Artist's commentary
This is the cover to the TF: Collision Course cancelled series which I was going to be working on. I'm sad the project was cancelled but these things happen. It would have been fun to get to draw all these different characters from different series.
#Transformers #IDW #Hasbro
[https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Collision_Course]
Little is known about the plot of Collision Course: as the miniseries would've seen release in 2022, the final year of IDW's tenure on the Transformers license, it would've presumably acted as a capstone to seventeen years of IDW's Transformers storytelling, crossing over characters from IDW's first and second main continuities as well as Regeneration One and much more. An unproduced cover by Alex Milne depicts characters from these comics, alongside various familiar faces from the original Transformers cartoon, Animated, the "Aligned" continuity, the Beast Wars cartoon, its anime spinoffs, and IDW's 2021 comic reboot, plus a few oddball miniseries like Transformers vs. The Terminator, Hearts of Steel, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe, and even Last Bot Standing. Another proposed cover by Guido Guidi features characters explicitly identified as "Armada Megatron" and "Regeneration One Starscream," an unfinished cover by Andrew Wildman depicts Beast Wars Megatron battling "Generation 1" Grimlock, and a cover by Joana Lafuente of Regeneration One Starscream reaching for a Cybertronian flower, though it's unclear what, if any, role these characters might've played in the overall story. Prominent IDW authors Nick Roche, James Roberts, Brian Ruckley, Simon Furman, Tom Scioli, and others would've collaborated on the overarcing plot, and brainstormed ideas on a video conference call. Preliminary art by Scioli includes a scene where Optimus Prime enters an "Energon Universe", and another that depicts the return of Transformers vs. G.I. Joe Megatron from Dream Valley. One possible plot point would have followed up on the duplicate Lost Light from the final issue of Lost Light.
Collision Course was cut very late in production, enough so that artists had already completed several covers. As late as January 2022, an article reporting on IDW's impending loss of the Transformers license noted that the company had two "event" miniseries set to release after the end of their ongoing Transformers comic—it's unclear whether this refers to Last Bot Standing, Transformers: Shattered Glass II, or possibly Collision Course, although Last Bot Standing is a largely self-contained story ostensibly divorced from any other part of the Transformers multiverse. That same month, a letters page in Beast Wars #12 teased the possibility of a "crossover event" when asked about a potential crossover between the cast of Beast Wars and IDW's 2019 Transformers reboot. Solicits for 2022's Fate of Cybertron, advertised as the grand finale for IDW's aforementioned Transformers reboot, hinted at a potential next installment that never materialized—it's possible that Collision Course would've continued the story in some capacity.
The reasons behind Collision Course's cancellation remain unclear—with only months left on the Transformers license, it may have come down to time concerns, or simply a desire to have both Transformers and Beast Wars end on an organic note instead of forcing them into a contrived crossover scenario. Alternately, it's possible that IDW chose to market Last Bot Standing, written with the intent of acting as the "final Transformers story", as a more subdued response to the end of IDW's Transformers mythos.