“It was really a fun deal, knowing that Bumblebee could no longer speak,” Ryall said. “So we went with it and built the backstory around that. He basically learns to communicate through car radios, playing different songs to transmit his ideas and get his point across. He doesn’t communicate in a speak and spell way or like a news ticker or anything like that.”

Creating Megatron and Cybertron for the comics was especially difficult. How much could IDW show? How accurate could they be to the look in the films while the robots’ movie personas are still under wraps?

“Hasbro really wanted us to make sure everyone looked the same on Cybertron,” Ryall said.

But not everyone looks the same. Megatron has a big part in this story, and he’s shown in robot and spaceship form. And he’s not a whiny bad guy like he was in the ’80s. Like I said earlier, he’s grown up. Now he’s a half-crazy genocidal maniac.

Meanwhile we get to see Bumblebee’s Autobot companions, and some pretty wicked-looking Decepticons, none of which were even main characters. However, it’s pretty tough to keep track of them all on Cybertron. Like Ryall said, they had to be made to look similar.

“Yeah, we really just wanted to confuse as many people as possible,” Ryall joked. “Those Decepticons were just drones, so you can imagine what the real Decepticons are going to look like.”

The series is certainly a great primer for the film, and it takes me back to that first Megatron toy two decades ago.

And, just like other Transformers fans, Ryall can’t wait for the big-screen version to come out this summer, either.

“It’s a Transformers movie,” Ryall said. “I mean, it’s going to be this huge thing. It’s a lot like seeing Jurassic Park when it first came out.”

Next week: Nazis? Zombies? Evil scientists? How about evil Nazi zombie scientists? We’ll take a look at the campy “War of the Undead.” Oh, and there’s a mummy, too! And Hitler!