NEW: Guide to Energon Universe - GI Joe & Transformers!

After a few months packed with catching up on reading new releases from Marvel, DC, and Image for my weekly YouTube show “The Pull List,” I’m excited to get back to launching new comic guides to Patrons of CK! And, I’m especially excited about this first new guide, because it breaks ground on covering a comics property that is incredibly close to my heart. Fire up your 80s nostalgia, grab your favorite action figures, and get ready to shout “YO JOE” and “AUTOBOTS ROLL OUT” because it’s time for a Guide to the Energon Universe – GI Joe & Transformers!

Guide to the Energon Universe – GI Joe & Transformers

This guide is available exclusively to Patrons and will be available to the public in June 2025 with the release of the first trade of the new G.I. Joe (2024) ongoing series!

As I’ve been catching up on my Energon Universe reading I’ve looked around the web to see what collecting guides and reading orders exist. Some of my colleagues have put together handy quick guides to each series, but from my perspective they were all missing something.

That’s always the clearest sign to me that it’s time for me to add a new guide to Crushing Comics. In this guide I cover how to collect every Energon Universe issue from GI Joe, Transformers, and Void Rivals across multiple formats. Plus, I offer an explicit reading order based on my own weekly reading that considers story developments rather than just the order that collections have been released.

If you’re not a regular Wednesday Warrior, you might be thinking, “That sounds cool, Krisis, but what exactly is the Energon Universe? And what’s a Void Rival?”

The Energon Universe is a combined continuity of two enduringly popular Hasbro brands – G.I. Joe and The Transformers. In the past, both properties have had comics published by Marvel, IDW and other publishes. In 2023, Robert Kirkman’s Image Comics imprint Skybound Entertainment announced they had acquired the license for both properties.

Skybound immediately announced their plans to continue the long-running continuity of Larry Hama’s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, originally launched in 1982 to support the line of 3 3/4″ G.I. Joe action figures. But, Skybound was initially cagey about their plans for a new continuity of G.I. Joe and Transformers comic books.

At the same time, Skybound launched a new title from Robert Kirkman & Lorenzo De Felici called Void Rivals. Of course, Kirkman is always a major draw in comics – he’s the creator of The Walking Dead and Invincible, two of the biggest comic media properties of the past 25 years!

Void Rivals (2023) wasn’t in Kirkman’s typical wheelhouses of suspense or superheroes. Instead, it was a space-faring sci-fi story about a pair of explorers from warring societies converging on an important resource deep in space. The launch was weirdly low-key for a Kirkman book – not exactly stealthy, but also not with as much of an explicit push in comics and entertainment media as we’ve seen for his past titles.

There were whispers that the book was about something bigger, but it wasn’t until the final page reveal of the Transformer
Jetfire that Kirkman’s master plan was revealed! The Void Rivals and their entire society were connected to the Transformers and their power source, Energon.

Thus, the new Energon Universe of comic books kicked off. A few months later in October Skybound added Transformers (2023), with a first arc both written and drawn by industry superstar Daniel Warren Johnson. The book followed Optimus Prime and Starscream as they crashed to Earth with their respective factions, locked in combat with each other but also trying to navigate first contact with the human race.

Then, rather than launch a new G.I. Joe series, Skybound kicked off a pair of intertwined mini-series written by Joshua Williamson for Duke and Cobra Commander. Both books not only established their characters, but followed their connection to Transformers technology newly introduced on Earth… including Energon.

From that point forward, Skybound has maintained at least three Energon Universe titles running at a time, including more Joe mini-series and annual Free Comic Book Day specials. As the series have pressed on, their interconnections have grown. We’ve seen Cobra La characters in deep space in Void Rivals and the aftermath of Decepticon damage in G.I Joe. The Joes and Cobra continue to vie over control of newly-discovered Energon resources while the Autobots and Decepticons work with limited energy supplies to try to revive recognizable characters on both sides.

You can figure out how to jump in and follow all of those stories in my new Guide to Energon Universe!

Get instant access to new Guide to the Energon Universe – GI Joe & Transformers and every future guide to Marvel, DC, Indie Comics, and more! Become a Patron of CK for as little as $2 a month or $20.40 a year to gain access to this exclusive guide and over 70 other guides months before the general public gains access to them. Plus, in the past year I’ve also updated over 150 of my 200+ guides for both Patrons and the general public.

Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 54 Guides!

DC Guides (7): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Birds of Prey, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men