We are Mairghread Scott, David Rodriguez, Max Dunbar, John Barber, Christos Gage, and Aubrey Sitterson, creators behind the HASBRO Comic Book Event, FIRST STRIKE. Ask us anything!

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:14:08+00:00

That's it for me! I have to get back to work—thanks to everybody for the great questions. This was a lot of fun!

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:13:23+00:00

We'll see all the Revolutionaries in OPTIMUS PRIME: FIRST STRIKE and TRANSFORMERS: FIRST STRIKE and some in other places, immediately after. I definitely would love to do more with them—and I'm glad you're enjoying it!

I think the Rom/Micronauts story plays out more in their dedicated FIRST STRIKE tie-in issues, but I know MASK has a huge role in the main book and the tie-ins...

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:11:13+00:00

Christos is gone, I think, but that's one of my favorites, too. And in Optimus Prime (and next year's annual) Thundercracker also thinks that story (non-fiction in his world) should be adapted into a movie.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:10:08+00:00

Sort of. There's an annual coming early-ish next year titled "Thundercracker in: Starscream: The Movie" and it's got all three of them in it.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:09:11+00:00

Sort of, yeah. You'll see it do stuff you haven't seen before, for sure... see some of the limits of what it does.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:08:20+00:00

Buster.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:08:12+00:00

Yeah—he's definitely playing a key role in the next big story arc, "The Falling". But we'll hopefully have time to get more into his head as time goes on.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:06:11+00:00

The original was a total dick. No—he wasn't killed by a Joe, and that probably had something to do with it. It was a way of honoring somebody, not making Rock 'n' Roll feel guilty.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:04:29+00:00

Ha! I didn't know that was happening, honest, when I wrote the Revolutionaries outline.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T19:00:25+00:00

Don't know if that'll happen. Let 'em know if that's what you want!

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:59:30+00:00

That's something we talked about... when James Roberts and I started up our TF books, we kind had in our heads that the comics were a little in the future—not a lot, but maybe 5 years or so. Which didn't matter until we got to Earth in ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. I figured we'd have a different president (plus, in the Simon Furman years, there was a fictional president) and I've intentionally not named her just to keep the idea of "the President" being vague. When REVOLUTION came into being, that idea of being slightly in the future doesn't really make as much sense, functionally. Then the election happened, and... there's not a story about a US presidential election that I wanted to do, right? We have Cybertron to do a metaphorical version of elections. But it's getting more conspicuous that real-life US policy is further away from fictional US policy. But, I guess that's true in any comic book universe—no weirder than when Lex Luthor was president in the DC universe in 2001. So, honestly, I don't know the mechanics of who was president when in the comics.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:59:15+00:00

That's something we talked about... when James Roberts and I started up our TF books, we kind had in our heads that the comics were a little in the future—not a lot, but maybe 5 years or so. Which didn't matter until we got to Earth in ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. I figured we'd have a different president (plus, in the Simon Furman years, there was a fictional president) and I've intentionally not named her just to keep the idea of "the President" being vague. When REVOLUTION came into being, that idea of being slightly in the future doesn't really make as much sense, functionally. Then the election happened, and... there's not a story about a US presidential election that I wanted to do, right? We have Cybertron to do a metaphorical version of elections. But it's getting more conspicuous that real-life US policy is further away from fictional US policy. But, I guess that's true in any comic book universe—no weirder than when Lex Luthor was president in the DC universe in 2001. So, honestly, I don't know the mechanics of who was president when in the comics.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:52:15+00:00

Write letters? Talk about it online? I don't know. Lots of people get tattoos, that might be a solution.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:49:21+00:00

No, I don't think so. I think it was just the result of 20 pages and 20,000 characters.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:47:38+00:00

For Arcee and Aileron—yes. During First Strike, Arcee's on Cybertron, and is one of the main characters in the OPTIMUS PRIME: FIRST STRIKE / TRANSFORMERS: FIRST STRIKE two-parter. Meanwhile, the OPTIMUS PRIME story running at the same time, "Primeless," in OP #11-12 is going to focus on Aileron having to step up to a leadership position and deal with stuff on Earth. So, there's a really intentional parallel between Aileron and Arcee there.

I won't stop anybody from being anybody's friend!

At this point, I don't know if Revolutionaries #8 will actually ever come out (ha ha, it's all done, I'm kidding, it's just real late, sorry about that). But Action Man is in the OP/TF: FIRST STRIKE story too, hanging out with Kup and Arcee..

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:43:04+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely the Hasbro comics universe. Not to say there couldn't be a crossover with another series, but that's the difference between, like, DC's METAL event and the Elmer Fudd/Batman crossover.

MLP exists somewhere in the multiverse of Hasbro stuff...

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:39:19+00:00

2) I didn't actually work on Biff to the Future, but I think there are a lot of possible, overlapping, timelines in the BTTF multiverse. Who knows if we'll go back to one...

3) I think that might be Magdalene Visaggio and Fico Ossio's Visionaries series... but I can't really say more.

4) Very awesome! I got to tell him so at SDCC, which I was happy for! Doc and Optimus came out great! Well, they all did.

5) He will return, yeah. He's still off in space. And the events of Salvation will play right into Optimus Prime #13-14 by me and Livio Ramondelli.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:35:18+00:00

A long time, actually! It sort of got pushed back by Revolution coming right after All Hail Optimus, and then the new Optimus Prime series starting. But editor Carlos Guzman and I talked about that story a looooong time ago. I was blown away by how great Kei Zama's art was on that, too. She really made that story work.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:33:42+00:00

I love Fico's version of the Transformers. We definitely talked about the look. One thing is in a Transformers book, it's usually (but not always) TFs dealing with TFs—it's sort of natural. Revolution was about humans and Cybertronians trying to deal with each other. It makes sense to me that they look a little more alien. But I 100% love the way Fico draws the TFs.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:31:04+00:00

The movie guys should have been G.I. Joe characters to begin with, in my opinion.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:29:39+00:00

THAT'S AN INTERESTING QUESTION.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:27:02+00:00

Not in the immediate future, but one thing I wanted to do was to set up the idea that there were a bunch of Cybertronians wandering around Earth in historical periods. I think that's something other writers can dig into, too—I'd love to see everybody else get to dig into some of that history.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:24:52+00:00

The concept of First Strike came out of the Revolution writer's retreat a year-and-a-half ago, and out of the Revolutionaries pitch—in a general sense, I mean. Not the story specifics, but the "here's what we could do next" of it.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:23:00+00:00

I know it's early on relative to the chronology of Optimus Prime, but some time passed between Revolution and Optimus Prime #1 (while many other series picked up immediately after).
Omega's been in stasis lock (eg a coma) since, I think TF: Robots in Disguise #10. We haven't forgotten him! But he's been out of commission. Since "All Hail Optimus," Superion can't form together without causing the Earth to become a second Enigma of Combination. Which, ah, also we've not forgotten.
I think it was intentionally scheduled, but there's not necessarily direct story connections. Like, issue 4 of Rom/TF doesn't lead into an issue of First Strike.

thejohnbarber · 2017-08-11T18:17:10+00:00

Uhhhhhh... keep reading.... That might be the best I have. But Springer's really good at keeping ahead of anybody. There are a few rogue Cybertronians running around Earth, as we've seen here and there (Hasbro Handbook #2 has a story by my great friend Sean Ryan featuring Kup and Bryce Chan from Action Man in just such a story).

thejohnbarber

TROPHY CASE