TF Views

Unless you've been reading IDW Publishing's "Transformers: All Hail Optimus" and "Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye" for the past 50 issues, you probably were unaware of a few things. For example, Megatron is a non-violent Autobot, Starscream leads the Decepticons, and Optimus Prime is attempting to annex Earth, whether its citizens like it or not.

And those are just a few of the changes brought to the Transformers Universe, all of which make perfect sense, as crazy as they may seem to fans of the classic cartoons and comics. Now, with both books hitting the 50 issue mark, writers John Barber and James Roberts, along with artists Andrew Griffith and Alex Milne, are kicking off stories designed, in part, to give new readers a place to jump on board.

Barber's "Transformers" -- now sporting the "All Hail Optimus" subtitle instead of "Robots in Disguise" -- hit the #50 watermark last month while Roberts' "More Than Meets The Eye" celebrates its 50th issue today. The former follows Optimus Prime's declaration that Earth is now part of the Cybertronian Council of Worlds, while "MTMTE" finds Megatron continuing to face his past mistakes including the Decepticon Justice Division. CBR News spoke with Barber and Robots about reaching fifty issues, current events, and what's in store as each title marches toward #100.

Dominic wrote:I have noticed that "More than Meets the Eye", and by extension Roberts, is not being seen as favourably as in the past.

Given how inconsistently I have been reading that series, I am curious if this is a queston of fans being complainers or if Roberts has deterioriated of late.

andersonh1 wrote:Sales are routinely under 9000 a month, for physical books at least. I don't know how digital is selling.