One of the biggest comic book success stories of the past few years is Skybound‘s Energon Universe. Mixing together Transformers, G.I. Joe, and an original property titled Void Rivals, the universe is coming to a head with the debut of G.I. Joe #1 next month. And in advance of that, the architects behind the Energon Universe took the stage at New York Comic Con to tease what’s next.
In attendance at the panel were Robert Kirkman (Void Rivals), Jorge Corona (Transformers), Joshua Williamson (G.I. Joe), Tom Reilly (G.I. Joe), and Sean Mackiewicz (SVP/Publisher, Skybound). Read on for everything we learned at the panel.
“It’s very surreal, we’ve been working on this for a very long time,” started Williamson on the road to G.I. Joe. “But also very exciting to share with you what we’ve been building.”
“It may be the eve of it for you, but it’s not the eve for us,” Reilly added, noting the long time they’ve been working on it.
So what makes things different and more special for this G.I. Joe #1? “We did it?” said Mackiewicz, to laughter from the crowd. More seriously he added that they’ve got people who aren’t interested in G.I. Joe getting excited about the new book.
Added Kirkman, what made this different is the “focus on the individual characters.” He continued that what draws him to G.I. Joe is “It’s got a better rogue’s gallery than Batman and Spider-Man. Am I getting looks? No one likes Batman.”
Kirkman continued to riff for a while (“I like Clayface okay, but you can’t put him in a movie because the movie’s GOT to be grounded”) until Williamson jumped back in to talk about their new character, Risk. He’s a thrill-seeker, which brings him into conflict with Duke, who is the team leader.
“I did put a lot of thought into the design of the character,” noted Reilly. He puts in “little descriptors” to explain his decisons in designing a character, which actually got included on a variant cover.
You can find out more about Risk in our interview with Williamson, but on the panel he talked about being inspired to put him in a suit to contrast with other characters who aren’t as buttoned up — as well as inspiration from John Wick.
Moving on to talk about the roster — which includes Duke, Rock ‘N Roll, Baroness, Cover Girl, Clutch, Stalker and Hawk — Williamson mentioned looking to the original toy lineup for inspiration. At that point, Kirkman threw out to the crowd, “Is there a popular, mainline GI Joe character you don’t see [in this lineup]?” To which the entire crowd almost simultaneously shouted back “Snake Eyes.” Perplexed (and joking), Kirkman said, “Never heard of him.”
Though he did follow up with, “We should look into this Snake Eyes guy, he seems pretty popular.”
The panel then showed off a cover to G.I. Joe #2 highlighting Risk by Jorge Corona and Mike Spicer. Asked what it was like moving from Transformers, where he drew issues #6-#12, to G.I. Joe, Corona quipped, “Way too organic. Way too fleshy.”
Turning to some preview pages, Williamson told a story about Cobra Commander, noting that Kirkman pitched the big difference between previous versions of the villain and the Energon Universe version is that he doesn’t retreat. And then when you first see him, a soldier shouts “retreat!” and Cobra Commander shoots him in the head.
“What if this Cobra Commander didn’t run from a fight?” Williamson said. “It’s a small change to his character, but it makes a huge difference.”
Jumping over to Void Rivals, Kirkman teased how Cobra-La is moving over to that title, with Williamson remembering that Kirkman called him on Christmas to pitch the idea of ending the Cobra Commander series with those versions of the Cobras heading to space. Williamson said yes so he could get back with his family, with Kirkman shooting back, “Wow, this universe stuff is easy.”
Kirkman further added that the Royal Guardsmen will all get backstories and some “lasting GI Joe lore” in that series. “And then when I’ve had my fill, I’ll say, GI Joe characters, back to Josh.”
The conversation then turned to the Transformer Hot Rod popping up, which Kirkman thought he had cleared by everyone, until he bumped into Transformers writer Daniel Warren Johnson at a con who said, “Aw, I wanted to use Hot Rod.”
“Look, Daniel would have killed him anyway,” joked Kirkman. “I’m just going to say I saved Hot Rod in the Energon Universe.”
And wrapping up Void Rivals, Kirkman noted that doing research he found out about Skuxxoid and fell i love with him, to the point that five pages of every issue now is about Skouxxoid. “It’s eventually going to be a Skuxxoid book,” said Kirkman.
Then it was over to Transformers. Jorge Corona is back on the book with Transformers #15, to which he said it was “intimidating” to folllow in Daniel Warren Johnson’s footsteps, and “keep the intensity… The energy that he brings to the action, and the emotion, and the character moments… I need to keep the level.”
Corona did tease that Ultramagnus will be vitally important through the next few issues as “this giant figures out how to build himself from the inside, and the outside as well.”
What about Megatron? “He’s on a collision course with both the Autobots and Decepticons,” teased Mackiewicz.
And then it was time for questions! Asked about when Void Rivals characters will pop up in Transformers and GI Joe? “It’ll happen eventually,” said Kirkman, noting it would take a lot of work to get the characters from his book to Earth, but, “We’re in it for the long haul.” Similarly, Kirkman when asked about intersection with the movies said that they like what they’re doing over there, but, “we’re all doing our own thing.”
That said Hasbro will suggest, but not demand things. Like if a character is in Transformers One, they might say that it might be nice to see them in the comics, but it’s “not a mandate.”
And that was it for the panel! Other than a question about whether they can use Sgt. Slaughter, to which Mackiewicz said: “Maybe?”
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