How to deform multiple mesh objects with one manipulator? Simply put:

I'd like to be able to manipulate the shape of more than one side by side object at a time. Like a rubicks cube reshape all the cubes with one manipulator.

Thank you

Further discribed:

How can I take two objects side by side and reshape them together (one or both), as they reshape together their borders are kept side by side.
So the end result is still two objects side by side but now they are both or one have a different shape.
You should be able to do this with an armature.

Here a simple Rubik's cube like mesh object parented to an armature. 

The second cube is a linked duplicate.



The cube blocks on the face that rotate have been assigned to a vertex group, as we can verify in Weight Paint Mode.



After creating your armature make sure the bone is in the right place and has no rotation issues. You can lock the transforms so it doesn't rotate in undesired ways.



When parenting the cube to the armature Set Parent to "Armature Deform with Empty Groups".



Ensure that the groups and bones have matching names.



Here's the .blend from the screen shots in case I forgot to explain anything: