First era Dreamwave Productions shut down on January 4, 2005, and announced they would cease publication of all their comics, leaving
Transformers: Generation One and its
prequel series,
Transformers: The War Within incomplete. Chris Ryall, editor-in-chief of
IDW Publishing, leaped at the chance to bid on the property. On May 19, 2005, Hasbro announced they had awarded the licensing rights to IDW Publishing, with plans for an issue #0 in October 2005 and an ongoing title entitled
The Transformers: Infiltration to begin in January 2006. Beforehand, Ryall met up with long-time writer
Simon Furman. Furman aimed for a contemporary version of the
Generation 1 incarnation to appeal to new and old fans alike. They both cited a focus on the "Robots in
Disguise" element of the characters, aiming to bring back their "myth and majesty". Overall, Furman described it as, "This was, at last (after 20-plus years) MY take on Transformers." Furman also aimed for a
real time approach, using maps to help guide his stories.
Infiltrations issue #0 sold 100,000 copies in pre-orders, a record for the company. Furman focused the story on
Autobot medic Ratchet and broke new ground for
G1-based storylines by excluding the
Ark crash storyline and having them only just recently arrived deliberately, to give proper intent to the Transformers being on Earth,
Infiltration received mixed reviews. Furman's decision to put leaders
Optimus Prime and
Megatron on the sidelines divided fans,
The Transformers: Stormbringer followed in July, set around the same time frame as
Infiltration, and had art by
Don Figueroa. The four issue tale was intended to be a weekly event, but
Diamond Comic Distributors' resistance meant it became monthly. Furman had planned to visit Cybertron later on, but the fans demanded a human-less story, and
Stormbringer was written. Most importantly, the story revealed Cybertron to be dead, giving the saga a darker feel and explaining the status quo of Autobots and Decepticons spread out and fighting pocket wars. Furman intentionally wanted a larger scale and "took Cybertron out of the equation" to shape the overall arc. Furman drew upon classic stories for
Shockwave, as well as allowing him to re-invent the
Micromasters. collaborating with Furman to further tie-in the story into the existing continuity and taking historical inspiration from the
decline of the Roman Empire. In addition, Furman allowed Nick Roche to write and draw a
Spotlight for Kup, and Roche also wishes to create another one for Rumble. Furman returned for
The Transformers: Devastation, which will be affected by
Galvatron's
Spotlight (itself spinning out of Nightbeat's), before leading into
The Transformers: Revelation. With the conclusion of
Devastation,
Revelation began in June. However, this series had a different format to that seen previously, and consisted of four interrelated
Spotlight issues that brought several of the elements of the storyline thus far, most notably the Dead Universe storyline, to a conclusion. The arc following
Revelation was a twelve-issue limited series, later expanded to sixteen issues, titled
All Hail Megatron which began in July 2008, taking place a year after the end of
Devastation and focusing on an Earth conquered by the Decepticons without the Autobots around to stop them, this time written by Shane McCarthy. A planned storyline,
Expansion, has now been canceled, although some of the themes the series would have dealt with may still appear. with art by
Spotlight artist Nick Roche. Starting in November 2009, an ongoing series of the Transformers was launched and ended in December 2011. Concurrently, during this time, other mini-series were also published:
Last Stand of the Wreckers,
Bumblebee,
Ironhide,
Drift,
Infestation and
Heart of Darkness, the latter of which led into the story arc
Chaos.
Second era Following a one-shot titled
The Death of Optimus Prime, two new ongoing series started in January 2012,
Robots in Disguise and
More than Meets the Eye. A digital Transformers comic also became available titled
Autocracy, consisting of 12 eight-page issues. Two sequels to
Autocracy titled
Monstrosity and
Primacy started publishing in March 2013 and August 2014, respectively. In April and November 2014, the
Windblade and
Drift – Empire of Stone mini-series were also published. In addition, in November 2014,
The Transformers: Robots in Disguise changed its title to just
The Transformers. A second ongoing series of
Windblade started in March 2015, and its sequel
Till All Are One followed in June 2016.
Hasbro Universe Starting in 2016, the
Transformers comics became part of the
Hasbro Comic Book Universe, playing a role during the crossover events
Revolution and
First Strike. After
Revolution ended in November 2016,
Transformers and
More than Meets the Eye re-titled themselves to
Optimus Prime and
Lost Light, respectively. The miniseries titled
Transformers: Unicron (which is the finale of this continuity) started being published on May 5, 2018. == List of titles ==