I think the secret ingredient is having a bold personality like Nick Fury that keeps everyone connected. IDW's was technically Mainframe but he only appeared in the TF and Action man titles (While being a Joe). Just imagine if the Revolution Prelude copied this scene:

"You think you're the only hero in the world? Mr. Noble, you've become part of a bigger universe, you just don't know it yet"
"Who the hell are you?"
"Special Agent William Fowler. I'm here to talk to you about the Unit:E Initiative"

Boom. Maximum trouser destruction *Drops mic*

 

Haha. You know what, you might be right. Fury does kind of provide that overarching backbone that allows all the other bits and pieces to touch base with. IDW Agent Fowler was a totally missed opportunity.

 

Honestly, that would’ve just been more intrusive. Just having the characters exist in the same world is all you really need.

 

Though in retrospect, I would have loved an IDW version of Fowler. If any Aligned Continuity human should get another shot, it's him.

 

Like, Fury worked because he was specifically building one team. But the Hasbro Universe was about building an entire Universe, not just one team. Fury didn’t show up in Guardians, after all.

And let’s not pretend that the MCU was what the HU was trying to imitate. That kind of thing works in film because of the nature of film as a medium. But in comics, you just need to say “Yes, these characters exist in the same world.” You just need to link them together through the stories themselves.

And we already had a perfect story that fleshed out the Hasbro Universe and gave it the same lived-in feel as any other universe - Revolutionaries! That series was brilliant about creating a history for the Hasbro Universe beyond “our world until Transformers show up.” We had Sgt. Savage, Hearts of Steel, Adventure Team meeting Soundwave, etc. It was a great book.

 

I dont really understand the hate for the HU when we got books like Revolutionaries? Like, it was everything you wanted on the tin and then some? It was fun, it was funny, HOS was in there (?!) and the insertion into the overall universe was fairly seamless (for comics). Absolutely worth the price of admission if you ask me and that is before we start talking about the non-stop good time of Rom v tf.

 

I like the cut of your jib, pluto.

 

If we're comparing to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then surely the big secret is that there really aren't that many characters in it. Guardians aside, every franchise is about one person and a couple of sidekicks.

The reason people - certainly in my case - couldn't get on board with the Hasbroverse is that the Transformers line alone is already bigger than the MCU, with characters jostling for attention, going AWOL and so on. Then you add *another* brand with dozens of characters on top of that, and then Micronauts, MASK, Visionaries as well?

All fine if the plan is to leave each other alone and just have a book like Revolutionaries every over in a while. But speaking as someone who stuck to the TF comics throughout (except for Visionaries), I did not appreciate having guest appearances from Matt Tracker, Baron von Whojamaflip and dozens of bantering soldiers with signature weapons in books where I already felt some of my favourite characters were being squeezed out.

 

N’awww, same buddy!

 

That literally did not happen. Aside from 3 Joes who weren't there before in Optimus Prime (who spent all their time alongside already established characters), no other characters showed up in the TF titles.

 

The IDW Comics gave us great stories such as Revolutionaries, Skywarp as part of GI Joe & Shinning Armour I know not everyone liked it but I say this as a lifelong Transformer fan there's only so many times you can do the same story of Transformers fighting each other on earth for the latest MacGuffin with a bunch of tag a long kid companions. You need to shake things up & the Hasbro Comic Universe did that, while I'm on the fence of Hasbro Movie Universe I'd love to see a Hasbro Cartoon Universe.