclusion

Hey, man. I saw you were getting hate on Twitter for something. I hope you're doing alright.

What’s going on with the GI Joe book?

I didn’t really enjoy the main story of IDW 2.0, but Transformers Galaxies was great, especially the first arc focusing on the Constructicons. The second arc focusing on the race of Bumblebee worshipers mistaking Cliffjumper for him since they’re colourblind was really funny as a metaphor for reality, and then the last one with Ultra Magnus and Soundblaster unfortunately lost me. Anyone know how the Wreckers run went? All I heard about it was that the opening was composed(?) to the tune of “Tank!” Edit: maybe they don’t do the comics anymore since they have to package them in countries that speak multiple languages. For example in Canada they didn’t include comics because everything here has to be bilingual (and you don’t want to pack an English and French comic with every figure). Maybe it has something to do with that brand synergy thing between Hasbro and Takara? Or maybe it was just another cost cutting measure since Transformers fans already complain about prices as it is (including me lol)

Part of what made me fall off from reading idw was a lot of what happened post the Dark Cybertron event. The whole all hail optimus, the way they tackled autobot megatron, combiner wars event, and titan's return event just were not handled the best in my honest opinion. This combined just felt like an overall decline in quality, so I just stopped reading their comics. This not to mention how hasbro forced idw to include their other brands in & how certain comics treated existing chatacters (cough mtmte's depictions of a number of g1 japan characters). Even with the full brand reboot, idw had burned me & to a certain extent the whole tf brand itself.

Just leave transformers in there own universe and leave it at that gosh not everything has to be gi joe leave them out of the rise of the beast sequel

29:35 no starscream does squish a human in issue 1, the image ur using is him splatting the human in issue 2, 2 different events

A shame that this is the only fiction that’s currently ongoing as of now. It’ll likely take time, for sure. Transformers One is coming this year, but I’m not sure where Earthspark is going from here, if it continues at all. Transformers media has been all over the place as of recently, and not even the good media for the most part has reached mainstream for the right reasons. I’m hoping things will change soon.

Hoping to see star saber in void rivals

I love this universe so much But I still hate that we have to read the g I joe stuff

35:20 I DON"T KNOW! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Loved the usage of the “f**ing pronouns” guy 😂 that was hilarious when it first happened

bee getting killed in the very first book was what threw me off the whole boat coz hes my fav bot thay could of just oh idk just not have added him would of been better then to just right up kill him off right in front of us god i wanna see starscream just get unterly killed for the shit hes done in these comic

1 panel from Skybound with Optimus taking Megs arm was more iconic than anything idw1/2 did since their start. Also idw was just boring.

10th Comment!!!

Kill a character to show the seriousness of the story bad doing to to be different 👍

It was high time somebody else took the reigns for transformers comics considering IDW sucks

It was the wokeness. Rc is transgender gay transformers pronouns etc etc. Don't kid yourself G1 original fans like me don't want it. Whatever excuses you are making is just coping 👌

As an American I honestly couldn’t care less about G.I. Joe. They honestly should stop forcing it. It’s going to die eventually. They should accept its inevitable fate.

Wokeness kills

P.S. This dudes breakdown is sooooo off, its not even funny!

Nah, sorry, I have no faith that Kirkman will ultimately let this become anything more than gore-p*rn shock-value drivel like everything else he does. Will continue to avoid the Skybound era for however long it lasts.