Satoshi Shiki’s cover for Transformers #39 puts a winged Transformer at the centre of a lightning strike, drawn in white, grey and black, with the greys laid in as screentone [1]. There is no colour on it anywhere, and there is none on the three covers standing beside it.

On Wednesday, together with Image and Hasbro, Skybound announced the first manga variant covers the Energon Universe has ever carried, four of them, spread across the line’s December issues. Shiki, who drew the long Attack on Titan: Before the Fall run, has M.A.S.K. #7, Transformers #39 and Void Rivals #37; Manabu Yashiro, of Tank Chair, has G.I. Joe #29. Executive editor Ben Abernathy is quoted in the release saying, “As a long-term manga reader, I was thrilled to have Japanese legends Satoshi Shiki and Manabu Yashiro join us for some gorgeous covers!”

The only colour surviving on a finished cover sits in the trade dress, where the M.A.S.K. corner box keeps its four character heads in red and blue above artwork that has none of either. Skybound has not commissioned manga-styled covers. It commissioned manga, and nobody coloured it.

The manga variant covers for M.A.S.K. issue 7 and Void Rivals issue 37, both drawn by Satoshi Shiki in black and white with screentone shading

Getting hold of one is the hard part

All four sit in the E slot as 1:50 incentive variants, so a retailer is sent a single copy for every fifty copies of that issue it orders, and the release’s own advice is to preorder at your local shop. For a 1:50 there is no other route, because the alternative is waiting for a copy to surface on the secondary market, months after the issue shipped, at whatever the market has decided it is worth by then. The Upper Deck 40th anniversary card set that went to Target last week was a chase item too, and it at least had a price printed on the box.

The four issues run right across the month. M.A.S.K. #7 arrives on December 2, opening a new arc with Scott Trakker, of all people, in the middle of it. Transformers #39 follows on December 9, with Skybound promising Optimus against a surprising foe, but declining to say which one. G.I. Joe #29 lands on December 16, and of the four covers it is the one carrying information the release does not. Void Rivals #37 closes the month on December 23, beginning a story called Pit of Destruction for Darak and Solila. All four are $3.99.

Manabu Yashiro's manga variant cover for G.I. Joe issue 29, with a logo flag reading Nightforce Part 5 of 5

Yashiro’s G.I. Joe cover is the one worth a second look, and the reason is in the logo flag. It reads NIGHTFORCE PART 5 OF 5, printed in the flag beside the logo. We had not seen a part count attached to that arc before, and Skybound’s copy for the issue promises “the final Night Force fight and the end of G.I. Joe as we know it.” Skybound is selling the issue, of course, but a part number printed on a cover puts an end date on the arc whether the copy oversells it or not, and December 16 is close enough now to plan around [2].

Where to start

If December is where you come in, start with the collections. Transformers Volume 6, Decepticons Attack!, gathers issues #31 to #36 across 128 pages and is open for preorder at BigBadToyStore at $16.99, with an estimated December arrival that puts it on the shelf in the same month as #39. We have followed this line since the Energon Universe became the centre of gravity for Transformers comics, and we keep the run flagged for new readers in the comics section.

Shiki and Yashiro drew these in their own idiom, and the screentone is still there on the printed cover.

[1] Screentone is the adhesive dot-pattern sheet a manga artist lays over inked art to make grey without paint. It is why the shading on all four of these is a texture and not a wash.

[2] The credit blocks printed on the December covers list Tom Reilly on G.I. Joe #29 and Frank Mazzoli on Void Rivals #37, while the announcement’s closing boilerplate names Andrea Milana and Conor Hughes. The boilerplate is describing the ongoing creative teams, not these particular issues.

Sources