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For some time, I've been focused on catching up with the 2005 IDW comic book continuity of Transformers, and I've finally finished catching up yesterday. There were two reasons I wanted to do this.

The first reason was because the 2005 IDW continuity was one of the few Transformers continuities I wasn't already caught up with (at this time of writing, I'm also caught up on the Marvel Transformers comic, the Sunbow cartoon, all the Japanese-exclusive animes, the Marvel Generation 2 comic, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, the 2001 Robots in Disguise show, the Unicron Trilogy, the Dreamwave comics, the Fun Publications comics and text stories, Transformers Animated, all the presently released live-action films, Transformers Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots, the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon, Rescue Bots Academy and Transformers Cyberverse).

The other reason was so I could finally get around to drawing a tribute to the comic book crossovers between Transformers and G.I. Joe, as the crossovers that were part of IDW Publishing's shared universe of Hasbro properties were the only G.I. Joe/Transformers comic crossovers I never read before, and I wanted this tribute to cover everything. If you haven't read any or all of these comic crossovers, then beware of spoilers.

Given that Transformers and G.I. Joe are both Hasbro properties, it would stand to reason that there would be crossovers made between the two franchises. However, most crossovers have been exclusive to the medium of comic books, the only notable effort of indicating a shared universe between G.I. Joe and Transformers being with the Sunbow cartoons (where the third season of The Transformers featured a character named Marissa Faireborne who was implied to be the daughter of G.I. Joe members Flint and Lady Jaye, the episode "Only Human" had a villain named Old Snake who was implied to be an aged Cobra Commander, and the G.I. Joe cartoon character Hector Ramirez made at least one appearance each on the Transformers cartoon, Jem and Inhumanoids. It's anyone's guess whether or not Robotix, Visionaries and Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines were also intended to be a part of this shared continuity).

I will now begin discussing the history of all these crossover events and their impact on the overall franchises.

1. MARVEL COMICS

Marvel Comics was the first comics publisher to own the license to several Hasbro properties (and some that would later become acquired by Hasbro, i.e. ROM the Space Knight and the Micronauts), with two of the first such properties they made comics of being Transformers and G.I. Joe. The Transformers and G.I. Joe comics, in fact, began publication before the cartoons premiered and even continued publication a while after the cartoons ended production.

The first ever crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe was in a four-issue miniseries titled G.I. Joe and the Transformers, which involved a mobile power plant being targeted by the Autobots and G.I. Joe's respective enemies the Decepticons and Cobra. G.I. Joe end up blasting Bumblebee to bits, but Mainframe is able to rebuild him as Goldbug once the Joes learn that the Autobots are on their side.

It was around this crossover that Optimus Prime and Megatron were killed off (the Marvel Comics Transformers continuity was well-known for not sticking to the status quo of the first two seasons of the cartoon) and Serpentor usurped control of Cobra while Cobra Commander and Destro were buried alive.

This first crossover at first had little effect on the rest of the Transformers and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics. The Decepticon Dirge was killed off in the crossover, but Bumblebee's stint as Goldbug, unlike in the Sunbow cartoon, wasn't permanent and was eventually reversed to promote Bumblebee's Pretender figure. The G.I. Joe comic, in contrast, chose to ignore the Transformers crossover and had some stories that established Transformers to be a toyline.

The Marvel UK continuity also had some contradictions, as the G.I. Joe crossover was held off due to the Action Force comic not yet being caught up on the American comic, so Dirge was not killed off in the Marvel UK continuity and Bumblebee was given a different explanation for his transformation into Goldbug (the short version is that he was killed by the bounty hunter Death's Head when the self-proclaimed "freelance peace-keeping agent" went back in time and was then rebuilt by Wreck-Gar).

Once the main Transformers comic ended its run, however, a second crossover happened within the main G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic to set up the Marvel Generation 2 comic in issues 138-142. From the G.I. Joe side of things, Cobra Commander and Destro had resurfaced and Serpentor was killed off, with Dr. Mindbender coming back as a clone of the original. Megatron ends up coming back by tricking Cobra Commander into making him a new body and the crossover ended with the Autobots and Decepticons going off to continue their squabble on their own terms while leaving G.I. Joe and Cobra with their own conflicts.

While both the Transformers and G.I. Joe comics by Marvel would subsequently get more continuations after the end of the original Marvel Comics runs, they went out of their way to ignore the other franchise as much as possible.

Regeneration One, a maxiseries by IDW Publishing that served as a continuation to the Marvel Transformers comic and was used by celebrated Transformers comics writer Simon Furman (who I used to speak ill of, but now have a more favorable opinion of his work now that I've given it a chance) as his chance to explore the Transformers mythos in ways he wasn't able to because of the original comic's cancellation, made no mention whatsoever of the Joes.

