We've also included a compilation of tweets from Ryall and John Barber, to help navigate this big change in the IDWverse. So fear not, and keep reading!
But IDW editor-in-chief Chris Ryall insists this isn’t a reboot.
“We didn’t want this to be what fans have seen from so many others, which is a reboot or a relaunch where you’re asked to forget about all these characters and stories you’ve been following for years,” Ryall says. “It’s just now everybody will be acknowledging each other in a much greater way than ever before.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did this whole thing come about?
CHRIS RYALL: It happened in a stealthy way. When I was bringing back ROM, the co-writer Christos Gage and I were talking about a nice way to make something big and impactful happen in that issue. So at the end of the issue there’s a big reveal that shows ROM might be a part of a larger universe than fans expected at the start. We were going to stealthily seed things along the way, so that fans would think these guys might exist in ROM’s world and then, in talking about it internally, it just made sense, now that we’re launching Micronauts and ROM, and we’ve already got G.I. Joe and Transformers, and were looking to do M.A.S.K. All these things should exist together. That’s what fans want to see.
When we first launched G.I. Joe, fans asked us, “Are they gonna meet the Transformers?” And every time we’ve added a Hasbro title since then, it’s been the same question. Are the Micronauts gonna meet the Transformers? Is ROM gonna meet the Micronauts?
[...]
What will the event involve?
Revolution is its own thing. It’s a five-part biweekly series that we’re launching in September, and that series will detail the reasons why these characters are all drawn together. It centers around something called Ore 13, which is an unstable version of Energon, the material that gives the Transformers their power and life. There’s a version of that on earth, that has an adverse effect on tech, which adversely affects ROM, and changes the status of him and his villains, the Dire Wraiths. It affects the Micronauts universe in a way they didn’t expect, and then it also gives birth to M.A.S.K., which is a big new title we’re launching out of this.
So that series details the reason for all these characters to be drawn together. Then all the series will be relaunched with new number ones and this new status quo. The plan is to have the characters go back to occupying their own spaces. I don’t want G.I. Joe or Transformers fans to feel like they have to buy every issue of everything we publish now just to get the whole story. If they do, certainly that’s a nice outcome, but I still want them to read a Transformers book and have it feel like a Transformers book. It’s just, now within that universe, ROM is somewhere in the background and may be drawn back in at some point.
Barber:
I'm very excited about Revolution, and it's absolutely not going to scale anything back from what's happened in any Transformers comics.
Revolution will get these comics where I think they always should have been, and since I like where they are already...
...I don't think we'll be losing anything we already like.
Oh--important note, the list of creative teams in the press release is for the Revolution tie-in stories.
Just to make clear--post Revolution, @SaraLePew and @Max_Dunbar will still be there!
Ryall:
How do the other Transformers books play in (MTMTE, TAAO), renumbered? ending? untouched?
We'll get into more specifics soon but some will end and restart differently; TAAO will keep rolling as is.
It won't affect Titan Wars. We've been threading this needle very carefully for some time know, building to this.
MTMTE untouched?
Rather, you can assume that any involvement will make sense to that series and not change what James has built.
OK now I'm panicking. Restarting MTMTE is just about the craziest thing to do to a book with such a hardcore fandom.
I understand the trepidation but we're not abandoning plans, characters or stories. Just moving things forward.
Not a reboot in any way, shape or form, actually. All the stories you read here before still happened.
We'll get into new-title specifics & teams before long. If you like the way things are, you'll be happy. Only moreso
@chris_ryall How will the IDW GI Joe continuity be reconciled with All Hail Megatron's global invasion that killed 15% of all humans?
It will be addressed. We're not scrapping things.
Please wait and see. It makes sense. And everything is always changing, just changing in the right ways here.
Not TAAO [renumbering]. We'll get into specific post-event plans before long. Never a good plan to reveal everything all at once.
I understand people don't want to lose what they like, I get that. But yes, the comic itself will put fears to rest.
He's bigger than most of the buildings, and way, way bigger than Optimus. Talk about a visual perspective nightmare. Also who is that bot in the back on the right? He definitely has TF:Prime Soundwave's head. An enormous not-so-stealthy 
