Hasbro Designer Breaks Down Transformers & Ghostbusters Crossover

The Transformers franchise has sparked some pretty epic crossovers over the past few decades, most recently in a multi-platform mashup with Ghostbusters. In addition to a comic miniseries, Hasbro has launched some unique toys through the partnership, including the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive Ecto-35 toy. ComicBook.com caught up with Hasbro designer John Warden at SDCC last month, where he spoke about the Ecto-35 and the Transformers/Ghostbusters partnership as a whole.

"So at Comic-Con we have a special exclusive," Warden explained in our interview, which you can check out above. "As you might know we're celebrating 35 years of Transformers history. It all started in 1984, which is crazy, right? And ever since then there's been so many different generations of fans that have embraced it, and it's kept going. We had G2, Beast Wars, Armada, and the Unicron trilogy. The awesome movies from Paramount, and now here we are 35 years later."

"And there was also another incredible anniversary 35 years ago, and that was the debut of the original Ghostbusters feature film." Warden continued. "So we've had an incredible partner in Sony, because we know that Ghostbusters fans are as geeked out about their franchise as we are about Transformers. So when we started this mash-up we really had to get all those details right. We worked with them on trying to get all the pieces of the Proton Pack, because guys that are really into Ghostbusters also do like prop belts and stuff like that, so we've gotta make sure that we please those guys as well."

"MP10G is what he's called, and he's our exclusive for this year, one of our exclusives this year." Warden added. "And he actually comes packed out in a backpack, which is crazy, so you can actually wear it around your convention. You don't have to put him in the giant Comic-Con bag, but he's got lots of cool features. It's one of those awesome mash-ups that when you're a kid kinda made sense, and we're finally doing it."

This sentiment can be seen in the Transformers/Ghostbusters comic crossover as well, which marries the two properties together in some zany and fun ways.

"Part of the reason I think they've lasted so long is the foundation: Ghosts are cool. Robots are cool. It's obviously more than that," writer Erik Burnham told ComicBook.com earlier this year. "Ghostbusters explores dealing with the unknown with humor and curiosity. Transformers is (depending on where you look) anything from a straight-up fight of good against evil, to a more nuanced look at disagreements between two groups that come to war (which, no, not the same thing.)"

The first three issues of Transformers/Ghostbusters are available now.