The Marvel G.I. Joe comic received two continuations, the first by Devil's Due Publishing and running from 2001 to 2008 and the second by IDW Publishing (which replaced the Devil's Due continuation as canon and even went to the trouble of continuing the issue numbering of the original Marvel comic and is still running to this day). The closest the Devil's Due continuation got to acknowledging Transformers was that it brought back Dr. Sidney Biggles-Jones (a scientist who played a major role in the crossover that led to the Generation 2 comic), while all the IDW continuation did to acknowledge Transformers was issue 180 (technically issue 25, since, again, this series continued the issue numbering of the original Marvel run) having an Optimus Prime cosplayer hit on Scarlett.

With IDW Publishing being the current owners of the comic book license to both Transformers and G.I. Joe, this has included reprinting comics from previous publishers. The first crossover with the Marvel G.I. Joe and Transformers comics was included in Volume 8 of The Transformers Classics (which reprints the Marvel Transformers comics) and in Volume 1 of the G.I. Joe/Transformers series (which reprints the G.I. Joe and Transformers crossovers that were published before IDW got the license to both properties). This first volume also has the crossover that led to Generation 2 and is presently the only aspect of the Generation 2 Transformers comic that IDW has reprinted.

2. DREAMWAVE PRODUCTIONS

Dreamwave Productions was an independent Canadian comics publisher that was founded in 1996 and became the first comic book company to obtain the Transformers comic license after Marvel. Premiering in 2001, the Dreamwave continuity began with a pair of miniseries titled Prime Directive and War and Peace. These were originally implied to take place in the continuity of the Sunbow cartoon, before the ongoing Generation One series and the War Within prequel miniseries established their own twists on the canon.

In addition to doing their own G1 continuity, Dreamwave also made a comic book tie-in to the Unicron Trilogy (covering Armada and Energon, the license expired before they could get to Cybertron) and had one crossover with G.I. Joe.

The Dreamwave crossover was a six-issue miniseries titled Transformers/G.I. Joe, which took place in 1939 and had an alternate take on World War II where G.I. Joe worked with the Autobots to take down the Decepticons and Cobra. Cobra Commander ends up finding the Matrix and using its power for his own ends, but the conflict resolves with the Matrix being used to win the war by deactivating all the Transformers.

Dreamwave attempted to do a sequel miniseries taking place decades later titled Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front, but only published one issue prior to the company's eventual bankruptcy in 2005.

Transformers/G.I. Joe and its single-issue sequel stand out as being the only pre-IDW comics crossovers between G.I. Joe and Transformers that have never been reprinted by IDW Publishing, and they wouldn't be the only Dreamwave titles IDW has neglected to reprint in part or in full. This presumably has to do with how Dreamwave didn't pay a lot of the artists and writers involved with their publications and IDW can't legally complete the unfinished comics.

3. DEVIL'S DUE PUBLISHING

Devil's Due Publishing is another independent comics publisher, which started out as an imprint of Image Comics before setting off on their own.

When Devil's Due Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe, there were a few other titles involving G.I. Joe they made besides a continuation of the Marvel Comics continuity that was rendered non-canon after IDW did their own follow-up. These other titles include G.I. Joe: Reloaded (an updated reimagining of the franchise that infamously made it so that Duke was a traitor planted by Cobra), a tie-in to G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 and a few miniseries titled G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers.

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers, in spite of being published when DDP had the G.I. Joe comic license and Dreamwave the Transformers license, was set in its own continuity and made it so that the two franchises had stronger connections to one another. The first miniseries established that, shortly after arriving on Earth, the Autobots and Decepticons were found by Cobra and then enslaved by the terrorist organization to use as weapons.

A group of initially ordinary soldiers found out about this and decided to found G.I. Joe to fight back against the threat, with the Autobots eventually breaking free of Cobra's control to help the Joes turn the tide against Cobra and the Decepticons.

Aside from the connected origins, another way this crossover stood out was that this continuity was rather lenient with character casualties. Mercer (a G.I. Joe operative who defected from Cobra) wound up vaporized by a Kill Sat, while Major Bludd was killed when he got into a jet that turned out to be Skywarp's alt mode and the Seeker returned to robot form while Bludd was still in the cockpit. On the side of Transformers, permanent deaths just from this first miniseries were Thundercracker, Skywarp, Soundwave, the Constructicons(Scrapper, Mixmaster, Long Haul, Bonecrusher, Scavenger and Hook)/Devastator and Megatron.

It was clear that this first miniseries was only the beginning, as a sequel tease was left by the U.S. government planning to create new weaponry from the remains of the fallen Decepticons.

The second miniseries, G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II, had a time travel experiment by the Decepticon Shockwave endangering the world, with the Joes, Cobra and the Autobots having to retrieve time-displaced Transformers before a time paradox wiped out the Earth. One team consisting of Lady Jaye, Zartan, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, goes back to the 1970's, where they retrieve Jazz, Bumblebee, Hot Rod and Blitzwing.

Another team consisting of Roadblock, Beach Head, the Baroness and a random Cobra trooper go back to 1930's Chicago, where they find Optimus Prime and the Stunticons (Motormaster, Dead End, Wildrider, Breakdown and Drag Strip). The third team consists of Tomax, Xamot, Spirit, Barbecue and Dr. Mindbender, who find themselves in a post-apocalyptic future where the Decepticons have taken over and the only remaining resistance comes from the Dreadnoks and a severely disfigured Duke who has lost most of his limbs. The time-displaced Cybertronian here is Ratchet.

