Back in April, we wrote about a online petition driven by fans who wanted to see IDW pick up the old Marvel Transformers comic book where it left off with issue #80 in 1991, in the same fashion as the publisher’s current GI Joe: A Real American Hero series. At that point, it was a possibility, but as of last week’s “IDW and Hasbro: 2012 Transformations” panel at Comic-Con International: San Diego, it’s official.
They’re actually starting with an issue #80.5, designed to catch up new readers or old-school fans who may have forgotten a few details in the interim two decades. In 2012 (undetermined as to exactly when, but said to likely be first half), will be #81, which will run until the story wraps in #100. The creative team will be writer Simon Furman and artist Andrew Wildman, the same crew on the book at the end of the Marvel series. The petition currently has 2,779 signatures, more than twice the number it was at in April.
“This has felt like unfinished business since 1991, when Marvel canceled their Transformers series with issue #80,” Furman told Newsarama. “In the aftermath of the cataclysmic battle against Unicron in issue #75, we (myself, Andrew Wildman and the editor at the time, Rob Tokar) seeded numerous storylines that would — optimistically as it turned out — play out over the next ten or more issues. Then, suddenly, it was like you have two issues to wrap everything up into a neat bow. Wasn’t going to happen. Sure, we gave the Autobots their ‘happy ending,’ but there was just so much left dangling, so much we wanted to explore in terms of story and character. Even that last issue hinted that the story wasn’t over, and that the Decepticon threat was far from over. And now, finally, thanks to IDW, we get to tell those stories — and then some!”
Furman said that though the book will “maintain the spirit of that bygone era,” it’ll be aimed at both new and old Transformers fans. We’ll have more information on the series as it becomes available.
July 29th, 2011 at 2:43 pm
Thats what I am talking about!!!
July 29th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
Awesome!!! I can’t wait!
July 29th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
I collected the original comic, alongside the toys, as a kid but I haven’t remained with the franchise beyond buying the DVDs of the Michael Bay movies. I’m happy for all the true believers though. Enjoy.
July 29th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I had no idea that this was even being considered, so this is 100% “pleasant surprise” for me! ATTENTION IDW: I can not WAIT to give you my money for this!!!
July 29th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
This is great! Best news of SDCC hands down.
July 29th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Definitely!
July 29th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Welcome back, Autobots. I salute you!
-Bludgeon [2012]
July 29th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
The only thing that sucks about this is gonna be the $3.99 cover price..Other than that..WIN!
July 30th, 2011 at 12:51 am
This could either be really cool or a total mess, but I really did love the Furman/Wildman run on the orginal series.
July 30th, 2011 at 1:50 am
So what’s gonna happen to the ongoing series?
July 30th, 2011 at 5:14 am
I never believed it would be confirmed this soon, but wow, #81 in 2012!
Thefanboyseo – IDW are actually growing the Transformerd ongoing universe with TWO ongoings – ‘Robots in Disguise’ and ‘More than meets the eye’.
Luke
July 30th, 2011 at 6:00 am
… so, does this mean it’ll end before Generation 2 starts? …
July 30th, 2011 at 6:30 am
So excited!
July 30th, 2011 at 10:44 am
Enough with the .5 issues already! Why not have a Transformers Specisl #1 instead?
July 30th, 2011 at 10:45 am
Make that Special! (This is for the trolls ready to jump on spelling mistakes…)
July 30th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
I hope they can talk Geoff Senior into doing an issue or two.
July 31st, 2011 at 2:49 am
Damn 2012
Why the wait ….
July 31st, 2011 at 9:52 am
WOOOOHOOOOOO! Really excited by this, if it does well then maybe we’ll finally see a conclusion to Dreamwaves War Within: The Age of Wrath, as well as some their other abruptly ended material, at least The Transformers/G.I.Joe Dreamwave started and possibly a continuation of Furman’s take on Energon, I really liked where he was going in that series, still hopeful to see some of these plot threads tied up!
July 31st, 2011 at 2:09 pm
nice to finaly learn how the original story after issue eighty was suppose to end and isuse 81 not till 2012 that is proably due to idw wanting to start the thing right which means writting and art done slow and steady thus the year wait.
July 31st, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I’m excited for this. Maybe there’s hope that one day we’ll see the unfinished Dreamwave series that ended so unceremoniously. Although as I understand it there’s some legal issues there. Anyways, cool stuff.
August 2nd, 2011 at 2:35 pm
…So are they just going to ignore the Generation 2 maxi-series now? As that one basically picked up where #80 left off.
August 9th, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Pleeeesssse bring back Meg Fox,that new girlfriend sucks..
August 16th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
What does Megan Fox have to do with anything? It’s over, move on.
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