Is the Hasbro shared universe starting sooner than we thought?

by generalsjoes | Apr 21, 2016 | Comics and Cartoons, G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe Comics, IDW

The stories emerged a while ago that Hasbro was developing their own cinematic shared universe as a way to develop their in house brands and further their entertainment strategy.  In fact, just before Toy Fair 2016, a shareholder presentation revealed this fact, and focused specifically on a potential cinematic universe featuring G.I. Joe, MASK, Visionaries, ROM, and Micronauts.  How these diverse properties will all blend together remains a question, but is it possible that this question may be answered sooner than some of us thought?

If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you’ve likely noticed that IDW Publishing has been promoting something called “Revolution”.  Nobody really seems to know what it’s about, but something is evidently in the works.

Now today, from all over social media, various comic creators, writers, etc… are Tweeting about a creative summit to discuss this “Revolution”.  You can see a collection of these Tweets over at Bleeding Cool.

So, evidently, IDW is doing something interesting in advance of Free Comic Book Day and calling it “Revolution”.  Pretty innocuous, right?

Well, let’s connect some dots.  Not too long ago, IDW was rumored to be working on a MASK Comic Book.  IDW is already working on Micronauts and just recently announced the debut of a new ongoing ROM title.

Do you see where this is going?

Several of the creators traveling to this Revolution creative summit are creators who have been involved in some of these Hasbro properties, or are rumored to be involved.

Along with this, you have the apparent debut of a new Action Man (a European extension of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe), and his appearance is apparently in a Free Comic Book day special featuring ROM (which is happening right around this supposed “Revolution”).

As if this isn’t enough, there have been a swath of exclusive covers revealed, showcasing ROM cavorting with all sorts of different Hasbro themed characters.

So with all of this coming together, it seems possible that this “Revolution” might just feature the seeds of this big Hasbro shared universe.

Now, would Hasbro really utilize the IDW comics to kick off this grand scheme?  Honestly, I’m not convinced of that, but there are certainly a lot of coincidences here that lead me to believe we’ll be seeing some coalescence between brands, and that coalescence may begin with the comic pages before it graces the movie screen.

We’ll have to see what these events might mean for G.I. Joe, whether Real American Hero carries that torch, or if IDW might spin up another solo Joe book.

Or, who knows, I may just be full of complete crap.  As long as I get a cool MASK and Visionaries series to go along with it, I’m okay either way.