Thanks to zhgiingaah from the IDW forums and Inflatable Dalek from TFArchive
· 'The Thirteen' is his next big thing, after Maximum Dinobots. Shane will be driving the 'here and now' ongoing story forward, while Simon lays the TF historical foundations.
· 'The Thirteen' will feature 4 or 5 characters we've encountered in TF lore already, including Vector Prime, while some others will take elements of character or names from other Transformers. Some new characters also.
· As it is being heavily backed by Hasbro, The Thirteen has to pay due respect to the 'movieverse'. We may be G1 fans first and foremost for the large part round here, but the movie has brought in a lot of brand recognition for Hasbro and they are obviously keen to push this incarnation. Thankfully IDW's output here has been pretty good so far, Reign oF Starscream the highlight for me and the TF:RotF prequel announced at SDCC should be fun.
· What the previous point means is that 'The Thirteen' is indeed going to attempt to make sense of / reference / utilise the Transformers Multiverse. Simon confirmed Vector Prime will be present, who if he is anything like his TF:Cybertron incarnation should help make sense of all those Primes and Matrix's and All Sparks and stuff.
· The Fallen will feature in some way - Whether he is exactly like his DW WWII:TDA incarnation remains to be seen. It is unlikely he will be exactly like Simon's original creation because...
· Though 'not directly confirmed' while Simon was signing a TF Fallen figure, TF: Revenge of The Fallen does indeed feature a character known as 'The Fallen' - it's not just a reference to a reborn Megatron, thus linking the movieverse in to the greater mythology.
· After Maximum: Dinobots, Shane will be driving the story on for the forseeable future - Simon will be enriching the universe with spin-offs perhaps and Spotlights, but post 'The Thirteen' he currently has no plans for the IDWG1verse.
· There isn't much likelihood of any Takara characters being utilised in the current universe - Starsabre, Overlord etc.
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The 13 is "Definitive until something else comes along", which seems fair to me. It will include about four or five pre-existing characters, with The Fallen and Vector Prime being mentioned, and some new characters, some of whom will reuse old names (later in the panel when asked about Japanese characters he mentioned some takara names might be reused, not sure if this is related).
It will tie together various continuities, including the film, mostly though the use of the Fallen.
So it seems McCarthy is now the main TF writer and Furman may be turning up for Spotlights and smaller arcs every now and then. And the recent Bay film would now be part of the TF multiverse thanks to the Fallen. Pity that Furman is no longer the driving force behind the IDWverse mind.
Yaay! ( well, in a way..)
