An iconic Nova Scotia landmark will set the stage for an epic battle between Autobots and Decepticons next Wednesday — at least, on the cover of a Transfomers comic book.

Issue number 45 of Transformers: More than Meets the Eye will feature battling Transformers at historic Peggys Cove and will be exclusively available Sept. 30 at Giant Robot Comics in Dartmouth.

The store's owner, Darryl Wall, says it's the third year in a row their store has sold an exclusive Transformers comic with a custom Nova Scotia cover.

"The comic itself is the same throughout the world. But our cover is made especially just for our store. Every year, we try to pick a different landmark in Nova Scotia, preferably in Halifax, Dartmouth area," Wall said.

Custom cover art designed for specific stores is part of a program through the comic's publisher, IDW Publishing.

"Sometimes, people just get their favourite characters. Some other stores will do something for a convention or something and ever since we started it three years ago, we wanted to highlight our hometown and show our pride of Nova Scotia."

Comic book artist Casey Coller, who lives in Massachusetts, has drawn each cover for Giant Robot Comics.

Wall said their first custom cover issue was Transformers: Regeneration One, which featured "the evil Decepticons in front of Citadel Hill."

The second was designed for Transformers: Robots in Disguise, issue no. 33, and "it was the heroic Autobots in front of the Macdonald Bridge."

Wall said that Peggys Cove only appears on the cover in this particular issue and isn't featured as a location in the story.

Spreading provincial pride

The special issues are only available for purchase through their store, Wall said. But that doesn't mean locals are the only ones buying them.

"We do sell a lot of these through the internet to people all around the world. We sell them sometimes through eBay or people will contact us just through email and we'll ship them out," said Wall. "We have one guy in Alaska, every time we do a cover, we generally send him out five to 10 copies."

Peggys Cove was chosen, Wall says, because of its international recognizability.

"There's been so many people, especially with the cruise ship industry bringing people there, I think we'll feel a huge surge for this issue."

Wall says he hopes to branch out the Nova Scotia covers to other comics next year, including he says, Jem and the Holograms.

"And I can say that the Misfits are probably going to be visiting some spot in Nova Scotia."