In October 2023, Skybound Entertainment’s all-new Transformers #1 sold out at the distributor level before it even hit comic book shops. The commercial and critical acclaim for writer-artist Daniel Warren Johnson’s take on the timeless war between the Autobots and Decepticons proves that the public hasn’t grown tired of Optimus Prime, Megatron, and the rest of their Cybertronian peers.
Courtesy of Skybound Entertainment.
Of course, Transformers wouldn’t be the household name it is today if not for the foundation laid by Takara Tomy, Hasbro, and Marvel Comics in the early 1980s. In 2017, I had the opportunity to interview key Transformers architect Bob Budiansky, who famously edited and then wrote the bulk of Marvel’s series, at New England Super Megafest Comic-Con. Recently, at Rhode Island Comic Con 2023, I was able to do the same with two more essential Constructicons: Jim Salicrup, who scripted Transformers #2 and plotted and scripted Transformers #3 and 4, as well as Christopher Priest, who under the name Jim Owsley, edited Transformers #5-9.
Read on to go behind the scenes of those early days for the robots in disguise, long before they made billions at the box office.
Entering Marvel’s Transformers universe
Jim Salicrup: I was brought in through Bob Budiansky. I was on staff at Marvel as an editor and whenever they asked me to write something, everyone else must have turned it down by that point. I’m clearly not the greatest writer Marvel ever had, and I wasn’t devoted to it full-time — it was something I would have to do after hours or on weekends.
Jim Salicrup at Rhode Island Comic Con 2023.
The first issue was scripted by Ralph Macchio, and I think after just one issue, that was enough for Ralph. I think what happened was Bill Mantlo had plotted the first two issues and he wasn’t able to write through the scripting, but they were already drawn by Frank Springer. They were looking for someone else and Bob had asked me. I thought I was an odd choice because I didn’t drive, and I didn’t know anything about cars and trucks, but he had all this material he had written defining the characters and building their personalities.
Christopher Priest: I was an assistant editor for Larry Hama. We were editing the Conan line of comic books — the Robert E. Howard stuff. And then I got promoted, and usually, the low person on the totem pole gets the licensed books. They get mini-series, castoffs — stuff that nobody else wants. So we had a big editorial meeting and [then Editor-in-Chief] Jim Shooter was trying to reassign the Spider-Man books. Nobody wanted the Spider-Man books, so I ended up being the Spider-Man editor, which was a really bad decision for everyone concerned. But since I was also the new guy, not only did I get Marvel’s signature character, but I also got the Transformers.
Christopher Priest at Rhode Island Comic Con 2023.
Cybertronian exposition
JS: Marvel was going through a strange editorial period where Jim Shooter was trying to elevate the standards — make the writing, storytelling, and art better. And during this one particular phase, he had a very legitimate concern, which was a lot of times, if someone picked up a comic book — X-Men, Spider-Man, or whatever it was — it may have made perfect sense to someone who was reading every issue. But since Marvel was still sold on the newsstand. If a new reader picked up an issue and they’re reading it and characters just walk in, they could easily be confused and not know what’s going on. So he felt it was very important to introduce the characters.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
Now, what would happen is sometimes, like in my case, the issue was already drawn. In those early issues, there would be these double-page spreads of Autobots and Decepticons just standing around talking. It was very unnatural, but there was this sort of editorial edict — you need to introduce all the characters. I can’t have it all redrawn to cleverly introduce each one. So they’re standing around and speaking like, “Hi, I’m Jim Salicrup. I edited the Spider-Man line.”
Spider-Man and Godzilla and U.S. 1, oh my!
JS: Transformers #3 was the issue I got to plot myself — and I would do this a lot of times when I was writing things I wasn’t really aware of as intimately — I would pull in a character that I knew, which was Spider-Man. And if I could throw him into the story, then when he sees the Transformers, his reactions would be the same as mine or the readers’. You know, who’s that guy? What’s this? Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
Now, I’m someone who likes the red-and-blue Spider-Man costume. And here I was suddenly writing the black-and-white costume — and we had to get the OK from Hasbro to use Spider-Man. At the time, Mattel was doing Secret Wars toys, and they had a red-and-blue Spider-Man. Hasbro didn’t want to promote their competitor’s toys. So somehow, Bob must be the best negotiator in the world. He convinced them — “Oh no, this is different, yeah, there’s no black-and-white Spider-Man toy from Mattel.” So we were able to do that.
