Optimus Prime

I'm relatively new to the world of being a fan of Transformers, but I feel like I can tell when I see a pretty amazing action figure of one of those characters. ThreeA's new Optimus Prime Classic Edition certainly fits the bill, standing 16" tall with 59 points of articulation, interchangeable parts that include an Energon Axe and magnetically attached wheel wells, and a whole list of features besides. There's just one problem: It doesn't actually transform into a truck. Well, that and the fact that it'll set you back $390, but I feel like the former is the bigger issue here.

IDW's Revolution crossover might be coming to a close, but that doesn't mean that things are slowing down for the Hasbro properties that have all been thrown into the same universe. In March, the Revolutionaries are faced with Cobra Commander, the secrets behind the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand will finally be revealed, the crew of the Lost Light are trapped with no choice but to save the universe (again), and --- perhaps most importantly --- we're finally getting to see Art Baltazar and Franco do a story with Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. That's right, y'all: Revolution is getting the Aw Yeah! treatment with a story where Micronauts foe Baron Karza reads a bunch of GI Joe comics and then finds out that Snake Eyes is very real. Check out all the IDW/Hasbro solicits for more information!

IDW's Artist Editions are the kind of books I covet with a fervor that threatens to bankrupt me. It's such a simple idea --- reprinting the original penciled and inked pages of a comic in high quality at their original size, letting readers see not just the art and story, but the way a comic comes together, full of lettering paste-ups and details that were erased or shrunk down in the printed version. It's no wonder, then, that IDW has decided to celebrate it with a line-wide set of variant covers paying tribute to the idea. So when Optimus Prime hits shelves in January, it's not just bringing Wreck-Gar and the rest of the trash robots from the planet Junkion, it's also sporting a spiffy new Artist's Edition cover from Casey Coller, which we're pleased to reveal along with Joana Lafuente's regular cover and the solicitation for the issue!

Over the past few months, I think I've been so excited about IDW's upcoming Revolution event --- which, as you probably know by now, is the big reboot that combines Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Micronauts, Action Man and Rom The Space Knight into a single universe full of the crossover potential that some of us have been waiting thirty years for --- that I'm not sure if I've ever stopped to consider what's going to happen next. I mean, presumably we'll see Snake-Eyes fighting Megatron at some point, but beyond that? I hadn't even considered the possibilities. Now, however, we know that at least one of the things we're going to be getting comes in the debut issue of John Barber and Kei Zama's Optimus Prime, in which the leader of the Transformers is going to be fighting a giant corkscrew from space. No, that is not a typo, and yes, I am into it. Check out all three covers for Optimus Prime #1 below!

For those of us who have been waiting thirty years for MASK, Transformers, GI Joe and a handful of other Hasbro properties to be thrown into the same universe, but it raises a lot of questions about what it's going to mean for the books that have been around for a while once the big Revolution event happens. For the Transformers especially, the franchise at the center of the action, there are a lot of questions about how it all ties together. Now, with IDW revealing their post-Revolution plans at San Diego Comic-Con, we've got some answers from Optimus Prime writer John Barber, Transformers: Lost Light writer James Roberts, and Transformers: Til All Are One writer Mairghread Scott. Read on for their thoughts on integrating their complicated history into a new universe, the metaphors behind Cybertronian politics, and whether Roberts feels bad for making me cry about Chromedome and Rewind.

I've never liked the Transformers. The franchise didn't get its hooks into me as a kid, and while I've tried to give it a shot as an adult, it never really clicked. But now, with a recommendation from almost everyone I know and a well-timed Humble Bundle sale that left me with three years worth (and counting) of IDW's More Than Meets The Eye and Robots In Disguise comics, I'm going on a quest to see if these comics can turn me from someone who has never cared at all about Optimus Prime into someone who uses words like "Cybertron" and "alt-mode" with alarming regularity. And Primus help me, it's working. This week, we're heading back to 2011 for "Chaos Theory" and the first meeting of Optimus Prime and Megatron!

We've seen a lot of "chibi" Optimus Prime figures in our time, but it looks like Hong Kong toymaker Kids Logic is going to take the cake for coolest lil' Transformers Autobot leader of 2014. Due out this month, the 6" figure features a signature "super deformed" sculpt without sacrificing the kind of articulation and detail fans are used to seeing from Hasbro and Takara's

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Hasbro and Takara's larger Transformers Optimus Prime figures have been sporting Autobot Matrix of Leadership-storing chest chambers for years now, but Action Toys' upcoming UM-1 Ultimetal Optimus Prime digs even deeper by giving toy fans a look at the Generation 1 version of the heroic leader's entire anatomy from the inside out via removable plates. Turns out robots-in-disguise are full of their