Oni Press and the Nacelle Company are kicking off an all-new shared universe this spring with RoboForce, and Screen Rant has an exclusive preview of the first issue. The NacelleVerse brings together beloved toy and animation properties — including Bike Mice From Mars, Sectaurs, Power Lords and The Great Garloo — into one high-octane comics world.
The NacelleVerse officially launched in March with the release of the one-shot NacelleVerse #0 by writer Melissa Flores and artists Rahmat Handoka, Rhoald Marcellius, Diogenes Neves and Francis Portela. RoboForce #1 by Flores (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) and Neves (Realm of X, Suicide Squad) will be the first of a three-issue miniseries. The main cover art is provided by Dustin Weaver, with variant covers by Marco D’Alfonso and Rhoald Marcellius. Check out an exclusive look at the issue.
Inspired by a toy line that launched in the early 1980s, RoboForce focuses on a cutting-edge robot strike force led by Maxx 89. The first issue will be available on April 30.
The preview finds Maxx 89 and his fellow RoboForce members in 2091 Chicago, about a year after they’ve been replaced by a newer model of robot, the Utopia Aegis 101 bots. Readers get to see some of the day-to-day life of the RoboForce robots as they adjust to their new status quo. Maxx is concerned about their creator, Soraya, and the mysterious new project she’s working on. He brings up his concerns with his friend and fellow RoboForce member, Tiltor the Mechanic, over a drink at a robot bar. Before they can really get into it, though, they find themselves embroiled in a bar fight started by RoboForce member De-Note the Cruel.
This preview only gives readers a little tease of the action they can expect to find in the new series. The story will reveal that a rival company steals Soraya’s newest invention in an act of corporate warfare. This leads Maxx and De-Note (known as Detonator in the original toy line) to team up and get it back.
“We’re going on a heist!” Flores said in a press release. “This miniseries will dive deeper into Maxx 89 and Detonator’s complicated relationship, showing us their true motivations and state of mind as they figure out their place in futuristic Chicago.”
The RoboForce comic miniseries will serve as a prequel to an all-new animated series co-produced by Brian Volk-Weiss, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia, and Seven Bucks Entertainment. It will be part of an interconnected slate of animated series being launched, with different titles focused on the various properties in the NacelleVerse. This will serve as something of a second chance for the RoboForce franchise, which was created by the Ideal Toy Company in 1984. The original toy line did not quite take off the way that Ideal imagined it would. Part of that was due to the design of the toys, which lacked legs and instead had suction cups. But the real death blow was Hasbro announcing the Transformers line of toys very shortly after Ideal Toy Company launched RoboForce.
With an updated origin and more defined personalities for its characters, the franchise has received a full upgrade and is ready for a fresh start. Oni Press and the Nacelle Company are showing their full confidence in the new and improved RoboForce by using it to launch their all-new shared universe.