When these three teams make it back to the present, the fourth team (Dusty, Gung-Ho, Shipwreck and a Cobra Viper) returns as well from prehistoric times with the Dinobots (Grimlock, Sludge, Snarl, Slag and Swoop) in tow. Tomax ends up vaporized by Shockwave, but Shockwave himself meets his end when Cobra Commander sends him Starscream loaded with explosives.

Again, a hint towards more adventures comes when we see Dr. Mindbender busted out of prison by the denizens of Cobra-La, who scheme to summon Unicron, a giant planet-eating Transformer who was established as their greatest threat in almost every continuity.

The third miniseries was G.I. Joe vs. Transformers: The Art of War, which introduced their take on the Cobra leader Serpentor (here designated Serpent O.R., or Serpent Organic Robot). Rather than his traditional backstory of being cloned by Dr. Mindbender from various infamous historical figures (like Napoleon Bonaparte, Vlad the Impaler and Atilla the Hun), this continuity established Serpentor as an android created from the remains of Megatron. With his recollection of Megatron's experiences, he ends up becoming the new leader of the Decepticons.

The major twists that happen this time are that Hawk becomes connected to the Matrix to aid in the final confrontation with Serpent O.R., Cobra Commander winding up comatose from trying to take control of Serpent O.R. and Arcee and Bumblebee are a couple (with Arcee unfortunately becoming bereaved).

The G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers continuity finally came to an end with G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: Black Horizon, which consisted of two double-length issues and resolved the cliffhanger from G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II by having the Joes and the Autobots finally face Unicron.

It was revealed here that the Chaos Bringer once came to Earth during prehistoric times, but was persuaded to leave humanity alone until a later date by the people of Cobra-La. We also learn that Joe Colton (a war hero who is based on the original 12-inch G.I. Joe figure that predated the Real American Hero retool and in many continuities, primarily comics, is established as the namesake of the G.I. Joe team) was held prisoner by Cobra-La when he disappeared decades ago.

In the end, Unicron is destroyed, the people of Cobra-La are vanquished and the Joes and the Autobots get to enjoy their lives peacefully.

There were several collections and reprints of the G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers miniseries. Devil's Due published trade paperbacks of the first three miniseries as well as an omnibus that collected all four. After IDW Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe and Transformers and did the G.I. Joe/Transformers series of volumes that reprinted the pre-IDW crossover comics (with the aforementioned exception of the Dreamwave crossover), they reprinted the Devil's Due crossovers in the second and third volumes.

4. TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE BY TOM SCIOLI

When IDW Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe and Transformers, they did quite a lot. Aside from reprinting Transformers and G.I. Joe comics from previous publishers, there were also comic book tie-ins to the live-action films, Transformers Animated, Transformers Prime and the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon.

IDW also started their own Transformers and G.I. Joe comic continuities (respectively started in 2005 and 2008, as IDW had to wait for Devil's Due Publishing's license to expire before they could do anything with G.I. Joe). These comics continuities initially were in separate continuities, even being treated as separate universes in IDW's Infestation crossover event, but that would change later.

Aside from the scrapped Unit:E crossover project in 2011 (an attempt at a shared universe using Transformers, G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Action Man, Jem, and a host of others, even Candyland and an Inhumanoids reimagining called Primordia), the first crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe under IDW was in the maxiseries Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, which was written and illustrated by Tom Scioli of American Barbarian fame (who would later create a five-issue miniseries based on the GoBots that went in a much darker direction than the Hanna-Barbera Challenge of the GoBots cartoon).

Scioli made use of his signature faux-retro style and went a bit crazy for this wild take on Transformers and G.I. Joe. For instance, G.I. Joe's Russian rivals the Oktober Guard were reinterpreted as a bunch of Halloween-themed monster soldiers and they made Ultra Magnus the Grim Reaper figure of the Transformers. That being said, there were enough nods and homages that made it clear that Tom Scioli was quite well-informed about both franchises. I wish I could go over everything about this series' interpretation of things, but I fear that doing so would make this already long description even longer still.

This maxiseries that ran from 2014 to 2016 lasted 14 issues (first issue being 0) and also had a Free Comic Book Day Funnies strip that was originally printed in issue 0 of the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon tie-in comic as well as a 2017 one-shot for a fictional movie adaptation that took creative liberties with the story of the maxiseries.

A hardcover has been made collecting the entirety of the maxiseries, with FCBD Funnies strip and The Movie Adaptation one-shot included. I strongly recommend this comic both to hardcore Transformers and G.I. Joe fans as well as anyone who appreciates comics that manage to be cool and silly at the same time.

