>At the height of the toy domination of 1980s pop culture, Kenner introduced M.A.S.K., an action line featuring fast cars, powered masks, high-tech weapons and flashy spycraft.>While not as ubiquitous as Transformers or G.I. Joe, the line nonetheless got a Saturday morning cartoon series, comics books and a video game.>Now, after mostly surviving as an occasional comic and occasional movie development announcement, M.A.S.K. is back in its most high-profile way thanks for Invincible co-creator Robert Kirkman and his Skybound multimedia production banner.>Skybound revealed a new ongoing comic from writer Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns), artist Pye Parr (New Gods), colorist Pierluigi Casolino and letterer Rus Wooton. The announcement was made Friday by Kirkman at ComicsPro, as part of the annual meeting of comic book industry retailers, publishers, and distributors held in Glendale, Calif. The first issue is due to hit comic book shelves via Image Comics June 3.>In recent years, Skybound has relaunched both Transformers and G.I. Joe, polishing the media properties into best selling titles. Transformers, especially, has become a book that outsells many of the comics put out by DC and Marvel, and won an Eisner Award. The books are part of what is billed as the Energon Universe. Watters is already part of that universe having written Destro, a mini-series centered on the G.I. Joe villain put out by Skybound.>M.A.S.K. made ample use of acronyms. The name stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand and the security organization squared off against V.E.N.O.M., which stood for Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem.
>>152565582>The name stood for Mobile Armored Strike KommandI hope they sell better than they can spell. MASK doesn't even have the fanbase GI Joe still has, and what's left of them are just going to be complaining about the main character getting blackwashed for a second time. And at the bare minimum they needed to have the old fandom on board for a reboot.
>As the logline Friday’s announcement states: The world is becoming a terrifying place. Matt Trakker needs your help saving it. Enter M.A.S.K. — a network of specialists ready to respond to the next global emergency. At a moment’s notice, Trakker and his agents can deploy bleeding-edge technology that converts their vehicles–and their drivers–into the ultimate weapon. But Miles Mayhem and V.E.N.O.M. are one step ahead in a secret arms race, scouring the globe for deadly weapons from this planet and beyond, ready to sell out the entire human race. Only M.A.S.K. can stop them… but will Trakker’s own secrets jeopardize their entire mission?
>>152565612If the fucking Street Sharks can get an ongoing comic, so can MASK.
>“80s sports cars! Jets! Lasers! Robots! M.A.S.K. has everything that I love to read, watch, and draw, and my inner 12-year-old fought to the surface and made me scream loudly in the meeting when I was offered this gig,” enthused Parr in a statement. “Never have I more bitterly regretted selling my beloved childhood toys, but the chance to rebuild all that stuff on the page has more than made up for it, and I can’t wait to see where Dan takes us in the Energon Universe.”
>The first issue will showcase a main cover by Parr, with a lineup of variant covers from artists ranging from J. Scott Campbell, Cedric Poulat, Mark Spears, Daniel Warren Johnson, among many others.
>>152565643Do MASK bite and fight and stand for everything right?
>M.A.S.K No. 1 will also features the first-ever Energon Universe blind bag program that allows fans a chance to get any of the solicited covers, intermixed at varying degrees of rarity. There will also be rare surprise covers that will not be publicly announced in advance of the issue release.>Readers will be able to get a first look at M.A.S.K. in the Energon Universe Special 2026, a Free Comic Book Day issue releasing May 2. The special issue will include all-new stories from Transformer, G.I. Joe, and Void Rivals.>Check out a non-lettered preview and some of the covers below.
And on a very good note since the Image panel is going>The Energon Universe has had over 6 million copies sold since it launched. A big number!More than IDW at the same period BTW
There will be more news about transformers and G.I. Joe later on it seems.Since the next issue after the meeting with Prime is #21 aka the most regarded and most famous issue of all time at marvel which focused on Scarlett, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.Everything points out to EU doing the same and bringing them at the same issue.
>>152565582Watters is an odd pick MASK wasn't something that ever got a UK release, so it's not like he has nostalgia for the brand, unlike basically every other Energon writer like DWJ, Williamson, and Kirkman.
Won't it be redundant with GI.Joe?
