More Than Meets The X-Ray Eye: The Justice League/Transformers Crossover That Could’ve Been
Just imagine The World's Greatest Super-Heroes facing off against some evil Robots in Disguise. It sounds unlikely, but apparently a crossover between the Justice League of America and the Transformers almost happened last year, offering up both Optimus Prime as a Green Lantern and a new purpose for Wonder Woman's invisible jet.Pitch art for the project by Phil Jimenez (with colors by Romulo Fajardo Jr.) made its public debut via, of all places, Brian Michael Bendis' Tumblr, with Jimenez going on to offer some context on Twitter. "Oh, what an epic that would have been!" he tweeted, going on to say that we "missed out on Wonder Woman's invisible jet becoming a very cool Transformer." The pitch was apparently "sideline[d] after the DC relaunch," Jimenez revealed, adding that it "would have been fun, though."
Optimus Prime as Green Lantern was apparently the idea of IDW Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall, Jimenez explained; personally, I'm now wondering if this means that Megatron would've ended up with the Sinestro Corps at some point.
As unlikely as this team-up may seem, it's worth remembering that the Transformers have a history of teaming up with super-heroes. Not only did they have a crossover series with Marvel's New Avengers back in 2007, but in their very third comic appearance ever, Spider-Man showed up to help save the day. Oh, and some of Marvel's super-heroes even became Transformers themselves back in 2010. Clearly, when it comes to the technological arms race, DC's World's Finest have a long way to go before they've caught up with Earth's Mightiest Heroes.