No..... si a mi esta portada me ha dejado alucinado.......pero no ralla ya demasiado rememorar la portada antigua de los comics de marve número cinco de Shokwave......que todos conocemos.....y que a todos nos encanta........pero ha sido tan reversionada por fans.......que me ha impactado verla en esta adaptación......pero en fin.....como he dicho.....molar me mola.....

I recently caught up with Chris Mowry, Graphic Artist with IDW, are chatted about a few things, mainly his work on the upcoming Movie sequel series; "The Reign Of Starscream."

JVR. Firstly, Chris, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to chat.

CM. Hey Josh! No problem at all. I'm just finishing up the trade paperback for "Best of UK: Dinobots." And answering a few questions is the easiest thing I can do.

JVR. So, who is Chris Mowry? What might we know you from?

CM. Chris Mowry is a guy who's been put into a very lucky situation. Doing something he's wanted to do, with a franchise he never thought he'd get to be a part of. People might know me from the usual
lettering chores at IDW (chores shared with Robbie Robbins, Neil Uyetake, and Amauri Osorio, of course), along with the larger format books that I worked on (TF: Premiere Edition and "Best of" books to be exact). Before that, I worked in the video game industry for Midway and Sega for way too many years. I might have talked with some of you at Botcon last year. Oh, and strangely enough, I share the same birthday as the late, great, Chris Latta.

JVR. What's the main draw of Transformers for you?

CM. Sounds incredibly simple and stupid, but the fact that they change forms. Let me correct that—giant robots that change forms. I've been a fan of giant monsters and robots since I was a kid, and when the
whole fad of mode-changing robots came to be, I was lucky enough to be there on the frontline, and at the right "developmental" (or is it obsessive?) stage for them to warp my mind. I couldn't get enough of them. My first one was Trailbreaker, and my latest is my Masterpiece Megatron (un-modded, of course) that my girlfriend bought me for a "congrats" for "Reign of Starscream."

JVR. Originally, "The Reign of Starscream" was called "The Search for Starscream." Why the name change?

CM. This all had to do with the plot and the fact that we're focusing on Starscream. Originally, when Ryall asked if I'd like to co-write the story with him, and after I got strange looks from co-workers for asking them to "pinch me" ("Airplane" reference, sorry), we started talking more about who and what would be going on in the story. The first thing we thought of was that we've got a character that is kicking robot tail all over the place, and people are searching for him. But the reader knows where he's at, so it kind of contradicted what we were using for the title. So now, we've got a new story (this is the fourth revision) and he's definitely living up to the "reign" in the title. Like we've been saying with the stories this year, the forecast is both "Hail" and "Reign."

JVR. There seems to some feeling amongst the fandom, that this will be a "throwaway" story, being either ignored or contradicted by "Transformers 2." Are their fears unfounded? Is there something you've done to avoid this?

CM. I think the fears are absolutely founded, but we never set out to just fill in some space between the two films. As it stands now, we're on our fourth revision. The first one took place immediately after the film and used nearly every character we could think of. We tried very hard to anticipate what characters would be in the sequel and to try to provide our input on how some of them might be here and not need such elaborate introductions in the sequel. That idea is, pun intended, extinct now. The second revision had to do with feedback we received from Hasbro and we pulled it back a lot. The story changed, and we started to put pen to paper again. Things changed again, and a few characters were dropped (or re-submerged if you will) once more. The third revision was what I feel was the one closest to what a movie sequel would be and we actually had Alex doing some absolutely BEAUTIFUL designs on the cast. We had very plausible ideas and origins for these characters, but alas, we had to make changes and tweak the story with an entirely new cast. Hopefully one day we can share those original proposals!

But while there were a lot of revisions and (in my case) fanboy dreams destroyed (or devastated), we still wanted to do a story that we felt was solid and true to the movie universe, at least as far as IDW has been involved with. So as it stands now, we've never seen or heard anything about what the sequel holds (save for a certain character that we won't disclose), nor have we seen any leaked script treatment. We're just trying to tell a story which takes place around the first movie and leads up to the sequel. We've tried to keep it as open as possible to allow basically anything to happen. We're also not focusing on Earth in this story. We'll be there, sure, but we're going to Cybertron and even to a certain planet in our solar system. So, we've always thought of the sequel while doing the story, but we've basically been flying blind if you will. But the story is going to be a lot of fun and I think will have its own place in the movie universe.

JVR. How much input /say have Hasbro had with the story?

CM. Hasbro has been with us every step of the way. From approvals to <sob> rejections, they've been there. They're a great group to work with, as well. Richard Zambrano has been very helpful in letting Ryall and I know which characters we can use and supporting the project from the beginning.

JVR. What can people expect from "RoS?"

CM. We'll see Starscream as he should have been in the movie. Seriously, I mean, he's got two lines in the film!? What's that all about? What we wanted to do was give arguably the toughest character in the film (c'mon, he took on Ratchet AND Ironhide point-blank!) some situations where he could really step it up and when he does, look out. Just think of the ferocity you saw him with at the end of the film, and match that with a contriving mind (he's smart! he's smart!). Now throw in a dash of madness, and you've got our Starscream.

So what we did for the first issue, was really just go back and reflect on things either glanced over or not explained, and explain them through Starscream's point of view. How the Autobots got to Earth, how did the Decepticons follow them, how did Starscream fail Megatron the FIRST time? Those kinds of things we're trying to explain in our way, through his words. Also, we're referencing the Prequel books (make sure you read the Target exclusive version!) as well. So while some may think that the first issue is nothing but a rehash of what we've already seen, it's not. It's merely a pathway leading into the story. Oh and it's not a total retelling, I'll promise you this for the first book:

- Characters that were not seen in the movie
- Characters that should have been seen in the movie (in our opinion)
- Quite a few easter eggs

JVR. How about a little word association?

CM. Sure, why not?

STARSCREAM - Misguided

MEGATRON - Demon

OPTIMUS PRIME - Confusing

CYBERTRON - Doomed

EARTH - Secrets

ALLSPARK - Cursed

RYALL - Busy

MOWRY - Excited

JVR. And finally, any last words for the fans?

CM. I really hope everyone enjoys the story. It's taken a long time for us to get this far, and we're really doing it for you. There were times when we thought of maybe not doing the series, or doing it just as a one-shot, but the fans have been asking for something like this and we're glad to finally see it materialize. It's set to be five issues of action, treachery, evil, action, robots fighting robots, action, and did I say action? Alex and Josh's artwork is simply amazing. They've really been putting forth a huge effort, and I think we can all agree that it shows. I'd also like to thank everyone that's been supporting IDW's efforts with the Transformers franchise as a whole. From the wonderful Mosaics pieces, to the strong (yet constructive) criticism when mistakes are made, the passion and excitement that you folks show makes it a great thing to be a part of this whole project. Oh, and a huge thank you to Ryall for asking me to do this in the first place!

Chris Mowry was also kind enough to share another preview of "The Reign of Starscream."




"The Reign of Starscream" begins in April, written by Chris Mowry & Chris Ryall, with art by Alex Milne & Josh Perez.