5. IDW HASBRO UNIVERSE

As stated before, the IDW Publishing Transformers and G.I. Joe comics that were their own continuities and not tie-ins to other media were not originally written with the intent of being in the same continuity. This changed in 2016 when a crossover event called Revolution occurred, which didn't just retcon the two comics as taking place in the same universe after all, but also introduced reimaginings of ROM the Space Knight, M.A.S.K., Micronauts and Action Man. This was also around the time the IDW comic of Jem and the Holograms was published, but general consensus seems to be that the IDW Jem comic is a separate work, as a few mentions and cameos via poster were the only effect the Holograms and the Misfits had on this new shared universe.

Before the crossover event occurred, there were some major changes to the status quo. On the Transformers side of things, Bumblebee was killed off, Starscream became leader of Cybertron and Megatron had reformed to join the Autobots. For G.I. Joe, Xamot and the first Cobra Commander were killed off, with the mantle of Cobra Commander then taken up by a Cobra operative named Krake and then Tomax. Duke also abdicated his position as leader of the Joes, leaving Scarlett in charge.

The Revolution event made a lot of changes to tie the different franchises together, with the technology used by M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. made from Miles Mayhem harvesting parts from the Decepticon Blitzwing, the Micronauts' home universe the Microspace (because Marvel owns the copyright to Microverse) being created by Micronus Prime (one of the 13 Primes revered by the Cybertronian race) and ROM causing trust issues because he exterminates several G.I. Joe operatives who turned out to be Dire Wraiths in disguise (one of them being Joe Colton).

Skywarp ends up joining G.I. Joe in a 2016 series that was intended to continue after the First Strike crossover event as the seven-issue Scarlett's Strike Force, but that series only lasted three because IDW was forced to cancel it by a controversy where writer Aubrey Sitterson made a tweet about 9/11 where he peeved everyone off by acting as if people who weren't in New York at the time the tragedy occurred had no right to be upset about it.

The First Strike event was another major advancement of the shared universe, with information about the history of the Adventure Team (which Joe Colton was a member of) being revealed and Joe Colton turning out to still be alive, having escaped before the Dire Wraith who impersonated him could kill him and taking on the identity of Baron Ironblood as part of a scheme to wipe out all Cybertronians in a misguided attempt to defend the Earth. Sergeant Savage's foe Garrison Kreiger/General Blitz was also revealed in a twist to actually be this continuity's version of Merklynn, the wizard from Visionaries, who it turns out was hatching a scheme to steal energy from Cybertron to repower his planet Prysmos.

The beginning of the end occurred in the miniseries Transformers Vs. Visionaries, which introduced a new take on yet another forgotten Hasbro franchise. The Spectral Knights know that the Autobots aren't their enemies and try to resolve the issue of their dying planet without committing robot genocide, but Merklynn and the Darkling Lords insist on seeing the Transformers as enemies who must be slain in order to save Prysmos.

In the end, the Autobots and the Spectral Knights are able to avert disaster and Merklynn winds up imprisoned. The Darkling Lord Cindarr informs him of plans to free him, but the wizard tells him not to bother, as he's foreseen the future and does not see much time left to do anything worthwhile.

With the shared IDW Hasbro universe coming to an end, everyone involved made sure the universe would go out with a bang, so the miniseries The Transformers: Unicron was commissioned to wrap everything up. The main conflict had this continuity's version of Unicron appear, who starts things by wiping out ROM's home planet Elonia as well as Cybertron and Cybertron's colony worlds. There were some back-up strips providing closure for G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K. and Micronauts, as their main comics either got cancelled or were wrapped up in ways that didn't resolve the main conflict.

Every non-Transformers hero except the Micronauts would also lend a hand in the main story in the battle against Unicron (the Micronauts chose to sit it out because of concerns that Unicron would be way too powerful for them to do anything helpful and because they found it more pressing to end their nemesis Baron Karza's reign over Microspace).

Ultimately, Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to destroy Unicron, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces and build a better future on Earth. This was the end of the IDW Hasbro Universe except for a later miniseries focusing on ROM titled ROM: Dire Wraiths, which revolved around ROM fighting Dire Wraiths during the 1969 moon landing and also featured reimagined takes on the heroes from Inhumanoids who were implied to have fought giant monsters from underground (Aubrey Sitterson initially planned to introduce the Inhumanoids for his G.I. Joe comic, but had to make do with the Fatal Fluffies instead when it was discovered that Hasbro let the trademark expire).

Ever since the end of the IDW Hasbro Universe, both G.I. Joe and Transformers have received comic book reboots in 2019, with the new G.I. Joe comic having the original take of Cobra already taking over the world and the dwindling numbers of G.I. Joe trying to fight back and the new Transformers comic so far having a heavier focus on what Cybertron was like before the eventual Autobot and Decepticon civil war. It remains to be seen if these series will remain unrelated or will eventually cross over like the previous IDW continuities did.

Yo, Joe! You've got the touch, you've got the power.

Transformers, G.I. Joe, Action Man, M.A.S.K., Micronauts, Visionaries and ROM the Space Knight (c) Hasbro

Description

Made with DeviantArt muro

For some time, I've been focused on catching up with the 2005 IDW comic book continuity of Transformers, and I've finally finished catching up yesterday. There were two reasons I wanted to do this.

