Congratulations, guys, on an amazing first year! But before we gush too much about the here and now, let’s start at the beginning… or the end of the previous series, rather. Walk us through the close of the last Transformers ongoing series — essentially, why was it time to end it and launch two new titles in its place?

John Barber: Well, I wasn’t involved yet. I was a freelance writer in New York at the time — I’d just written the Transformers: Dark of the Moon prequels and adaptation for then-Transformers-editor Andy Schmidt. Andy asked me to pitch on a new Transformers series, and showed me a document that James had written, which was an outline for what basically became The Death of Optimus Prime, the debut issue we co-wrote and that spun into the two new ongoing series. It wasn’t until after we started working on those that I wound up getting hired to replace Andy (when he started working at Hasbro) and moving out to San Diego and becoming the Transformers editor at IDW. So I wasn’t there for the decision, but I think the previous series had run for almost three years at that point, and writer Mike Costa was ready to move on. So the idea of winding down the mostly-Earth-based comic and starting up with a new number one and a new creative team and direction made sense. Plus, that ongoing ended with a story called ‘Chaos’ that had two components–one taking place on Earth and one on Cybertron, and they came out biweekly, alternating stories each issue. The success of that suggested there was a market for more Transformers comics, so I think the idea of doing two ongoings came into being.

James Roberts: I don’t have much to add to that, I’m afraid! I remember that a second ongoing had been planned for some time, and that it was going to launch after ‘Chaos’, but it wasn’t until relatively late in the day — perhaps at the point that Mike decided he wanted to move on — that the decision was taken to actually close down his ongoing and launch two new titles, both from issue 1. I think there was even talk about The Death of Optimus Prime being numbered issue 125, and the numbering carrying on from there. A ‘clean’ relaunch was better, in the end.

One Year Later - Interview with IDW RID's Barber and MTMTE's Roberts