>>152565722>Pye Parr Seems to be a decent choice for an artist he done a lot of robot releated strips in 2000AD, also did that Petrol Head series for image i think last year
>>152565815>Watters is an odd pick MASK wasn't something that ever got a UK release,WDYM?M.A.S.K. had its own UK comics magazine
>>152565869ignoire me im being dim on the subject
>>152565816Joe's are one thing so M.A.S.K. will abridge a lot of things since it is obvious that mayhem will have his hand on creating the Stunticons and V.E.N.O.M. being a threat also to Zartan's plans.
What is MASK and what makes them different from Joes
>>152565582>V.E.N.O.M., which stood for Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem.That's a bit on the noseIDW never confirmed what V.E.N.O.M. even stood for in their canonAlso>Trakkerfag in 3....2....1...
>>152565906They're not military and are more focused on exploration, archaeology, and secret agent stuff Their vehicles have gimmicky transformations and their helmets have a myriad of powers from standard blasts to physics breaking shit like the guy who can literally shrink people
>>152565657*Looks at cover*I will now buy your comic
>>152565815He's not. Most of the picks for these books have pre-existing connections to either Kirkman or Image, which includes Watters. And Watters already did the Destro mini for EU.
The jarring thing about M.A.S.K. (at least the cartoon) is that even compared to contemporaries like Transformers, He-Man, and G.I. Joe there really wasn't anything much of a character focus episode at all for the actual M.A.S.K. and V.E.N.O.M. teammatesYou can literally replace the roles of everyone with each other (sans Trakker and Mayhem) and the plots would basically stay the same
>>152565978And the destro mini featured someone who really resembled Mayhem being the dictator of his country and is years before the events the transformers.
>>152565941>They're not military and are more focused on exploration, archaeology, and secret agent stuff Interesting>Their vehicles have gimmicky transformations
Also G.I. Joe #20 got a preview on Skybound instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/p/DU9IiZCD_XT/?img_index=1
This is going to flop so badly and kill the Energonverse. Nigger Tracker was the first major death blow against IDW and this will be history repeating....
>>152566157Yeah, he should have been Native American.
>>152566157Ten gets you twenty Snake Eyes gets made a member of MASK to salvage this farce and low and behold SE also is now the spitting image of the real Matt Tracker (and has a son with a robot scooter) to damage control shit.
>>152565815>>152565978The Energon Universe's strategy is basically to get big name talent (relative to comics)A M.A.S.K. comic by itself has little appealGetting the guy who wrote Dark Patterns gives it more interest
>>152565657Nostalgia fap time.
>>152566183If we are getting Nigger Tracker, then that mean we are never getting Snake Eyes in the Energonverse. Ever. Because Kirkman's BFF and co-architech behind Nigger Tracker was Kirkman's BFF Aubrey Sitterson and he fucking despises Snake Eyes for being a white male
>>152566199Not really since they are aping the IDW rape of MASK and the IDW rape of Vanessa makes her an uppity feminist who's been branded a psychopath because God forbid a woman object to being sexualized by men.
Language aside, the poster saying they are speed running the fall of IDW are correct.
>>152565703>>152565722So its an helicopter but a jet too? What's the point?
>>152565582Only way to salvage this wreck is if they kill Tracker off first issue and put Sly Rax (and not race bend him) in charge of MASK. Sly Rax was the second most popular member of the franchise and given how much people hate Black Matt Tracker, plus the fact that Kirkman set a prescidence via making Baroness a good guy, they MIGHT be able to salvage this mess via having Sly become the face of Image MASK.
>>152565816GI Joe is military. MASK are civilians and specialists in various fields. For example Gloria is a racecar drive, Sato is an electronic engineer, Sector is a zoologist, Buddy is a master of disguise, etc.
>MASKtranny is already hereBTW Snake EYES IS ON THE COMICAnd he is japanese and still the brother of storm shadow, and they been hinting trhat since the scarlet mini
>>152566271She was also a villain in the original cartoon. Don't care, I'm looking at that juicy nipple bulge.
>>152566361>And he is japanese and still the brother of storm shadow, and they been hinting trhat since the scarlet miniProof he's Asian?Honestly the best compromise would be to not show his face at all
>>152565619And he's Black. Because of course he is.
>>152566571>Blonde Batman with Duke Hauser's face without the charisma and a cool gimmickAnd no one misses MASK because of this either.
