The Energon Pub

well basically i havent read a transformer comic since the original Marvel one 20 years ago, and was wondering what comics would be best for me to start with, ideally im looking for graphic novel/compilation stuff

please give your opinions

Are you looking mainly for more recent incarnations of G1, movie related titles or something from the Armadaverse or Beast Wars? There's been so much in the way of TF comics in recent years that it'd help to narrow down the field a little.

The new IDW comics are a good start.

waaaaghlord wrote:Are you looking mainly for more recent incarnations of G1, movie related titles or something from the Armadaverse or Beast Wars? There's been so much in the way of TF comics in recent years that it'd help to narrow down the field a little.

well i was thinking along stuff from the last 5 years or so

If you check out my overly long winded post here:

http://seibertron.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10200&sid=

that has a general overview of the various G1 continuities from across the years along with what's been collected into book form. I'm linking back to that quite a bit lately, but it took me ages to type and should be quite useful. Particular recommendations from recently published G1 books would be Dreamwave's War Within titles by Simon Furman and as recommended above the excellent new continuity from IDW Publishing.

Since you're familiar with the old Marvel comics you may well be familiar with Furman's writing as he did the later US Marvel stuff as well as most of the UK books. He's also written the majority of the Armada/Energon comics that were produced by Dreamwave, taking a different approach from the cartoons and fleshing out the Minicons as proper characters rather than just small robots that go 'beep'. He's also doing a series of Beast Wars minis with the legendary artist Don Figueroa, the first of which is already out in book form.

For the moment I'd avoid the Dreamwave G1 stuff that basicly fills in between season 2 of the cartoon and the movie since this never got properly finished due to the company going out of business and isn't really among the better material out there. Hope that that's helpful.

Start with IDW's main books: Infiltration TPB. If you like it move on to the Escalation TPB.

If you want more, you'll either have to wait a few months for Devastation to begin, or you can sate your appetite with the many other stories that tie into the main Infiltration story.

If this list starts sounding a bit long or expensive dont worry, none of the following books a re needed to understand the IDW main books, they are "additional reading" that expand the IDW Transformers Universe (I call it the IDW Furmanverse). those with (TPB) next to them have been released in Trade Paper Back form, which I recommend purchasing, they are cheaper and easier to get then single issues.
- Stormbringer (TPB)
- Spotlight #1 (TPB) (includes Shockwave, Nightbeat, Hotrod, Sixshot, Ultra Magnus)
- Spotlight Soundwave
- Spotlight Kup
- Spotlight Galvatron
- Origin Megatron

If you still have not had your fill, feel free to move onto the non IDW Furmanverse materials (these do not tie into the main books at all)
- Beast Wars: The Gathering (TPB)
- Evolutions: Hearts of Steel (TPB)
- Transformers the Animated Movie(TPB)
There are also the new 2007 comics:
- Transformers: Movie Prequel (TPB)
- Transformers: Movie Adaptation (TPB)

There are also some comics that were originally released by a company called DW. None of these books have any relation to the IDW Furmanverse, other than being about Transformers. DW have since gone Bankrupt, and IDW has been able to re-print some of their material:
- Generation 1 V1 (TPB)
- Generation 1 V2 (TPB)
- The War Within (TPB)
- The War Within: The Dark Ages (TPB)

Happy reading!