Okay, so the IDW and Marvel Transformers stories lie in seperate continuities, naturally.

Spider-Man, though, in ONE CONTIGUOUS (if somewhat chronologically deflated) continuity, has encountered both Marvel's Autobots and IDW's Autobots. Both times, he tends to "forget" the entire episode immediately.

My brain is rife with paradox, yo.

 

Mephisto did it.

 

Um... ok.
I think you are in the wrong forum.

 

Marvel destroys its own continuity too often. Just ignore it.

 

As a general rule of thumb....the events in different publisher cross over books never really take place in the lives of the characters independent books.

So in a sence the Spiderman and the Avengers we saw in the IDW/MARVEL cross over book were not the same characters from Marvels 616 [mainstream] universe.

Also the Spiderman that encountered Marvels Autobots was not the mainstream Spiderman....he was from an alternate universe.

 

Source?

 

Blame the Unicron Singularity. Or a wizard did it. Or maybe Spidey is so awesome, he can exist in two places at once....
Oh, and I love your sig Cinemastique!

 

Marvel.

 

More specifically....

Marvel has divided their stories into a multiverse in order to explain various alternate time lines, universes and 'what if' stories. The 'normal' Marvel universe for example takes place in the universe known as Earth 616. Marvel has categorized these alternate universes in several Handbooks over the years. The original UK G1 Transformers Marvel comics is listed as taking place on Earth 120185.

 

Well I could have been specific too 

But Marvel had other reasons for the split up as well.

One of them is that Marvel many "Commercial Licensed Properties" under their belt over the past 25 years such as Godzilla ,Rom the Spaceknight, G.I.Joe, Transformers ,Star Wars, Star Trek, Show Gun Warriors and many others.

From time to time regular Marvel characters would interact with the characters from these "Commercial Licensed Properties" becaue it was originally intended that they all exist in the Marvel Universe (Earth-616.).

This idea was later dropped when it became apparent that to include the Transformers in the Marvel Universe would cause issues with both the Transformers title, and the other Marvel books not to mention the rights issues that would later come up when Marvel either gave up or lose the rights to those characters and their universes, like with ROM the Spaceknight and Transformers.

So Marvel used the multiverse idea to say that the stories that include characters from "Commercial Licensed Properties" like Transformers happened on "Alternate Earths.

 

I understand. So Marvel's policy is no longer the case, then? Vis a vis the New Avengers crossover, I mean.

The crossover's ignorable in both the Transformers arc (which is fortunate, since the story is terrible), and is apparently also not vital to the 616-verse, either.. But it has been stated by both parties to be canon in both. I guess Marvel's not trying as hard to dodge that bullet anymore?

 

OR you could just say that the Beyonder did it. Secret Wars II was coming out around the same time as those early Marvel issues. In fact, he even met Circut Breaker in issue 4 or 5. (I forget the exact #) He had taken control over the whole Earth and was curious about her appearence. When she told him of the giant robots that ruined her life, he sent her away (never thinking of curing her) and thought about how bad it was that he took everyone's free will away. So he released everyone.

Now it wouldn't be to hard to imagine that an all powerful guy like the Beyonder could forsee the trouble a giant Robot War on an Earth with super heroes would cause, so when he released humanity, he just shoved them into another (similar) universe with the G.I.Joes instead.

 

Well these days they rely more on magic to divor- I mean undo marriages, bring people back to life, or de-power mutants.... And then Skrulls invade because "He loves you". Yeah, I'd have to say Marvel isn't trying very hard.

But anyway, I think the position both companies took with the New Avengers/Transformers crossover is that it could have potentially fit into both continuities, but they each just ignore that it ever happened.

 

But hey, at least it's not All Star Batman and Robin.

 

But if the one and only God-Damned Batman can;t handle the Transformers, who could? I mean, certainly the God-Damn Justice League would fail.

 

Not ALL of 'em, though - Godzilla, Rom and Shogun Warriors all took place in mainstream Marvel continuity and are still referenced in various modern Marvel Handbooks.

It's also worth pointing out re: the NA/TF crossover... while it has the surface appearance of being in 616-continuity, it CAN'T be. Doctor Doom was dead-in-hell at the time the story is supposed to take place, and Carol Danvers wasn't wearing that costume or going by "Ms Marvel", either.

 

Here's how I see it:

Earth 616.
Marvel Transformers (where superheroes are lower in number, couldn't stop San Francisco's destruction).
IDW.
Transformers/New Avengers.

 

What he said

 

I think that's going to be my answer to every question I get now. Who left the milk out? Mephisto did it. Why's the cat locked in the breadbox? Mephisto did it. What's our furniture doing on the roof? Mephisto. Who put sugar in my gas tank? Mephisto.

It's really the only viable option... though it's kind of a cheesy one. At least we know that when Marvel originally wrote some of those stories, they firmly intended to link some of those characters to their main continuity... for better or worse.

Though in continuity, it's amusing the way they avoid mentioning these characters by name. I can't think of an example right off, but I've seen them make sly asides to both Godzilla and Transformers' place in continuity, while conspicuously avoiding using names.

But seriously... it's a pretty sad state. Comics are in a bigger continuity clusterf*** than they've ever been I suspect. It's like every writer just started to do What If..? stories in the regular continuity, and all year was Assistant Editor's Month... if there are any editors at all, that is.  

zmog