#daniel williamson

First things first, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room. There was no announcement concerning any sort of television show. We got a heads-up a week in advance about this from Rich Johnson at Bleeding Cool, the guy who broke the news, but everyone was still kind of hoping he'd be wrong. Maybe New York Comic Con? That was another potential announcement date in the initial report, although if we hear nothing there I'm inclined to think he was full of it.

Now that we've talked about what wasn't announced, let's talk about what was. Namely, this handsome chap.

Bulkhead, G1-ified, is now part of the Energon Universe, making him the first character from an iteration of the franchise besides G1 to join the cast. Which cast, though? His vehicle mode looks like something you'd find in the Pit and would fit in next to Hound, so if Bulkhead appears in the pages of G.I. Joe, don't be surprised.

We also got a trailer summing up some future arcs. It's a motion comic, so they haven't contracted an animator to do the commercials like they did for G.I. Joe and Transformers toy and comic commercials back in the day, but it's more effort than many of their contemporaries.

G.I. Joe and Void Rivals both took up a significant portion of the recorded panel. For Joe, after the current arc wraps up, we're getting a one-shot adventure with Night Force, a black ops team that Hawk has kept Duke in the dark about. They're also introducing Shooter, a later-era toy character who hasn't been used in Joe fiction before.

Night Force also seems more balanced gender wise than the main Joe team, with two girls and two guys, while main Joe has two girls, and four guys. Speaking of the main group, Joe will become a bi-weekly book for the next arc.

The Dreadnoks, last seen being decimated by Nemesis Enforcer, return to get their revenge on Cobra Commander, and now old bucket-head is forced to team with the one person who would rather leave him to rot, Duke to save both their hides. As part of this, the book will ship twice a month, because Hasbro will get you to read G.I. Joe dammit! (And you should, the book is really good).

Meanwhile, with all the Transformers Season 3 characters in the pages of Void Rivals, Kirkman and new artists kick off the Quintesson War arc.

The Five Faces of Darkness finally make their move after numerous issues have merely hinted at it, and it looks like everyone is getting involved to shake up the status quo of the Sacred Ring.