..2012! When January will see the launch of two new ongoing Transformers comic book series and one digital-only mini-series, and later on we'll have the long-clamoured-for continuation of the old Marvel series! So for those not-in-the-know (hello? Anybody?), here's a rundown of what to expect:

The current Transformers ongoing series will split into two different storylines, to wit:

More than Meets the Eye, written by James Roberts, art by Nick Roche
and
Robots in Disguise, written by John Barber, art by Andrew Griffith.

The digital mini-series is called Autocracy and is written by Flint Dille (!) and Chris Metzen, with art by Livio Ramondelli. It will be set in earlier days in Transformers history.

And then somewhere in spring (hopefully), there will be...

Transformers #81! Written by the one, the only, Simon Furman, with art by Andrew Wildman!



So... thoughts? Speculations? Wild guesses?

Don't really know much about John Barber's work so he's a bit of an unkown quantity but as for Transformers #81 and More Than Meets The Eye, I am very tempted to start buying Transformers comics again and get both of these on a regular basis.

John Barber did a number of movieverse comics (pretty much everything DotM-related) and they were exceptionally well-received (for movieverse comics). I am curious to see what he'll do with G1.

But of course I am most looking forward to Nick and James' MTMTE. It is said there's an important reason why the current storyline will split into two next year - one speculation I have heard is because a number of Autobots will be transported back into time to start the rise of Autobot civilisation, which sounds interesting. Especially if that means said Autobots will actually become the mysterious "Knights of Cybertron"...

Very excited for TF books next year, but I honestly have no idea what to expect from them.

Nope, me either. Best I can come up with is that James' stories will be directed at the hardcore fan while John's will be directed at the more mainstream audience...

I actually quite enjoyed some of Barber's movie universe work. Rising Storm was hampered by art that I really didn't like, but I thought that the central story had the general "sugar-high" tone of the Live Action Movies down quite well, had the general sense of energy that was needed and was also quite enjoyable. Indeed, I would say that along with the Alan Dean Foster prequel to the second film it was probably one of my favourite live-action movie universe stories. I am actually quite curious to see what he does with the more open-field of a new ongoing title in less hemmed-in waters.

Looking forward to a James Roberts written title because I know he can deliver an intelligent comic with plenty of content.

I keep forgetting Autocracy even exists though..

Karl

Yeah, me too. Mostly because it's a digital title and I don't really have any platform for it. But I think it'll be collected in a regular paper version at some point. I'll pick it up then.

I'm yet to read anything by James Roberts that I did not absolutely LOVE. I'm basically getting back into comics just to support this writer as his work is so good that he really does deserve an ongoing series; and that will do wonders for the fandom Also, he's a really nice guy.

So that's what I'm looking forward to the most. Sprite, what is this Flint Dillie thing? Oh you have interested me!!!

I really don't have more information than I already put in this thread. But just the fact that it's set in the past makes it interesting, doesn't it? Apart from Megatron Origins and some of James' and Shane's stuff, we don't know a lot about the history of the war and there's, like, four million years to be explored there!

From the titles I'd assume that Robots in Disguise would be set on Earth (since they still need disguises there due to the hatred and fear etc) and MTMTE would be set elsewhere (maybe world hopping across the Transformer occupied worlds mentioned in the Ironhide mini or following Guzzle and Impactor with a new Wreckers team? who knows)

I don't think so... considering Police Action was supposed to be the last story on Earth for quite a while.

I do hope Verity and Jimmy get to join the 'bots in space, though.