'Transformers' series to return at IDW

IDW Publishing has confirmed plans to pick up Marvel's popular Transformers series where it left off in 1991.

Transformers #80 marked a rushed end to the popular series, but IDW confirmed at Comic-Con International last weekend that they will revisit the series.

In April, fans launched an online petition seeking the proper conclusion of Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman's crticially acclaimed run.

The petition has garnered almost 3,000 signatures thus far.

IDW will first publish Transformers #80.5 to help both new and old readers catch up, before continuing with Transformers #81 sometime in 2012.

"This has felt like unfinished business since 1991, when Marvel cancelled their Transformers series with #80," Furman told Newsarama.

"In the aftermath of the cataclysmic battle against Unicron in issue #75, we seeded numerous storylines that would - optimistically as it turned out - play out over the next ten or more issues," he explained. "Then suddenly it was like, you have two issues to wrap everything up into a neat bow. Wasn't going to happen.

"Even that last issue hinted that the story wasn't over, and that the Decepticon threat was far from over. And now, finally, thanks to IDW, we get to tell those stories - and then some!"

In June IDW teamed up with comiXology to make more than 200 Transformers digital comics available across their Android and Web platforms.