It's All Fun and Games Until Your Favorite Character Gets (Repeatedly) Screwed... Then It's Just Bullshit

It's not really a newsworthy item by now: IDW has landed the license to publish GI Joe. Now, I'm not really sure how Prime feels about this development (he's been reading the Devil's Due Joe stuff) but I know how I feel about it.

I'm praying to Primus that IDW won't do another Joe/Transformers crossover. Seriously, I've had enough of it. If they don't do a crossover, I'll probably throw a damn party.

Okay, I'll admit that was pretty harsh. But to be fair, I've gotten really cynical when it comes to the idea of crossovers. Remember, I'm a Bumblebee fan and the whole crossover thing hasn't been too kind to him. And that's putting it in the gentlest terms I know.

The first crossover was in the Marvel continuity, since Marvel published both titles. The first issue had members of GI Joe rewarding Bumblebee's sweet and heroic nature (he saved the life of a young boy) by blowing the living shit out of him. Just seeing the cover to the first issue makes me want to puke. (Prime loves to shove that in my face just to be a turd sometimes. He's gotten a few smacks upside the head for it, trust me.) Sure, he got rebuilt as Goldbug but the fact remains that GI Joe nearly killed my favorite Autobot. The seeds of mistrust were planted pretty early, as you can see.

When Dreamwave got the license, back in 2001, they eventually did a crossover as well. Now, I can't really say that Bumblebee was the only one screwed in that universe: everyone except Starscream died. And I mean that, everyone. As to whether or not this would be permanent, we'll never know; Dreamwave went bust shortly after the publication of the first issue of their second volume of the crossover.

Then came Devil's Due. Devil's Due was the one that broke me. Completely and totally broke me.

Now, I enjoyed the first two volumes of the story; it was a damn good read. I actually had some hope that maybe this time, it would be different. Maybe, just maybe, Bumblebee would go through this story arc and everything would be okay.

Not so.

In the third volume of the series, Bumblebee was killed. Not injured and rebuilt, not "cartoon dead", but dead dead. The reason? Well, you can read for yourself:

CNI: Is Bumblebee dead for good, or will he be brought back to life? Maybe even as Goldbug?

Tim: In my mind, Bumblebee has passed on to Spark Heaven. That's one thing I wanted to do in Art of War; show that even for the TFs war has consequences. It always seemed to me that it was too easy for them. Any one of them could easily be brought back to life or rebuilt. That seemed to take away from what made them special...they aren't just mass-produced living toasters. They're individuals, and they have to cherish their lives as much as we do. Who better to portray that point than the Autobot who seemed to get the most joy out of life?

You can read the entire interview here. And I'll restrain myself (for once) and not make a snarky comment.

There was a fourth volume to the series. To this day, I have refused to read it. In fact, I pretty much stay away from comics in general now. Why get so invested in a story when the very reason you read them is taken away?

So IDW, I am begging you: no more Joe/TF crossovers PLEASE. I can't deal with them anymore. I've already seen my favorite character get blown to bits once and die twice. Primus only knows how well I'll handle a fourth go 'round. So let's not have a fourth go 'round, 'kay?

--Weasel, "And people wonder why I'm so damn cynical when it comes to comic books."