The first reason was because the 2005 IDW continuity was one of the few Transformers continuities I wasn't already caught up with (at this time of writing, I'm also caught up on the Marvel Transformers comic, the Sunbow cartoon, all the Japanese-exclusive animes, the Marvel Generation 2 comic, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, the 2001 Robots in Disguise show, the Unicron Trilogy, the Dreamwave comics, the Fun Publications comics and text stories, Transformers Animated, all the presently released live-action films, Transformers Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots, the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon, Rescue Bots Academy and Transformers Cyberverse).

The other reason was so I could finally get around to drawing a tribute to the comic book crossovers between Transformers and G.I. Joe, as the crossovers that were part of IDW Publishing's shared universe of Hasbro properties were the only G.I. Joe/Transformers comic crossovers I never read before, and I wanted this tribute to cover everything. If you haven't read any or all of these comic crossovers, then beware of spoilers.

Given that Transformers and G.I. Joe are both Hasbro properties, it would stand to reason that there would be crossovers made between the two franchises. However, most crossovers have been exclusive to the medium of comic books, the only notable effort of indicating a shared universe between G.I. Joe and Transformers being with the Sunbow cartoons (where the third season of The Transformers featured a character named Marissa Faireborne who was implied to be the daughter of G.I. Joe members Flint and Lady Jaye, the episode "Only Human" had a villain named Old Snake who was implied to be an aged Cobra Commander, and the G.I. Joe cartoon character Hector Ramirez made at least one appearance each on the Transformers cartoon, Jem and Inhumanoids. It's anyone's guess whether or not Robotix, Visionaries and Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines were also intended to be a part of this shared continuity).

I will now begin discussing the history of all these crossover events and their impact on the overall franchises.

1. MARVEL COMICS

Marvel Comics was the first comics publisher to own the license to several Hasbro properties (and some that would later become acquired by Hasbro, i.e. ROM the Space Knight and the Micronauts), with two of the first such properties they made comics of being Transformers and G.I. Joe. The Transformers and G.I. Joe comics, in fact, began publication before the cartoons premiered and even continued publication a while after the cartoons ended production.

The first ever crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe was in a four-issue miniseries titled G.I. Joe and the Transformers, which involved a mobile power plant being targeted by the Autobots and G.I. Joe's respective enemies the Decepticons and Cobra. G.I. Joe end up blasting Bumblebee to bits, but Mainframe is able to rebuild him as Goldbug once the Joes learn that the Autobots are on their side.

It was around this crossover that Optimus Prime and Megatron were killed off (the Marvel Comics Transformers continuity was well-known for not sticking to the status quo of the first two seasons of the cartoon) and Serpentor usurped control of Cobra while Cobra Commander and Destro were buried alive.

This first crossover at first had little effect on the rest of the Transformers and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comics. The Decepticon Dirge was killed off in the crossover, but Bumblebee's stint as Goldbug, unlike in the Sunbow cartoon, wasn't permanent and was eventually reversed to promote Bumblebee's Pretender figure. The G.I. Joe comic, in contrast, chose to ignore the Transformers crossover and had some stories that established Transformers to be a toyline.

The Marvel UK continuity also had some contradictions, as the G.I. Joe crossover was held off due to the Action Force comic not yet being caught up on the American comic, so Dirge was not killed off in the Marvel UK continuity and Bumblebee was given a different explanation for his transformation into Goldbug (the short version is that he was killed by the bounty hunter Death's Head when the self-proclaimed "freelance peace-keeping agent" went back in time and was then rebuilt by Wreck-Gar).

Once the main Transformers comic ended its run, however, a second crossover happened within the main G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic to set up the Marvel Generation 2 comic in issues 138-142. From the G.I. Joe side of things, Cobra Commander and Destro had resurfaced and Serpentor was killed off, with Dr. Mindbender coming back as a clone of the original. Megatron ends up coming back by tricking Cobra Commander into making him a new body and the crossover ended with the Autobots and Decepticons going off to continue their squabble on their own terms while leaving G.I. Joe and Cobra with their own conflicts.

While both the Transformers and G.I. Joe comics by Marvel would subsequently get more continuations after the end of the original Marvel Comics runs, they went out of their way to ignore the other franchise as much as possible.

Regeneration One, a maxiseries by IDW Publishing that served as a continuation to the Marvel Transformers comic and was used by celebrated Transformers comics writer Simon Furman (who I used to speak ill of, but now have a more favorable opinion of his work now that I've given it a chance) as his chance to explore the Transformers mythos in ways he wasn't able to because of the original comic's cancellation, made no mention whatsoever of the Joes.

