IDW checklist

Galvasean

Hi guys. Bought my first comics (ahem, graphic novels) in months (the joys of being single again heh?) in ages yesterday. So I'm trying to get back up to speed with the IDW Transformers continuity. When last I left The Last Stand of the Wreckers and Bumblebee just finished up and the ongoing continuity had just seen

Menasor defeated and Hot Rodleg it in Ultra Magnus ship

. I see the ongoing continuity has split into 2 separate series now.
So what have I missed and what do I need to read to get back up to speed?

As an aside, I'm beginning to find standalone comics too fiddly now, preferring collections/graphic novels (to the point where I'm seriously considering replacing the comics I already own with their collected alternatives).

constitutionus

all you basicall need is Vol 5 "chaos theory" and Vol 7 "chaos" and your pretty much set.

you dont need "international incident " as it didnt matter and while "revenge of the decepticons" vol 4 shows you how megs gets his new bod its not really essential to the new books that are out.

heart of darkness probably is good to have for "chaos" but TBH its a bit of a **** up that doesnt really work and conflicts wildy in places so i'd only get if if i could get it cheap. its not necessary and only really fills in some backround.

vol 5 is the one you dont want to miss though as its the one with issue 22/23 in it which are two of the best TF books IDW have ever put out . theyre the first work by james by himself for IDW and cover megs and prime in prewar cybertron.

if youve been getting the autrocracy online comic ya need them as it sets the stage for that too.

the rest of that trade (the begining of it TBH) deals with what happens to hotrod from when you've left off reading (bar a bit in "revenge of the decepticons" when he tussels with megs) so it should be just like stepping back in when ya left. it also explains why he's called "rodimus" now instead of hot rod.

only thing left is "police action" which "ties up" the stuff with spike which TBH aint essential at all if you dont give a fig about that plot line. i thought it was alright but i wouldnt kill myself trying to get the book.

hope that helps man.

Galvasean

I picked up and read 'International Incident' (volume 2) and 'Revenge of the Decepticons' (volume 3). I see ublin city Comics have 'Heart of Darkness' (volume 4) so i'll probably pick that up next (I'm a bit of a completest). Didn't see any sign of any volumes after that. I suppose I'll check out Forbidden Planet.

Galvasean

I actually might pick this up too as i'm missing most of it. How much do they go for?

Galvasean

constitutionus wrote: »

heart of darkness probably is good to have for "chaos" but TBH its a bit of a **** up that doesnt really work and conflicts wildy in places so i'd only get if if i could get it cheap. its not necessary and only really fills in some backround.

Bought and read HoD yesterday. It's very poor overall with sloppy artwork, bad writing and an unsatisfying conclusion.

Doctor DooM

Galvasean wrote: »

Bought and read HoD yesterday. It's very poor overall with sloppy artwork, bad writing and an unsatisfying conclusion.

It's one of the worst comics I've ever read. It's really, really bad and was a low point for a low period for IDW's TFs.

Still, in the past

Galvasean

It's weird as it was written by Dan Abnett. Ive read some of his novels and they were very good so was looking forward to seeing what he could bring to the Transformers universe.
Although, he also wrote that Ultramarines movie which is meant to be God-awful.

Doctor DooM

Galvasean wrote: »

It's weird as it was written by Dan Abnett. Ive read some of his novels and they were very good so was looking forward to seeing what he could bring to the Transformers universe.
Although, he also wrote that Ultramarines movie which is meant to be God-awful.

I seem to recall there being some terrible art out there of transformers by Jim Lee. It seems if you don't quite get our beloved source material, it will show

SEEMagazine

I had no idea there was a 40K movie. It looks shocking, but surely a must-see regardless?

I don't get much time for full movies... Lucky if I get 45 minutes to watch tv over the course of a day. I still have Watchmen sitting here since it came out.

And I've promised myself a rewatch of the REAL Transformers Movie before the summer hits and I'll physically be unable to stay indoors (going to hit 40 degrees here).

Galvasean

Picked up the Collection Volume 3 today. I must say I enjoyed the Avengers crossover more than I thought I would.
Hoping to pick up the Drift TPB next. Looks a good story from the preview I read on Amazon and the artwork is great.

edit: I also got my hands on the Ironhide TPB a while ago. That was a pretty decent story overall.

Doctor DooM

I wasn't a massive fan of the Avengers one myself, just felt it was an overall letdown. Also missed a beat by not having Spider-man recognise them


Ironhide is a proper old fashioned rollicking tale though.

Galvasean

Also got all Hail Megatron Volume 3 (contains surprisingly little Megatron).

Galvasean

had me a payday splurge and bought Chaos Theory, Police Action, Chaos and Drift.
I have much reading to do...

Jayd0g

I really enjoyed Drift, you're in for a treat!

Galvasean

Chaos Theory is a very good read ("This is Bob" ), plus the artwork is great.
It was quite cool the way Galvatron was drawn to look so menacing (proper Galvatron!) when viewed from an Autobot POV. I wasn't a fan of Heart of Darkness' wholesome looking woulbe saviour of the universe Galvatron angle.

I also liked Police Action. It was kind of nice to read another 'Robots in Disguise" story as the whole 'galaxy shattering mega-drama!' angle can get a bit heavy if overused. Stories like PA keep things nice and mixed up IMO.

