Skybound spent Friday’s Vision for the Future panel launching Skybound Visions, an imprint of standalone miniseries that owe the Energon Universe nothing. Saturday was the other panel, Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard on stage in North-Room 406.2 for Transformers & G.I. Joe: What’s Next for the Energon Universe?, and the pitch ran the other way. Here is everything the ongoing book has been quietly setting up, and here is when it lands.
The first of the three carried a spoiler warning. Publishers do not usually put one on their own announcement, and then Skybound went and answered the question the book has been holding since Megatron sealed himself away. Who or what has emerged from Megatron’s cocoon? The publisher’s own copy follows that with “Sorry, Autobots. You’re not gonna like it.” He comes out as Megatronus Rex, in Transformers #38, on sale November 11, from Kirkman, Jason Howard, colourist Mike Spicer and letterer Rus Wooton.
Howard designed him as well as drawing the issue, and Skybound put the design sheet out with the announcement rather than holding it for the issue. The sheet is up top. Black, charcoal and a purple that crackles off the fists; six-tube launcher blocks sitting on each shoulder like pauldrons; tank treads running down the shins in robot mode. The alt mode is a tank with the barrel laid flat along the hull. There is a long rifle standing beside the figure and a separate study of a rotary cannon, and the loose pencil at the top right is the same body drawn rough with an enormous purple blade coming off the arm.
None of it is a new title
All three of Saturday’s dates belong to the ongoing book.
Transformers #40, January 13, is the one nobody would have picked. Howard Porter joins Kirkman, Spicer and Wooton, and the issue is a Beachcomber story. Optimus sends him out to find Autobot reinforcements, and Skybound’s copy asks who is out there and whether they want to be found. Beachcomber is a geologist minibot whose defining trait in 1985 was that he did not want to fight, so Optimus has sent the one Autobot who would rather be looking at rocks to go and recruit an army.
Then March 10, and Transformers #42, and the line Skybound chose to announce it with was “Me Grimlock make most anticipated Energon Universe comics debut.” The Dinobots arrive, drawn by Dan Mora, with Kirkman writing, Spicer colouring and Wooton lettering. Mora drew the relaunch at issue 25 [1].
From the artwork Skybound used to announce the Dinobots. The same art is cover A of issue 42, by Jason Howard.
Both issues came with their cover rosters, which TFW2005’s write-ups do not carry. Jason Howard has the A cover on each, Daniel Warren Johnson and Spicer have the B, and #38 also gets a full-art foil variant from Howard [2].
What you can buy now
Nothing from Saturday is orderable online yet; these are solicitations, so the route is a standing order at a shop, and #38 closes for orders well before November 11. Both issues carry $3.99 US in the Image corner box beside the issue number, which we read off the cover art because none of the write-ups gives a price. What is in a cart today is the run behind it. BigBadToyStore has Transformers Volume 5: Generation One in stock at $16.99, the furthest the paperback collections have got, and the oversized Deluxe Edition Book 02 at $49.99. Volume 6, Decepticons Attack!, is waitlist only at $16.99 [3].
For anyone reading the collections rather than the issues, the cocoon pays off in a month and the trade that covers it will not exist until well into next year. If you want to read it the week it happens, November 11 is a floppy or nothing, and Grimlock is a five-month wait either way. Megatron has four weeks.
The rest of the show is on our NYCC 2026 hub, and the Hasbro side of the convention is in our panel roundup from October 4.
Sources: Skybound Entertainment’s own announcement posts, October 10, 2026, for Transformers 38, Transformers 40 and Transformers 42; TFW2005, Preview of Issue 38, January 2027 solicitations and March 2027 solicitations. Character design and cover art: Jason Howard, Skybound Entertainment and Image Comics.
[1] Saturday’s other Energon Universe date is Void Rivals #40 on March 24, where Ultum faces Lobotomaxx. Kirkman wrote the solicitation himself and signed it: “If you don’t want to read this comic, I don’t want to be your friend. This is Robert Kirkman writing this. And I mean it.”
[2] The full rosters Skybound showed. Issue 38: A by Jason Howard, B by Daniel Warren Johnson and Mike Spicer, C by David Nakayama, D at 1:25 by Nick Bradshaw and Jim Charalampidis, E at 1:50 by Valerio Schiti and Neeraj Menon, F a full-art foil variant by Howard. Issue 42: A by Howard, B by Johnson and Spicer, D at 1:25 by Jorge Corona and Spicer. Covers C and E were not shown for issue 42. The $3.99 is printed on covers A, C and D of issue 38 and on cover A of issue 42.
[3] Prices and stock read first hand off BigBadToyStore’s own listings on October 10, 2026.