The Marvel G.I. Joe comic received two continuations, the first by Devil's Due Publishing and running from 2001 to 2008 and the second by IDW Publishing (which replaced the Devil's Due continuation as canon and even went to the trouble of continuing the issue numbering of the original Marvel comic and is still running to this day). The closest the Devil's Due continuation got to acknowledging Transformers was that it brought back Dr. Sidney Biggles-Jones (a scientist who played a major role in the crossover that led to the Generation 2 comic), while all the IDW continuation did to acknowledge Transformers was issue 180 (technically issue 25, since, again, this series continued the issue numbering of the original Marvel run) having an Optimus Prime cosplayer hit on Scarlett.

With IDW Publishing being the current owners of the comic book license to both Transformers and G.I. Joe, this has included reprinting comics from previous publishers. The first crossover with the Marvel G.I. Joe and Transformers comics was included in Volume 8 of The Transformers Classics (which reprints the Marvel Transformers comics) and in Volume 1 of the G.I. Joe/Transformers series (which reprints the G.I. Joe and Transformers crossovers that were published before IDW got the license to both properties). This first volume also has the crossover that led to Generation 2 and is presently the only aspect of the Generation 2 Transformers comic that IDW has reprinted.

2. DREAMWAVE PRODUCTIONS

Dreamwave Productions was an independent Canadian comics publisher that was founded in 1996 and became the first comic book company to obtain the Transformers comic license after Marvel. Premiering in 2001, the Dreamwave continuity began with a pair of miniseries titled Prime Directive and War and Peace. These were originally implied to take place in the continuity of the Sunbow cartoon, before the ongoing Generation One series and the War Within prequel miniseries established their own twists on the canon.

In addition to doing their own G1 continuity, Dreamwave also made a comic book tie-in to the Unicron Trilogy (covering Armada and Energon, the license expired before they could get to Cybertron) and had one crossover with G.I. Joe.

The Dreamwave crossover was a six-issue miniseries titled Transformers/G.I. Joe, which took place in 1939 and had an alternate take on World War II where G.I. Joe worked with the Autobots to take down the Decepticons and Cobra. Cobra Commander ends up finding the Matrix and using its power for his own ends, but the conflict resolves with the Matrix being used to win the war by deactivating all the Transformers.

Dreamwave attempted to do a sequel miniseries taking place decades later titled Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front, but only published one issue prior to the company's eventual bankruptcy in 2005.

Transformers/G.I. Joe and its single-issue sequel stand out as being the only pre-IDW comics crossovers between G.I. Joe and Transformers that have never been reprinted by IDW Publishing, and they wouldn't be the only Dreamwave titles IDW has neglected to reprint in part or in full. This presumably has to do with how Dreamwave didn't pay a lot of the artists and writers involved with their publications and IDW can't legally complete the unfinished comics.

3. DEVIL'S DUE PUBLISHING

Devil's Due Publishing is another independent comics publisher, which started out as an imprint of Image Comics before setting off on their own.

When Devil's Due Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe, there were a few other titles involving G.I. Joe they made besides a continuation of the Marvel Comics continuity that was rendered non-canon after IDW did their own follow-up. These other titles include G.I. Joe: Reloaded (an updated reimagining of the franchise that infamously made it so that Duke was a traitor planted by Cobra), a tie-in to G.I. Joe: Sigma 6 and a few miniseries titled G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers.

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers, in spite of being published when DDP had the G.I. Joe comic license and Dreamwave the Transformers license, was set in its own continuity and made it so that the two franchises had stronger connections to one another. The first miniseries established that, shortly after arriving on Earth, the Autobots and Decepticons were found by Cobra and then enslaved by the terrorist organization to use as weapons.

A group of initially ordinary soldiers found out about this and decided to found G.I. Joe to fight back against the threat, with the Autobots eventually breaking free of Cobra's control to help the Joes turn the tide against Cobra and the Decepticons.

Aside from the connected origins, another way this crossover stood out was that this continuity was rather lenient with character casualties. Mercer (a G.I. Joe operative who defected from Cobra) wound up vaporized by a Kill Sat, while Major Bludd was killed when he got into a jet that turned out to be Skywarp's alt mode and the Seeker returned to robot form while Bludd was still in the cockpit. On the side of Transformers, permanent deaths just from this first miniseries were Thundercracker, Skywarp, Soundwave, the Constructicons(Scrapper, Mixmaster, Long Haul, Bonecrusher, Scavenger and Hook)/Devastator and Megatron.

It was clear that this first miniseries was only the beginning, as a sequel tease was left by the U.S. government planning to create new weaponry from the remains of the fallen Decepticons.

The second miniseries, G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II, had a time travel experiment by the Decepticon Shockwave endangering the world, with the Joes, Cobra and the Autobots having to retrieve time-displaced Transformers before a time paradox wiped out the Earth. One team consisting of Lady Jaye, Zartan, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, goes back to the 1970's, where they retrieve Jazz, Bumblebee, Hot Rod and Blitzwing.

Another team consisting of Roadblock, Beach Head, the Baroness and a random Cobra trooper go back to 1930's Chicago, where they find Optimus Prime and the Stunticons (Motormaster, Dead End, Wildrider, Breakdown and Drag Strip). The third team consists of Tomax, Xamot, Spirit, Barbecue and Dr. Mindbender, who find themselves in a post-apocalyptic future where the Decepticons have taken over and the only remaining resistance comes from the Dreadnoks and a severely disfigured Duke who has lost most of his limbs. The time-displaced Cybertronian here is Ratchet.