Chaos wasn't great in all honesty. The whole D-Void/Decptigod thing didn't do it for me in all honesty. It's like they really didn't want to include Unicron as it is something of a cliché to have him as the ultimate big bad in Transformers stories... So instead, tehy create anew giant monster attacking Cybertron who might as well be Unicron for all intents and purposes.

They even defeat it the same way

Plus, its design was very VERY lazy:



^^ I mean, honestly, that doesn't look like anything in particular. I could have scribbled out something like that with a leaky pen on a roller coaster.
The artwork of Chaos I'm in two minds about overall. The style does give the story a dark and menacing, hopeless tone, which is good. However, I found it all a little bit distracting as maybe I'm just too used to seeing my robots being all colourful and looking a bit like, well, toys! Sometimes it was hard to tell certain characters apart.

Looking forward to Drift as I read the preview pages on Amazon ages ago and liked what I saw. I really like Matere's intricate 'old skool Cybertronian' art style (some of the highlights of Chaos Theory were the flashback sequences drawn by him). I'm a little tired now so I'll read it at a later date when I can give it the full and proper attention it deserves.

Bring on the RiD and MTMTE paperbacks!

Also, a few queries:
is Autocracy available on TPB?
is Death of Optimus Prime due a reprint at any point?

I'm quite close to having the full IDWverse story in my possession and the completest in me won't stop!

Galvasean

Galvasean wrote: »

Looking forward to Drift as I read the preview pages on Amazon ages ago and liked what I saw. I really like Matere's intricate 'old skool Cybertronian' art style (some of the highlights of Chaos Theory were the flashback sequences drawn by him).

My mistake, it's actually Alex Milne who drew Drift.

Galvasean

Loved Drift

Jayd0g

Galvasean wrote: »

Loved Drift

After reading it, I couldn't resist buying the generations deluxe figure. The head looks just like it does in the comic.

These might be an option for collecting the IDW series:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Transformers-IDW-Collection-6-Zander-Cannon/9781613771839

They're a very nice format, page size is slightly larger than regular TPB. I've the first 5, waiting for a financially good time to buy the next one. Book depository prices include delivery and you can get a 3% refund through fatcheese.ie

sexitoni

Both RiD and MTMTE are much better than the Ongoing that Costa guy wrote.

Autocracy on the iPad app has been very good too.

Galvasean

A lot of people are critical of Costa's writing, but personally i quite enjoyed his ongoing stuff.

sexitoni

Pages of non-descript human characters talking. Not even any particularly good art as a result.

Galvasean

sexitoni wrote: »

Pages of non-descript human characters talking. Not even any particularly good art as a result.

The human bits were a bit hard to follow but I don't put that down to writing so much, more so the way they switched artist (sometimes even mid issue!) far too often, resulting in human characters looking wildly different very frequently. There was no sense of continuity among the human characters. hy they couldn't have had a template for each character - even simple things like keeping one hairstyle per character per story arc would have helped hugely.

The Dublin City Comics guy tells me they should have the MTMTE TPB in the next week or two. The TPB also includes the once off 'Death of Optimus Prime' comic (which Imissed) so am very much looking forward to it.

Galvasean

Looks like August is Dinobot month...
http://tformers.com/transformers-idw-publishing-celebrates-august-by/17656/news.html

I'm curious as to what this MTMTE 'annual' is. As best I can tell it's some form of two part story, separate, but linked to the main lines.

Galvasean

Picked up RiD Volume 1 yesterday (€20 in Dublin City Comics). Loved it. Cracking story altogether with enough teasers/loose ends to make me want to read the next volume. Plus so many obscure characters got cameos (Nugget!!!! ).
Must pick up MTMTE volume 1. Best I can tell it's set before RiD
as they reference it a few times, not that missing it stifled my enjoyment.

chopperbyrne

Galvasean wrote: »

Picked up RiD Volume 1 yesterday (€20 in Dublin City Comics). Loved it. Cracking story altogether with enough teasers/loose ends to make me want to read the next volume. Plus so many obscure characters got cameos (Nugget!!!! ).
Must pick up MTMTE volume 1. Best I can tell it's set before RiD
as they reference it a few times, not that missing it stifled my enjoyment.

Are these hardback or TPB?

Wouldn't mind picking these up in TPB myself. Can't do single issues anymore, just not enough space.

Galvasean

TPB. I'm the same. Individual issues drive me nuts. It feels like being drip fed. Plus, they're fiddly and dont stand up well/look good on a book shelf.
Finally got around to reading MTMTE volume 1. I must say that was the best Transformers story I have read in a long long time. The characters are excellent and the humour laced throughout is top notch. I found myself giggling giddily aloud several times. The TPB is an odd one though as it's the first 3 issues of MTMTE coupled with 'The Death of Optimus Prime' story. While they are perfectly linked in terms of continuity, in terms of tone not so much. DoOP is a much more sombre affair, but it does set up the RiD and MTMTE stories quite well.
I'd also recommend reading MTMTE before RiD as that is how they line up in terms of continuity. While reading MTMTE is not essential for reading RiD, they do reference it the odd time. I wouldn't say it's essential as I read RiD first and still knew what was going on with no real problem.