YMMV / Hasbro Comic Universe

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Unfortunately, this was the main reason the efforts to expand the larger universe crumbled in short order despite a fair bit of hype. Transformers fans struggle to tolerate token Puny Earthlings in their own stories, much less whole groups being given equal billing. G.I. Joe fans weren't sold on the Denser and Wackier nature of a full-on shared universe, especially when the main Joe book dove headfirst into that tone. And while those two are used to constant reboots and reimaginings, the more obscure franchises like M.A.S.K. or Rom: Spaceknight lacked that history, which made the changes to existing characters and lore less palatable for their followings.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ian "Action Man" Noble is widely considered one of the most likeable and endearing human characters in IDW, thanks to a combination of his genuine good-heartedness, ridiculous antics, and love of bad puns.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Some M.A.S.K. fans are unhappy with some of the changes, particularly Matt Trakker's Race Lift. This is ignoring the fact that the classic Matt Trakker was physically very similar to Duke, which could have caused some confusion had it been kept.
  • Fans of the old Micronauts and Rom: Spaceknight comics might prefer a revival or continuation of the Marvel versions in the Marvel Universe where those stories took place.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Not many people were expecting IDW to give Action Man his own series.
  • As noted above, no one expected the European "knockoff" Cobra Commander, Baron Ironblood, to show up, let alone be a major antagonist for Revolutionaries. For context, Ironblood is from Action Force, the UK counterpart to 80s G.I. Joe; eventually it became G.I. Joe in a "transition", where Ironblood became Cobra Commander. And no one was expecting his true identity to be Joe Colton!
  • G.I. Joe has Skywarp joining the Joe Team. And from hints given by Crystal Ball and the writers, it seems the Inhumanoids are on the way too. At least originally, but Hasbro had copyright issues, so instead the Fatal Fluffies appeared, which was equally unexpected.
  • G.I. Joe Unmasked has the Joes and Matt Trakker running into the Army Ants, characters from a late 80s Hasbro toyline similar in concept to M.U.S.C.L.E. or the Transformers Decoys (small rubber figures that could be collected and were often sold in sets).
  • The end of the First Strike Crisis Crossover has shown the mother of all Unexpected Characters Unicron has awakened.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Darkstorm, the primary antagonist of the Visionaries cartoon, died in the very first issue of Transformers vs. Visionaries.

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