When these three teams make it back to the present, the fourth team (Dusty, Gung-Ho, Shipwreck and a Cobra Viper) returns as well from prehistoric times with the Dinobots (Grimlock, Sludge, Snarl, Slag and Swoop) in tow. Tomax ends up vaporized by Shockwave, but Shockwave himself meets his end when Cobra Commander sends him Starscream loaded with explosives.

Again, a hint towards more adventures comes when we see Dr. Mindbender busted out of prison by the denizens of Cobra-La, who scheme to summon Unicron, a giant planet-eating Transformer who was established as their greatest threat in almost every continuity.

The third miniseries was G.I. Joe vs. Transformers: The Art of War, which introduced their take on the Cobra leader Serpentor (here designated Serpent O.R., or Serpent Organic Robot). Rather than his traditional backstory of being cloned by Dr. Mindbender from various infamous historical figures (like Napoleon Bonaparte, Vlad the Impaler and Atilla the Hun), this continuity established Serpentor as an android created from the remains of Megatron. With his recollection of Megatron's experiences, he ends up becoming the new leader of the Decepticons.

The major twists that happen this time are that Hawk becomes connected to the Matrix to aid in the final confrontation with Serpent O.R., Cobra Commander winding up comatose from trying to take control of Serpent O.R. and Arcee and Bumblebee are a couple (with Arcee unfortunately becoming bereaved).

The G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers continuity finally came to an end with G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: Black Horizon, which consisted of two double-length issues and resolved the cliffhanger from G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II by having the Joes and the Autobots finally face Unicron.

It was revealed here that the Chaos Bringer once came to Earth during prehistoric times, but was persuaded to leave humanity alone until a later date by the people of Cobra-La. We also learn that Joe Colton (a war hero who is based on the original 12-inch G.I. Joe figure that predated the Real American Hero retool and in many continuities, primarily comics, is established as the namesake of the G.I. Joe team) was held prisoner by Cobra-La when he disappeared decades ago.

In the end, Unicron is destroyed, the people of Cobra-La are vanquished and the Joes and the Autobots get to enjoy their lives peacefully.

There were several collections and reprints of the G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers miniseries. Devil's Due published trade paperbacks of the first three miniseries as well as an omnibus that collected all four. After IDW Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe and Transformers and did the G.I. Joe/Transformers series of volumes that reprinted the pre-IDW crossover comics (with the aforementioned exception of the Dreamwave crossover), they reprinted the Devil's Due crossovers in the second and third volumes.

4. TRANSFORMERS VS. G.I. JOE BY TOM SCIOLI

When IDW Publishing obtained the comic book license to G.I. Joe and Transformers, they did quite a lot. Aside from reprinting Transformers and G.I. Joe comics from previous publishers, there were also comic book tie-ins to the live-action films, Transformers Animated, Transformers Prime and the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon.

IDW also started their own Transformers and G.I. Joe comic continuities (respectively started in 2005 and 2008, as IDW had to wait for Devil's Due Publishing's license to expire before they could do anything with G.I. Joe). These comics continuities initially were in separate continuities, even being treated as separate universes in IDW's Infestation crossover event, but that would change later.

Aside from the scrapped Unit:E crossover project in 2011 (an attempt at a shared universe using Transformers, G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Action Man, Jem, and a host of others, even Candyland and an Inhumanoids reimagining called Primordia), the first crossover between Transformers and G.I. Joe under IDW was in the maxiseries Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, which was written and illustrated by Tom Scioli of American Barbarian fame (who would later create a five-issue miniseries based on the GoBots that went in a much darker direction than the Hanna-Barbera Challenge of the GoBots cartoon).

Scioli made use of his signature faux-retro style and went a bit crazy for this wild take on Transformers and G.I. Joe. For instance, G.I. Joe's Russian rivals the Oktober Guard were reinterpreted as a bunch of Halloween-themed monster soldiers and they made Ultra Magnus the Grim Reaper figure of the Transformers. That being said, there were enough nods and homages that made it clear that Tom Scioli was quite well-informed about both franchises. I wish I could go over everything about this series' interpretation of things, but I fear that doing so would make this already long description even longer still.

This maxiseries that ran from 2014 to 2016 lasted 14 issues (first issue being 0) and also had a Free Comic Book Day Funnies strip that was originally printed in issue 0 of the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon tie-in comic as well as a 2017 one-shot for a fictional movie adaptation that took creative liberties with the story of the maxiseries.

A hardcover has been made collecting the entirety of the maxiseries, with FCBD Funnies strip and The Movie Adaptation one-shot included. I strongly recommend this comic both to hardcore Transformers and G.I. Joe fans as well as anyone who appreciates comics that manage to be cool and silly at the same time.