The reason for Nick Fury was I really liked the issue’s artist Frank Springer. Throughout his career, he did all sorts of things. And one of the more unenviable jobs he had was following Jim Steranko on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I thought, “Oh, the poor guy” — everyone was raving about Steranko and he had to follow that. So I couldn’t resist — I had to put at least one panel where I got Frank Springer to draw Nick Fury and Dum Dum Dugan. And at that point, talk about mixing up continuity… they were regulars in Marvel’s Godzilla comic. So I made a very thinly veiled reference — that giant green lizard or something, since I couldn’t say Godzilla.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
But there’s an even more obscure Marvel character in that issue. Since this was a book with trucks and cars and all that, how could I resist having U.S. 1 appear? I guess that character was Marvel cashing in on the CB radio boom or something. I love doing cameos like that.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
Cover controversy
CP: For Transformers #5, the first issue of the ongoing series, I commissioned a painting from Mark Bright. He’s the guy who painted that cover and most people know him from Power Man and Iron Fist. But he was also a painter for the covers of science-fiction novels. So I commissioned him to paint the cover for this relaunch, and I sketched out this whole idea of Shockwave with the smoking gun, standing by this wall. And I said, “Leave space on the wall so we can carve into it, ‘are all dead.'” So it reads: “The Transformers are all dead.”
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
Mark sent this beautiful cover, and we sent it over to Hasbro, and they rejected it.
Why would they reject this cover? And the notes we got back from Hasbro were, “Well if you say the Transformers are all dead, the kids will stop buying the toys.” That was maybe among the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard from a licensee. I had to explain to this person — who I’m sure was a perfectly nice person — but who knew nothing about comics and probably even less about toys. They won’t stop. They won’t believe the Transformers are all dead. Kids are not that stupid.
And it’s comic books. Even if they were all dead — they’ll be back next issue. I mean, come on, who bought that Superman was dead? The whole backlash about Superman coming back to life was utterly ridiculous. Do you really think DC was going to walk away from Superman? Are you insane? But at any rate, after a few conversations, I managed to talk them into it.
Editing Autobots and Decepticons
JS: It was a little intimidating having Bob as the editor because obviously, he was the one who should be writing the series. But Marvel had a rule back then that if you’re the editor, you can’t give yourself work. So he had to find someone who would do it. Originally, this was a four-issue limited series, and it sold so well that they made it an ongoing series. Bob arranged it so Chris could become the editor and that way they could get rid of me and Bob could take over. It would’ve been a real struggle for me. Bob had his heart in it and was really good at thinking up stories for this kind of thing. Just let Bob write it. It’s the same thing with G.I. Joe — it made sense for Larry Hama to write that and it all worked out. They had to just struggle through some issues by me and then the rest was awesome.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
CP: Nothing’s ever freeing when you’re dealing with a licensed property, because you’re always dealing with a phalanx of people during their approval process. With Transformers, I was like, “OK, what the heck is this?” Hasbro sent over a ton of toys and they were all in this closet. So my assistant and I went to the closet. We’re bringing out all these toys and we’re breaking them out. We’re trying to figure out who’s who and what’s what. Luckily, Bob Budinsky was already up to speed on this stuff. So I was able to have him explain a lot of this to me. And then, of course, Hasbro sent over the Transformers bible, which is like a guidebook with information about characters, and we kind of went from there.
I pretty much let Bob do whatever he wanted to do. I don’t think I was all that much in the mix creatively. I think by the time I got there, there was already a game plan. And I don’t know if that game plan came from Hasbro or from Jim Shooter — it’s hard to say. But I think they already had like, at least the first six issues kind of figured out plot-wise. I told Bob to take it seriously. Let’s approach the material the way we’d approach any other Marvel comic. Let’s not get silly with it just because they happen to be cars that turn into robots.
Courtesy of Marvel Comics.
Silent Cybertronians?
CP: When [director] Michael Bay started making his movies, I was kind of excited until I watched the trailer and heard Optimus Prime speak. That just wrecked it for me. They do speak in the comic books, so they made them speak in the movies. But I thought, how much more terrifying and interesting would it be if they didn’t speak — if they just, I don’t know, gave you some readouts that you could read on your phone. But as soon as I heard, you know, ‘THE GOOFY ROBOT VOICE,’ I went, “OK, time to catch a bus, I’m out of here.”
Enduring popularity
CP: I’m really impressed at the staying power of this franchise. All these years later, not only are the toys still popular, but they’re hard to find — especially the vintage ones. The best of them are nosebleed expensive, if you can even find them. And then they have conventions. That’s so weird to me. Larry Hama invited me to a G.I. Joe convention once. I thought, “You’re kidding, right?” I thought I’d get there and it would be like three or four guys in somebody’s basement. And it was huge. It was just mind-blowingly huge. So, my hat’s off to them. It’s a whole different genre from what they do at Marvel and DC.
Courtesy of Skybound Entertainment.
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