Will Kirkman Have Animated Series Update at SDCC?

Posted in: Comics, Conventions, Events, Pop Culture, san diego comic con, streaming, TV | Tagged: Energon Universe, gi joe, sdcc, transformers

Skybound Entertainment’s Robert Kirkman has a session set for SDCC. Could that include an update on the Energon Universe animated series?

It was back in October 2025 when the news first hit that Robert Kirkman‘s (The Walking Dead, Invincible) Skybound Entertainment and Hasbro Entertainment were teaming up for an adult animated series adaptation of Kirkman’s comic book series Energon Universe. The news came less than five years after Kirkman acquired the comic book rights to G.I. Joe and Transformers from Hasbro, with the comic book series bringing together the worlds of G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Void Rivals (co-created by Robert Kirkman and Lorenzo De Felici). Lucifer showrunner Joe Henderson (White Collar, Almost Human) has been tapped to pen the adaptation and serve as showrunner, with the series expected to be taken out to buyers soon.

Nine months later, and with San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) now only days away, could we be looking at an update from Kirkman on how things are progressing? With Comic-Con International going live with this year’s schedule, we see that there’s a “Robert Kirkman Live!” session set for Thursday, July 23rd (1-2 pm PT/Room 6BCF). Giving us more hope is the official overview that was released: “The biggest Robert Kirkman panel yet. From Invincible to the newest superhero series Terminal, to Void Rivals and an expanding vision for Transformers in Skybound and Hasbro’s Energon Universe, Robert Kirkman pulls back the curtain on it all. Behind-the-scenes stories, exclusive reveals, and surprises are part of the program.”

Launching in June 2023 with Void Rivals, the stage was set for where things were headed when the Transformers character Jetfire appeared at the end for a great, jaw-dropping moment. Four months later, Transformers and four G.I. Joe character-focused miniseries were released to further lay the foundation for the universe. That would blow up in a very big (and successful) way in November 2024, with Transformers #1, G.I. Joe #1, and Void Rivals #1 leading the way. Since that time, M.A.S.K. has been integrated into the universe, with a new comic book series from writer Dan Watters, artist Pye Parr, and colorist Pierluigi Casolino.

“I wanted to kind of find a new way into these series. I wanted to kind of, you know, do Transformers and G.I. Joe in a way that would be the most exciting. And I think that doing it in a shared universe with cohesive entanglements that enrich every series, enriching… enrich every series? Who cares. (laughter) So, I thought that would be like the coolest way to do it. And the way to get to that would be to do a stealth launch of a new book, which became Void Rivals,” Kirkman shared during an interview at NYCC 2024, when discussing how Void Rivals came into play as a way of connecting Transformers and G.I. Joe.

Kirkman continued, “And then Transformers just shows up, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, like, if I was ever reading a book by, like, Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, and The Transformer showed up, I’d lose my mind. It’d be amazing. And so, that was the initial idea. And to make that possible, it was kind of like how can Lorenzo de Felici, the co-creator, and I backwards-engineer an 80s toy property that never existed that can stand next to Transformers and G.I. Joe and feel like it fits. And so, you know, from that kind of nugget, it was like, okay, well, it’s Faction A versus Faction B, and they both have different things that they’re trying to accomplish. Then it’s the Agorrians and the Zertonins, and how do we do something that’s original but definitely feels in the wheelhouse of Transformers and G.I. Joe.  And from there we were off to the races.”

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!