5. IDW HASBRO UNIVERSE

As stated before, the IDW Publishing Transformers and G.I. Joe comics that were their own continuities and not tie-ins to other media were not originally written with the intent of being in the same continuity. This changed in 2016 when a crossover event called Revolution occurred, which didn't just retcon the two comics as taking place in the same universe after all, but also introduced reimaginings of ROM the Space Knight, M.A.S.K., Micronauts and Action Man. This was also around the time the IDW comic of Jem and the Holograms was published, but general consensus seems to be that the IDW Jem comic is a separate work, as a few mentions and cameos via poster were the only effect the Holograms and the Misfits had on this new shared universe.

Before the crossover event occurred, there were some major changes to the status quo. On the Transformers side of things, Bumblebee was killed off, Starscream became leader of Cybertron and Megatron had reformed to join the Autobots. For G.I. Joe, Xamot and the first Cobra Commander were killed off, with the mantle of Cobra Commander then taken up by a Cobra operative named Krake and then Tomax. Duke also abdicated his position as leader of the Joes, leaving Scarlett in charge.

The Revolution event made a lot of changes to tie the different franchises together, with the technology used by M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. made from Miles Mayhem harvesting parts from the Decepticon Blitzwing, the Micronauts' home universe the Microspace (because Marvel owns the copyright to Microverse) being created by Micronus Prime (one of the 13 Primes revered by the Cybertronian race) and ROM causing trust issues because he exterminates several G.I. Joe operatives who turned out to be Dire Wraiths in disguise (one of them being Joe Colton).

Skywarp ends up joining G.I. Joe in a 2016 series that was intended to continue after the First Strike crossover event as the seven-issue Scarlett's Strike Force, but that series only lasted three because IDW was forced to cancel it by a controversy where writer Aubrey Sitterson made a tweet about 9/11 where he peeved everyone off by acting as if people who weren't in New York at the time the tragedy occurred had no right to be upset about it.

The First Strike event was another major advancement of the shared universe, with information about the history of the Adventure Team (which Joe Colton was a member of) being revealed and Joe Colton turning out to still be alive, having escaped before the Dire Wraith who impersonated him could kill him and taking on the identity of Baron Ironblood as part of a scheme to wipe out all Cybertronians in a misguided attempt to defend the Earth. Sergeant Savage's foe Garrison Kreiger/General Blitz was also revealed in a twist to actually be this continuity's version of Merklynn, the wizard from Visionaries, who it turns out was hatching a scheme to steal energy from Cybertron to repower his planet Prysmos.

The beginning of the end occurred in the miniseries Transformers Vs. Visionaries, which introduced a new take on yet another forgotten Hasbro franchise. The Spectral Knights know that the Autobots aren't their enemies and try to resolve the issue of their dying planet without committing robot genocide, but Merklynn and the Darkling Lords insist on seeing the Transformers as enemies who must be slain in order to save Prysmos.

In the end, the Autobots and the Spectral Knights are able to avert disaster and Merklynn winds up imprisoned. The Darkling Lord Cindarr informs him of plans to free him, but the wizard tells him not to bother, as he's foreseen the future and does not see much time left to do anything worthwhile.

With the shared IDW Hasbro universe coming to an end, everyone involved made sure the universe would go out with a bang, so the miniseries The Transformers: Unicron was commissioned to wrap everything up. The main conflict had this continuity's version of Unicron appear, who starts things by wiping out ROM's home planet Elonia as well as Cybertron and Cybertron's colony worlds. There were some back-up strips providing closure for G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K. and Micronauts, as their main comics either got cancelled or were wrapped up in ways that didn't resolve the main conflict.

Every non-Transformers hero except the Micronauts would also lend a hand in the main story in the battle against Unicron (the Micronauts chose to sit it out because of concerns that Unicron would be way too powerful for them to do anything helpful and because they found it more pressing to end their nemesis Baron Karza's reign over Microspace).

Ultimately, Optimus Prime sacrifices himself to destroy Unicron, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces and build a better future on Earth. This was the end of the IDW Hasbro Universe except for a later miniseries focusing on ROM titled ROM: Dire Wraiths, which revolved around ROM fighting Dire Wraiths during the 1969 moon landing and also featured reimagined takes on the heroes from Inhumanoids who were implied to have fought giant monsters from underground (Aubrey Sitterson initially planned to introduce the Inhumanoids for his G.I. Joe comic, but had to make do with the Fatal Fluffies instead when it was discovered that Hasbro let the trademark expire).

Ever since the end of the IDW Hasbro Universe, both G.I. Joe and Transformers have received comic book reboots in 2019, with the new G.I. Joe comic having the original take of Cobra already taking over the world and the dwindling numbers of G.I. Joe trying to fight back and the new Transformers comic so far having a heavier focus on what Cybertron was like before the eventual Autobot and Decepticon civil war. It remains to be seen if these series will remain unrelated or will eventually cross over like the previous IDW continuities did.

Yo, Joe! You've got the touch, you've got the power.

Transformers, G.I. Joe, Action Man, M.A.S.K., Micronauts, Visionaries and ROM the Space Knight (c) Hasbro