The first issue of IDW’s Revolution comic, which brings together many characters under the Hasbro umbrella, hit shelves today. The series combines characters from the likes of Transformers, G.I Joe, Micronauts, Action Man, Rom and M.A.S.K.
Revolution writers John Barber and Cullen Bunn recently spoke about how they had to take Hasbro’s movie plans into consideration, whether the characters they were using have already featured in a film, such as those in Transformers, or if they’re still waiting their turn to hit the big screen, like the characters from M.A.S.K.
Barber also explained how both he and IDW Editor-in-chief Chris Ryall flew out to Hasbro headquarters to pitch the shared universe comic directly to the people at Hasbro:
“They were totally onboard. They let us know their plans are in terms of the movie universe, and where they’re going with the characters that are in Revolution — and several that aren’t. So we had a lay of the land, but we’re out far ahead of some of those movie plans. I mean, clearly the M.A.S.K. comic is hitting years before a M.A.S.K. movie.”
Bunn went on to talk about how it was the development of Micronauts characters specifically which led to his main interaction with Hasbro, and how open they were with character development:
“Yeah, my experience with them mainly came when I was developing the backstory for the Micronauts book. There were characters they had in development (such as Phenelo-Phi) but they were totally open to me creating the backstory for them and changing directions on some of the characters.
In the end, they were ready to see the comics forging their own path, just like the cinematic stuff is going in its own direction.”
Revolution No. 1 is available in comic book stores and digitally now.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
