Walking Dead Creator Pitches Gritty G.I. Joe and Transformers Cartoons

For nerds of a certain age, few things were as traumatic as seeing Optimus Prime die at the hands of Megatron in 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie. A year later, those same nerds were disturbed all over again by G.I. Joe: The Movie, in which Cobra Commander was slowly mutated into a weird snake monster. If Skybound Entertainment has its way, a whole new generation of kids gets to have nightmares while watching Hasbro properties.

According to Deadline, Skybound Entertainment has teamed with Hasbro to create Energon Universe, an adult animated series about G.I. Joe and the Transformers. You may not know the name Skybound Entertainment, but you certainly know the upsetting material the company has produced. Founded by comic book creator Robert Kirkman, he of The Walking Dead fame, and David Alpert, Skybound gave the world another adult animated series with upsetting material, Invincible.

Like The Walking Dead and Invincible, Energon Universe is an extension of a comic series produced by Skybound. The company has had the license for the Hasbro properties since 2023, and has quickly produced several well-recieved series about the characters. In addition to crossing over G.I. Joe and Transformers, Energon Universe also includes Void Rivals, original creations by Kirkman and artist Lorenzo De Felici, about two alien survivors of an intergalactic race war forced to work together.

Deadline reports that the Energon Universe series will include the Void Rivals characters alongside better-known Transformers and G.I. Joe figures. Show running the series is Joe Henderson, who recently managed the DC Comics adaptation Lucifer, turning a Sandman spinoff about the devil abandoning Hell to visit Earth into a trashy, fun network tv show.

Energon Universe is just the latest attempt to bring the Transformers and G.I. Joe together, the most recent being the post-credit scene of 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. There, ex-military electronics whiz Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), caught up in a battle between shape-shifting robots, gets recruited by G.I. Joe. Presumably, that scene would set up a proper crossover film between the two, but as of 2024, Ramos had not heard any new developments.

Despite the stymied attempt, a crossover between the two properties makes a lot of sense. They both were toy lines produced by Hasbro and they both received high-profile animated series in the 1980s. The two first crossed over in the pages of Marvel Comics, in the 1986 miniseries G.I. Joe and the Transformers, and then several times later in various series from later publishers. The two have had shared toy lines, such as the G.I. Joe and the Transformers line released by Hasbro between 2011 and 2013.

However, the two have never had a high-profile crossover, despite both enjoying television and film franchises. Will Skybound be able to break the curse and finally bring these characters together on the screen? It seems like they’re determined to pull it off with Energon Universe, no matter how many kids they need to traumatize in the process.