Where should I start reading if I want to get into the Transformers comics?
That's a tricky question; IDW rebooted their comics lin March 2019 so there is one place to start especially if you want to read the current storyline (though to be honest it isn't that good). If you just want to read TF comics there are plenty of choices, there is the Marvel comics of the 80's (especially the UK stories). IDW's previous continuity is also very good; though naturally it does get continuity heavy by the end. Of course there are loads of classic stories you could just read if you want.
Some recommendations:
IDW version 1:
The Death of Optimus Prime #1 (of 1)
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye vols. 1-10
Transformers: Lost Light vols. 1-5
Transformers: Robots in Disguise vols. 1-10 (the series was later re-titled The Transformers)
Optimus Prime vols. 1-5
Dark Cybertron
Chaos Theory
Chaos
All Hail Megatron
The Last Stand of the Wreckers
The Sins of the Wreckers
The Requiem of the Wreckers
Autocracy
Windblade vol. 1
Till All Are One vols 1-2
Megatron Origins
Unicron
Marvel UK:
Man of Iron
Dinobot Hunt
Target: 2006
Fallen Angel
Space Pirates
The Legacy of Unicron
Time Wars
Marvel US:
The Headmasters #1-4
The Transformers #36-80
Generation 2 #1-12
Last edited by Cyberstrike; 11-09-2020 at 09:23 AM.
I would also add Megatron Origins because of that origin story being used or elements from it on the recent TV shows (like Prime, Cyberverse, Prime Wars Trilogy, and The War For Cybertron Trilogy) as well as the brilliant sequel Chaos Theory and following the events of Dark Cybertron and Megatron's role in MTMTE #30 (or there about) all the way to end of Lost Light. It's the start of Megatron's long journey of revolution, corruption, villainy, redemption, and heroism that really remakes Megatron into a complex character that could easily sit next to other complex characters like Lex Luthor and Norman Osborne, but unlike those who always fall back into villainy his redemption story actually sticks.
Unicron the grand finale to IDW Transformers/Hasbro Universe version 1.0. It's epic and it's got a different take on Unicron that I like and the universe goes out with a bang.
Last edited by Cyberstrike; 11-08-2020 at 03:23 PM.
This video offers two main jumping on points for IDW's old continuity.
IDW has recently rebooted their continuity so there's still mostly a ground floor to get on without too much of a backlog. The first stuff's been collected in trades and there's also an anthology-like series called Galaxies.
That was a problem for artists like Alex Miline for a long time in IDW was the colorist either washing his artwork to point of it looking like grey sludge or they would blow it out so brightly it can give you a headache. Fortunately by the time he got MTMTE they got a colorist that got it right.
The worst stories to avoid:
IDW v.1:
The Transformers Spotlight: Arcee #1
The Transformers: Revelation
The Transformers: Maximum Dinobots
The Transformers: Heart of Darkness
Marvel US:
The Transformers #31 (aka "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom")
Marvel UK had several bad stories with some of it being writer Simon Furman's attempts at humor especially during the Earthforce era towards the end of the series with his stories being more stupid than the funny titles he came up with. Also Furman's attempt to explain why Arcee is a female in both Marvel UK and IDW v.1 are stupid, dated, and the IDW one is problematic at the very least, to being transphobic at the very worst but her debut issue and her original origin story by Furman are all kinds of uncomfortable.
The current series, which is very good, is only 25 issues in. I'd recommend the collected volumes. Volume 1 is issues 1-12, while volume two has six issues of the Galaxies series with it's related side-stories, and issues 13-18 of the ongoing. The story reads very well as a long-form, "novel" in comic book form. I'm enjoying it more than pretty much all of IDW's previous Transformers continuity, as good as some of that was.
As far as the previous IDW continuity goes, my enthusiasm for it came and went. It's got some good points and some low points. The worst thing they published was probably that Bumblebee mini-series that ran alongside the Costa ongoing series. Last Stand of the Wreckers was probably the best.
- Furman's era: I still genuinely enjoy these stories, and how the various Spotlight issues fit into the main story he was telling in Infiltration/Escalation/Devastation. He created a new continuity from scratch that was still recognizable as G1, but did a number of different things from previous versions. I hated to see all of this cut short and ended more quickly than planned.
- All Hail Megatron: This got a lot of flak from the readers, but I'll admit to enjoying it, probably because I wasn't reading at first and had to catch up via the collected editions, so the slow pacing wasn't a problem. People complain about the pacing of the current series, but we heard the same complaints with Infiltration and the same complaints with AHM, so it's nothing new.
- The Ongoing Costa-written series: better than I remembered it being, though I have some problems with how both sides seem to just fall apart and stagnate. It doesn't ring true. The Autobot/Decepticon war ends with a whimper during this series, which ramps up at the end leading to the "phase 2" of IDW's previous continuity.
- Robots in Disguise: life on post-war Cybertron. Pretty good for a long time, though my interest dwindled and I stopped reading about the time Optimus annexed Earth. It felt like a very talky book in the end, going over old ground and struggling to come up with conflicts in the post-war landscape, though Combiner Wars was enjoyable.
- More than Meets the Eye: I thought it was the best Transformers series ever... at first. The emphasis on banter over plot and action got old and the never ending dreariness of Cybertron's past burned me out on this series not long after Dark Cybertron. Autobot Megatron was the last straw.
- speaking of Dark Cybertron, when their crossover boils down to "Shockwave tries to kill the universe with magic rocks to power Cybertron forever", someone needed to rethink the plot. I'm not a fan of this storyline.
I never read much of later MTMTE or any of Lost Light or the Optimus Prime series. At some point I may well reevaluate it all, but at this point Furman's stories are my favorite, probably followed by early Phase 2. I like the current reboot better than all of it. I'm enjoying Ruckley's series more than anything Transformers since Dreamwave.
Speaking of Dreamwave it would be nice if IDW could reprint those and/or the Devils Due runs in nice OHC.
At one point I wished they would do the Marvel run like they started with GI Joe. Then they stopped at vol.9
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" - Optimus Prime