[DESTRO]

UNIT-E NYCC 2011 EXCLUSIVE COMIC HASBRO UNIVERSE ISSUE 0?
UNIT-E NYCC 2011 EXCLUSIVE COMIC HASBRO UNIVERSE ISSUE 0?

If you get excited about anything that went on at NYCC 2011 this should be it! Get a copy while you still can, very limited print and your going to want to pay attention to this in the future.

If you have read the comic, and want to add onto the story post away. This is going to be EPIC!

Battleship Galaxies looks like Robotech and Battlestar Galactica in one brand.

M.A.S.K. is a reboot, looks like they are trying to merge C.O.P.S. with Classic M.A.S.K. looks good.

Action-Man reminds me of the Punisher

UNIT-E looks to be some sort of M.I.B. space agency with advanced tech. No real images shown.

Stretch Armstrong is very X-Men like.

Primordia is InHumanoids.

G1 Transformers

G.I. Joe

One panel looks like it could be Dino Riders.

Centurions

Micronauts

[Darkspeed]

Okay, this is exciting... If even half of these get made into toylines, then it will be a good (But expensive) time!

The reboot of MASK sounds really interesting enough, and the designs look really nice. I always thought Action Man was cool, so will be good to see what they do with this. And I hope your hunch about Dino Riders is correct, 'cus that was one of my favourite lines as a kid!

Any chance of posting up a quick synopsis of the revamped lines?

[boombatty]

If MASK & COPS came out at 3.75" I'd buy all of both of them.

As for the reboot, my goodness the MASK pics look awesome. Like a Police version of GI Joe (like COPS was).

[DESTRO]

CREDIT ZacWilliam of HISSTANK.COM
Unit-e nycc 2011 exclusive comic hasbro universe - HissTank.com - G.I. Joe

Anyway, here's my review I typed up for elsewhere...

So since this is definately public now...

HasLabs Crossover Comic Review

First up, despite what many kinda assumed because of its placement on the top of the cover, Unit:E doesn't seem to be the name of this Comic crossover. It’s seems to be just another one of the properties crossing over inside whose logo happens to be placed near the top of the cover. So, cover promises Unit:E, Candyland, Stretch Armstrong, Battleship Galaxies, Primordia, The Action Man, Jem, MASK, and most especially Micronauts. That's definaely an unprecidented crossover. The inside of the cover tells us this is a HASLAB presentation, the comic is written by Andy Schmidt (I know) and drawn by more names than I have any interest in typing.

Review:

Now. A spaceship. Unseen figures discuss someone waking up. The figure almost immediately flashes back to being a boy with his elderly father in helmetless Acroyear armor telling him that it is “time.” In the present the young man with the cyborg arm greats Biotron from Micronauts and a hologram woman who we learn via flashback is Synergy (originally from Jem, now apparently moonlighting as Cortana) a trusted ally given to him by his father. They are under attack. They don’t answer his question about who is attacking, but reveal that they are taking him to Earth to find teammates with a unique noble spirit. Apparently we have a lot of this on Earth so here they are. They pull a Han Solo in an asteroid field to lose the attackers. (And we see that it looks like there’s a giant Biotron making up the bottom of the ship. I don’t know Micronauts, is that normal? He’s definitely mentally linked to the ship here.) Syn shows him shots of his prospective allies in a big spread: All the properties on the cover + Transformers + G.I. Joe + Drizit. I actually forgot Hasbro owned DnD for a second and that surprised me, then I remembered and wished again they’d use some real synergy and do a DnD toyline and cartoon for kids again.

Anyway, now we do focus pages on each property as they are detailed for the young Acroyear. First up is a two page spread of Stretch Armstrong reimagined as a sort of young, tech augmented, Reed Richards, and the first Superhero on this version of Earth. He trains and leads a team of heroes known as the Flex Fighters.

Next up is MASK. They kept the name, the name Matt Trakker, the transforming vehicles and the masks but the story seems to be totally different. It’s an urban dystopia future Detroit abandoned by the government, with social services shut down. Police officer Matt Trakker and his 4 civil servant friends found an ancient cache from some group called “the League of Ancient Wheelmen” and are using that tech to augment themselves and their vehicles and fight for their disintegrating city. Reading it now, it’s not a bad set up for a toyline/comicbook adventure really, but I was thrown on my first read by just how different it is from Classic MASK. Like the art on the characters a lot here definately.

Next is JEM. Nice art here too. This seems to be Jerrica just before becoming JEM, (Which makes sense as she needs Synergy for that.) Synergy expresses special protectiveness towards Jerrica and says that even without powers she has a great destiny composing the “music of the spheres.” (Seriously. I wonder if that was speaking figuratively or if JEM’s music will really have Bill and Ted/Lynn Minme power…)

Next is Action Man. I know little of him but it’s a nice set up. A legacy of Heroes who pass on their memories and abilities, the last one having gone bad and become a villain, the new one fights against him. I also like that this is the first of the Good guys that young Acroyear likes at least somewhat.

Now, Battleship Galaxies. Set in a possible future from the “Now” the heroes of the ISN Everest fight against a bunch of supervillian names in a war they should not be able to win. Is this a game? Is there a Sci Fi Battleship variant?

And then she reminds him of his own history as an excuse for an admittedly fairly awesome Micronauts two page spread. Micronauts was before my time really, but I have to say these look awesome, and I would totally buy a toyline that looked this cool.

Now comes Unite:E they’re a group of “Challengers of the Unknown” and investigators of the eerie who operate from a space station called Skybolt outside of reality to protect reality. All we get to see are silhouettes and a shot of the space station. Interesting concept. Looks like it would be more cartoon than toyline oriented from what little we see here, but who knows…

Heh… and here’s Candyland. Acro Jr rightly laughs, but Synergy says that though the Fairies may look silly or childish, they can be powerful and dangerous when they choose to cross over to our plain of reality. It’s about as well as you could link Candyland to these more serious older properties.

And lastly we have Primordia… giant Kaiju meets Inhumanoids-ish monsters in a city. Only one of them can speak apparently, they have some vastly developed beast instinct that makes them dangerous, they are mysterious and they may be allies or enemies. It’s hard to say what this is with the little info we get, all I know is I really wish it were Metlar, Tendrill, and Decompose on these pages.

The kid doubts any of these earth heroes have the power or ability to help him defeat Baron Karza, but then remembers what his father said as he granted him the armor and named him the new Acroyear and suddenly the armor is on him as he decides that they will make it work and that he has heroes to gather!

Lastly we get an explanation from Andy that this isn’t meant to set any status quo for these properties but is a fun “What-IF love letter” to the properties and the brands. He wants to know if folks liked it, cause if they did they might do more or more like it. (He also mentions that other properties like Centurions are Easter Egged inside. Didn’t know Hasbro owned them, and regardless I couldn’t find that one. Can anyone help me out there?)

Overall thoughts… I liked this. It definitely reads better when it’s not 1am (as when I first read it). Nice art (very nice in some spots) and cute crossover concepts. It is all basically set up for the idea of a crossover though. I’d love if this was something Hasbro did more issues of as I’d really like to see the story actually get to the crossover part of the story. Then there’d also be room to really get to know the properties and how they interact AND to work in Inhumanoids and Visionaries darn it! So overall? It’s a fun little what if lark if you’re a fan of these properties, but I wish we were maybe really getting this story, rather than just imagining the possibility of it, y’know.


-ZacWilliam, I’d definitely snag a physical copy if I ever get the chance, just as a curiosity if nothing else. But I hope they do more. It's just too geeky not to love...

[Darkspeed]

Many thanks for the review, DESTRO! The majority of the series sound really good (MASK, Action Man, Primordia) and would love to see more of them in the future.

I can especially see why they went in the different direction for MASK, rather than have another army line like GI Joe, and Action Man and Stretch Armstrong sound like fun little franchises now. Can't really comment on JEM and Candyland, but Primordia could be interesting. And of course, can't go wrong with Micronauts! ^^

[r3v3n63]

This has a TON of possibilities and while I'm not a fan of the idea of creating a unified background behind every Hasbro product there are plenty of excellent crossover opportunities with the toy lines. For a long time fans have wanted a GI Joe / Transformers crossover and I've been kinda perplexed as t why Hasbro has not taken advantage of that. We got a Matt Tracker figure with the Joe 25th which I thought was a totally cool idea. Certain lines have a real synergy and I think stuff like GI Joe, Transformers, M.A.S.K. even Centurions could have a story revamp to tie it all in. The idea that Joe and the Autobots have an uneasy alliance has already been explored but the possible idea that Matt Tracker and his crew have such a high level of tech due to retro-engineering Cybertronian tech has not (as far as I know) Imagine a specialist covert human response team designed to hunt down both Decpticons and Venom, a splinter faction of Cobra? That sounds intriguing to me.
One of the things that excites me the most of this is Hasbro paying attention to the Micronauts once more, I'm old enough to remember these guys and love them as a kid, the idea of being able to take apart your toys and reassemble them into something different was such a cool idea to me. I thought it was great back in the 70's but with the tech and production we have now just imagine how far Hasbro could take it. Getting to see a revamp of Barron Karza (one of my all time favorite villains) is going to be soooooo awesome! That is, if they do it.
If something like this is ever done and if somebody in Hasbro is listening to my drivel I have one request to consider: Pick a scale and stick with it! I understand why stuff like MASK and Transformers and Joes are in different scales but I also see a completely missed opportunity by not making them the same scale. I know I would have enjoyed MASK far more if I was able to fit Joe figures behind the wheel, and there are so few Transformers in 1:18th scale that it kinda boggles the mind. I wonder if sales for the DOTM Human Alliance vehicles would have been better if they just made them big enough for 4" figures? Instead of looking at each line as an individual business venture start looking at them as a whole and how you could increase sales by just making the toys in a unified scale to promote possible cross over sales. Just an idea.
Destro; you said that you were unfamiliar with Micronauts and if Biotron being part of the ship was normal? From what I remember of the comic this was not. You might be interested to know that the Micronauts was the name for the American release of the Takara Microman line. The general idea is that a team of heroes from another dimension follow their adversaries, the Acroyears, into our dimension. Apparently there is a crazy size difference between the respective species and the trans dimensional warriors are only about 3 3/4" tall over here. So the idea for the kids was that they were playing with 1:1 scale alien invaders who have now turned their living room into a war zone to continue their conflict. Something else you may or may not know is that some of the G1 Transformers, like Megatron and Soundwave were taken from the Microman line.

[DESTRO]

So if Hasbro were to do a Toy Line for UNIT-E or Hasbro Universe, what would your Wave 1 Figure Assortment be?

• LEORIC - Spectral Knights Visionaries
• MATT TRAKKER - M.A.S.K. from the UNIT-E POLICE version.
• ACRO JR. Micronauts.
• BUMBLEBEE Transformers, with that awesome version from the UNIT-E Book
• Kelek Evil Sorcerer Dungeons & Dragons
• Jake Rockwell Centurions

Sound Off!

[r3v3n63]

Since you picked the good guys I'll do the villains;
Micronauts: Baron Karza and one of his Acroyear lackeys
M.A.S.K: Miles Mayhem with Switchblade
Centurions: Doc Terror
Transformers: Rumble and Ravage
D&D: Warduke
Visionaries: Cravex
GI Joe: Cobra Commander and Destro. (I know they have been done to death but if they were re envisioned for this new universe they could really do something unique)
Something else that might be an interesting thing to include is Battle Beasts (which were a Japan Transformers spin off) They could mesh up with the Inhumanoids/Primordia angle.