>>152566326Copter gets you precession jet gets you speed.
>>152566571My interest in this comic went from 100 to 0 real fast.
>>152566704Now looking at her, Arcee Magnus looks like Rule 63 Mega Man X
>>152566584More people like Matt than they do Duke, who is the poochie of the GI Zjoe franchises
>>152566788Lying this hard on the internet and wasting good digits should be a federal crime
>>152565643Street Sharks is a MINI and more well known that MASKThis is fine but an *ongoing* is a bad idea
So, when's Energon Jem showing up?
>>152566917Boom has the license as well as Tiny Horses and Power Rangers
>>152566917Don't count on it, Boom! snapped the Jem and Horse show licenses
So I’m assuming that sooner or later some of the cast of Void Rivals/Pythona/Hot Rod/Springer land on the Visionaries’ planet?
>>152566961Brawn and every dwarf bot eternal hatred over knife eared pieces of shit will begin there.
>>152566975What?
>>152567037Just the running meme that Brawn is now the designated Dwarf of transformers, and sooner or later he will begin hating "elves"
>>152566864Shut up Kirkman.It's common knowledge that GI Joe fans hate Duke. He's always been the Poochie of the Joes and your just pissy Hasbro made you make Scarlett heterosexual instead of a fag like your fag boyfriend Sitterson wanted to.
>>152566584It's the other way around. Matt Tracker is the hot blonde DILF while Duke is basically OG Hawk but lamer and stupider.
>>152567582>>152567604And yet no one buys mask and i visit the joe hellhole and none of them hates duke or flint either
>>152565657This cover is better than anything IDW did with Mask.Well, IDW Miles was pretty entertaining.
I remember getting the MASK comics (in the UK), when they first started.If I remember the order correctly, it was "Battle MASK", originally, or else the obvious 'switch to' series, from when Battle Action Force (UK alternate-history version of G.I.Joe, at least once the Red Shadow era was overturned by the US-inspired reboot) ended...I think I even stuck with MASK comic all the way up to its end (various dual-vehicle splits with 'holographic' driver-counterparts.But my mother was in a habit of giving away all my 'old' comics (MASK, Action Force, the Beezer, etc!) to bring-and-buy/jumble sales, or the like, so no chance of any stash of them being found in any loft-space...Still, good times. Might be interesting to check out this re(re?)boot.
>>152566704Imagine if Ultra Magnus became the new Prime.Ultranus Prime
>>152565619>>152565686>>152565703>>152566571So, is Matt Trakker just no longer allowed to be a white guy in any future reboots ever since IDW race-swapped him back in their version of M.A.S.K.?
>>152567980OG Matt was literally just another batman ripoff down even to he being uber rich, having his alfred and robins.IDW and Energon obviously under Hasbro's order went full Ice Cube in XXX: State of the Union, which isn't bad as a concept idea, but IDW fucked everything hard as they did.Hope that all of the IDW shit is forgotten and Kirkman's team do what they had in mind which seems to be what Hasbro wanted.
>>152568035I wasn't asking whether the concept was good or not. I'm asking whether it's permanent. Is he ever allowed to be a white guy again, or are race-swaps like this a one-way street?
Thank fuck, no more taking up space in Transformers.
>>152568098When they find a way to make him different from Duke maybe.
>>152566361>nip snake eyes>nog trakkerI was right to ignore skybound. Unfortunately tasteless retards will still laud the transformers side of this shitheap as the second coming of christ. I hate being alive long enough to see everything I like go to shit multiple times over.
>>152568893At this rate you are desperate to bait and larp as a /pol/fag, because even they and the glowies would call you a attwhore faggot.
>>152568344so they make him a black Duke. WHADDA FUCKING CONCEPT
>>152568893it never ends
>>152566571Hey isn't that the GI Joe guy? Why's he in two shows?
>>152570817It's okay. they nogged him up now, just like every other character ever
>>152570880Anon I think you need to get your eyes checked because the new one is the only black guy.
>>152567604>>152567582I like duke in energon universe. I like his dynamic with cobra commander a lot.
>>152565582Im gonna say it onceMatt Tracker should be a savant redneck and not a niggaHe drives a flying 3rd gen camaroI cannot imagine a more redneck thing
