Over the years, the appreciation for the 1900s animated series MASK and its delightful toyline has grown by leaps and bounds, and fans of the franchise are now seeing a renaissance for the property. Not only does the series have a brand-new toy line for fans to collect, but MASK also has a new comic series from Skybound and Image Comics, and the best part is that the new series is officially part of the Energon Universe. ComicBook had the chance to speak with MASK series writer Dan Watters and artist Pye Parr all about capturing what fans loved about the original series, weaving the series in with the rest of the Energon Universe, and the larger-than-life characters that make this book work so well.
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The original MASK was very much a product of the ’80s, and that’s part of the fun of the franchise as a whole. The whole vibe of the series is also why Watters was so excited to work on the project in the first place. “So I definitely came to this with a sort of fresher mindset, but I knew it existed, and when Ben Abernathy, our editor, came to me and was like, ‘ Oh, there’s another book we’re looking to do in the Energon Universe, ‘ my brain immediately went ‘Please be MASK.’ And it was because I could just see that there was so much potential there,” Watters said. “So it was sort of something that I was excited to have the excuse to dig into and educate myself on.”
“It’s also about looking at where it was coming from and what was sort of inspiring it to exist in the first place, which is obviously some of the stuff that’s already in the Energon Universe. The G.I. Joes and the Transformers,” Watters said. “I think sort of the Knight Rider of It all, the sort of 80s sports car stuff, it was all kind of there in the franchise. A bunch of mad science and sort of crisis reaction stuff, those kinds of things all felt like they were very in the DNA.”
The MASK Vehicles You Know And Love Are Back In Action (But One Has A New Name)
Now part of the fun with MASK is the decked-out vehicles, including favorites like the Thunderhawk, Rhino, Condor, and the Hurricane. While Parr brought some modern design elements to the vehicles, he also made sure not to lose the essence of what made the vehicles iconic in the first place, which meant skewing closer to the original designs, graphics and all.
“The Thunderhawk, you can’t change too much, but then at the same time I was like, I always thought the spoiler at the back was a bit goofy, so I’ll redesign that too and try to add things that you see on more modern cars and turn them into something that would work. So little fins on the side of the front spoiler, for example, that turn into little wings when it’s flying,” Parr said. “But then I went backwards and forwards on stuff like the graphics as well, which I don’t want the cars to end up looking like something out of the Fast and the Furious with these like ridiculous shiny foil logos, but when I tried taking them off, it lost the essence of what they were. So I’ve kind of leaned into that now and everything’s covered in rainbow stripes.”
The Thunderhawk is one of several vehicles that make their return in the first issue, and one of the biggest vehicles to return is the Switchblade. That said, it actually goes by the Bladejet in the comic, but Parr did confirm it’s the same vehicle.
“I think they’re the same. It’s just that, I don’t know why, I’m assuming Hasbro wasn’t comfortable with the name and just wanted the name change. I don’t know, to be honest, but yes, it’s supposed to be the same thing,” Parr said.
MASK Is Already Having An Impact On The Energon Universe
At the center of this story are two central characters who used to work together in Matt Trakker and Miles Mayhem, but after Mayhem’s betrayal, they are bitter enemies. Both might be rough around the edges, but there’s a big difference between them, as only one of them is full-on crazy.
“Yeah, so there’s a sort of very, very direct grudge and rivalry between these two guys in that Mayhem used to be Trakker’s boss, and Trakker is one of the smartest guys in the Energon Universe,” Watters said. “And Mayhem took credit for a lot of his work at Shadow Watch, which is the secret government organization that’s meant to be sort of building the defense against the, the Transformer invasion they fear could be coming to Earth,” Watters said.
“Mayhem framed Tracker and ran off with a load of stuff, so this grudge is extremely personal for Trakker. He knows that Mayhem is both insane and very dangerous, and so his sort of priority is making sure that no one ends up getting hurt by Mayhem, but also making sure that he can sort of show Mayhem what’s what and show the world what’s what in terms of who’s the best and brightest. Whereas Mayhem thinks he’s going to be the one to save the world and that we should all bow down to him because of him. So they’re two sort of characters that are very ego-driven, but it’s leading them to very different ends,” Watters said.
While Mayhem is the main antagonist, it’s a very different sort of villainy compared to some others in the Energon Universe, as everyone, even his allies, knows that Mayhem isn’t exactly all there. That’s also what makes him vastly different from another key Energon Universe villain. “We wanted to make sure that he felt very different from Cobra Commander, and in the Energon Universe, Cobra Commander is very calculated and sort of playing 5D chess,” Watters said.
“Whereas Mayhem is sort of taking over the board and doing whatever he wants, but somehow his plans keep kind of coming together, and his sort of crazy schemes keep…there’s something to them,” Watters said. “And that’s something that’s really going to get under Matt Tracker’s skin, because Trakker, he’s the thoughtful one. He’s the one who thinks things through from all these angles. So the fact that Mayhem can just sort of be off his rocker and just be like, I’m gonna go over there and do that, and it keeps working, is really gonna frustrate him.”
MASK Is Even More Covert Than Before
While we don’t get to meet the rest of the team in MASK #1, we do get a tease of the team in the final pages, but what stands out is that not only do we not know the team, but neither does Trakker, and that’s going to be a part of the evolving story as we move forward into issue #2.
“It’s quite fun actually, because not only are they being introduced to you, they’re being introduced to each other. So Trakker throws them together, and in issue two, two of the MASK agents, who don’t know each other, end up stuck in a car in a life-threatening situation. So it’s fun,” Parr said.
“The sort of idea was that this is a decentralized network of people that Trakker’s sort of put together, like all around the world, because he doesn’t know where Mayhem’s going to show up, so he’s sort of covering his bases by having people everywhere so they can respond quickly,” Watters said. “But that does mean it’s a bunch of people who don’t know each other.”
“They all know Trakker. Most of them think that he’s an ass, but they know that he’s genuinely one of the smartest guys around. They know that his heart is somewhere close to the right place in terms of, he does want to save people and minimize any harm. So they will begrudgingly follow him to the ends of the earth, but they will let him know how unhappy they are about it for the most part,” Watters said.
Regarding how much MASK will interact with the other Energon Universe books like G.I. Joe and Transformers, Watters teased some big connections, but you still won’t have to read all of the books to know what’s happening in MASK and enjoy the ride.
“As to how much they’re going to sort of tie in and be important for each other, yeah, very much so. Particularly as we sort of get into our second arc, you’re going to see elements from the other books, definitely, and in a big way,” Watters said. “Because again, MASK is, the whole thing that Trakker is doing, what Mayhem is doing, are both responses in the first place to things that have happened in the other books. They are responses to the energy source Energon arriving on Earth and what that has done to technology, and the Transformers arriving on Earth and, you know, smashing up cities. All of this stuff has been happening over the last few years, and MASK is a response to that, so it will continue to respond to it.”
MASK #1 is in comic stores now, and MASK #2 hits comic stores on July 8th, 2026.
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