Comic Book Resources have reported on the new IDW crossover event spinning out of the pages of Revolutionaries, which we reported on previously. Back then, it was called “Insurgency”, but it is now known as “First Strike”.
Kicking off in August, this six issue miniseries features Baron Ironblood and his new Cobra declaring war on the Transformers – leading to a conflict which will build on the ongoing tensions seen in the Optimus Prime ongoing series. The conflict is set to take in not only the Transformers, but also G.I. Joe and MASK. Mairghread Scott & David Rodriguez are set to take the reins writing this crossover, which will be released over the course of three months.
Check out Comic Book Resources for the full details of the crossover – and read on for the solicits for the first two issues, along with some initial cover artwork.
First Strike #1
Mairghread Scott & David Rodriguez (w) • Max Dunbar (a) • Freddie E. Williams II (c)
The crossover of the year is here! Earth is finally ready to officially join the Cybertronian Council of Worlds and appoint their first representative to the Council. Too bad the ceremony is interrupted by a massive explosion and the forces of COBRA! Now it’s up to Scarlett, Optimus Prime, G.I. Joe and the Autobots to save two worlds!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Expected in-store date: 8/9/17
· The Hasbro crossover event of 2017 is here!
· Spiraling out of the events of Revolution, Revolutionaries, G.I. Joe, Optimus Prime and Transformers: Till All Are One!
· The explosive next chapter of the Hasbro line! Literally! There are explosions!
First Strike #2
Mairghread Scott & David Rodriguez (w) • Max Dunbar (a) • Freddie E. Williams II
The crossover of the year continues! Scarlett learns the truth behind Baron Ironblood’s plan to destroy all life on Cybertron, but with her team stranded on Earth, she must turn to an unlikely ally to help her reach the besieged planet. Enter: Soundwave!
FC • 32 pages • $3.99
Expected in-store date: 8/23/17
Bullet points:
· The Hasbro crossover event of 2017 is here!
· As Cybertron is attacked, G.I. Joe looks to answer one of the biggest questions: Why?
Lumpy
Nope, for that I would buy it
Rodimus Prime
Even if they included Taylor Swift as an action master?
Lumpy
You know, if you don't want a crossover event every year, don't buy it… I'm not gonna pick this up, doesn't interest me.
Rodimus Prime
You said that the "event" comics did. I was pointing out that the overwhelming number of events was a symptom of something larger. Unless the main TF comics start bleeding subscribers, then IDW isn't going to reach anywhere close to Marvel's level of event saturation.
Thelonicon
My post had absolutely NOTHING to do with "social justice or overt politicizing." I said that the cancellation of Ms. Marvel in order to make way for the Secret War event killed MY interest in continuing the series.
Prime Wylde
Unimpressed.
By the speed of another crossover event.
By the concept.
And by the creative team.
Rodimus Prime
The event overdrive is actually a symptom of a more complicated issue. It isn't even the switching of the characters that annoyed people, although I think doing so many at once has hurt them to a degree. When I mentioned social-justice, I wasn't referring to diversity, I was referring to their overt politicizing to the point of preaching rather than telling a story:
http://i.imgur.com/p00L2gp.jpg
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/126/618/42f.jpg
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/001/126/617/c11.jpg
Thor #5
That's what people hate. It drove off regulars, and now they keep throwing out events to try and get the numbers back up.
Thelonicon
This is exactly what happened to me with the Kamala Kahn Ms. Marvel. I grabbed the trades up through the Secret War event with the idea that I'd continue after it was over, but ultimately didn't grab the next trade because there was another event in the pipeline.
I am genuinely concerned that the IDW Hasbroverse is getting close to this, but I'm willing to wait it out a little longer to see how things gel since I like most of the individual series (with the obvious exception of M.A.S.K.) and the description seems like it is a somewhat logical extension of current events in Optimus Prime.
Rodimus Prime
STARBLAST
Anyone who unironically uses SJW loses any semblance of cred they might have.
Don't you have more important things to do, like harass women on twitter or post those cartoon frogs or something?
Rodimus Prime
People like me? I'm a racist pile of wank, I take it? Okay, kid.
Anything else you want to share, champ? Maybe some unsolicited opinions on Israel?
STARBLAST
Maybe if you're a racist pile of wank but no not at all. Plenty of Marvel's so called "es jay dubayu" comics are fun. Kamala Kan comes to mind as does Miles as amazing new characters that attracted a lot of fans to it. Even the comics that nerdbros hate like Squirrel Girl have their own fans.
But all those new fans that get attracted to Marvel book, and there is a lot of them, they just don't visit the online forums because of people like you, got turned off because they can't just read what they want to read in peace, because it gets disruped by events that lead into other events that lead into other events that then branch out into 5 different event and people just went fuck it not gonna bother with it.
Marvel does a phenomenal job of pissing of literally EVERYBODY at the same time. They are like the Pepsi of the comic world.
Rodimus Prime
They also don't shoe-horn social justice crap into their books at anything close to the rate that Marvel does, and that helps sales considerably.
Fenrys
I didn't read revolution and haven't read anything outside of transformers and I'm not having any problems following the stories
DecepticonSpike
Good to know. I didn't want to feel like I had to know every detail to enjoy the books.
Spontificus
As someone who reads all of the comics anyway, I have to agree. The entire sum of the shared universe's effect on the TF books is that Kup and Skywarp are off doing their own things while G.I. Joe is the name of the military force that Optimus has to deal with instead of the EDC, and pretty much just has the same personnel as the EDC did. That's it. You can easily follow all the TF stuff just by picking up the TF books and ignoring everything else.
Jalaguy
You really don't need to feel like that. The stories going on the eight Hasbroverse books are all totally independent from each other. There are G.I. Joes in the Optimus Prime comic, sure, but those particular Joes appear only in the Optimus comic, so you're not getting half their story or anything.
Even with Revolutionaries, where there's different guest stars each issue, you don't need to know anything about what's happening in the guests' own comics.
Spontificus
Love nearly all the comics in the IDW/Hasbro universe, I like that they can connect to each other, but I have never been much of a fan of crossover event comics. They almost always feel like the weakest issues in their respective series. Even when it was just the Transformers titles crossing over, the only one that I thought was as good as the ongoing regular issues was Titans Return.
That being said, the fact that this new series has only a few of the properties crossing over without the need to pull everyone in, and the fact that it is spinning off of the excellent Revolutionaries gives me hope that it might be decent.
DecepticonSpike
Man, IDW sure is making sure to let us know that all the Hasbro titles, except for MLP, are all in the same universe. To be honest it's starting to get a little……crowded for lack of a better word. A lot of the Hasbro titles, under different publishers, we're in the same universe, but we were not constantly hit over the head with it. Even the 80s cartoons were in the same universe. Yet, Sunbow didn't feel like they had to remind us all the time.
This is one of the reasons I took a break from reading Marvel Comics for while. I feel like in order to understand the entire story, I have to read everything single issue published. I don't have the money or the time for that.
Neko-bot77
Let me start this by saying I agree, the "Dark Cybertron" and "Combiner Wars" were not great pieces of writing. "Good" maybe, but not great. But they did have 1 thing going for them that I really really liked: NO HUMANS.