Well, Void Rivals #16, on the letters page, officially announced an intent from Robert Kirkman and friends to push Hasbro for an Energon Universe TV show. The letters page, "Talk to the Handroid", had them saying this:
"...And having an Energon Hour TV series would be amazing...fingers crossed that Hasbro might see the value in that too."
"Yeah, wouldn't that be the coolest thing ever! Fingers triple crossed."
It's the first time that Kirkman and friends at Skybound have declared an open intention to get an adaptation of the Energon Universe made. While Hasbro normally does not directly adapt the comics, preferring instead to selectively import elements from them into shows and films, here there are a few things that might work in Kirkman's favor.
Transformers itself has been on a major financial downturn since roughly 2014 when Age of Extinction broke $1 billion at the box office like Dark of the Moon did. Since then it's been a continued decrease in theatrical profits, one show bombing after another in numerous markets, and in 2024, the first Transformers movie to definitively lose money at the box office coupled with the complete failure of Transformers Earthspark as a television show.
The potential for G.I. Joe to get a major animated series after a decade drought and its own less-than-well-received movies. G.I. Joe #1 was the best-selling non-Marvel/DC comic of 2024 and the Kickstarter for the hardcovers of Larry Hama's seminal Marvel run pulled down $3,794,167, and while naysayers will argue the latter was mostly fueled by civil service workers and dentists who grew up reading Joe at a local 7-11, the new comic being that successful has shown a public that is willing to engage in Joe stories that embrace the more fantastical elements of the franchise vs. what their detractors fear as a more jingoistic military story (not that Joe was guilty of that in the Hama comics which did a lot to dispel romanticism with the military, but it's an inevitable part of selling soldier toys).
Robert Kirkman, unlike previous writers such as Simon Furman (a work-for-hire turned editor at Marvel who got his big break after G1 the cartoon was canceled and was later invited to write the finale of Beast Wars and X-Men Evolution, as well as consult on the Bay films) and James Roberts (whose books never sold well and these days seems to be persona non grata at Hasbro, not without cause mind you), has a track record of turning successful comic books into successful TV shows, starting with The Walking Dead, Outcast, and now including Invincible. He's done this before and knows how to make adaptation work from page-to-screen. He also has the success to push it with the comics, since we wouldn't be having this conversation if Transformers was doing Lost Light numbers.
So with Kirkman actively pushing for a show now, and Hasbro itself only releasing possibly one more Earthspark special and a Youtube only show, an Energon Universe show may be much more attractive than it was when the initiative started in 2023. Will they do it? Only time will tell.








