The Energon Pub

I am relatively new to the Transformers world...yes the movie brought back all of the memories I had as a kid with a good amount of the toys and Marvel comics. I recently went to a few local comic shops and bought a few Transformers collections to read through.

My questions is this - what is the 'main' comic? What do you real Transformer fans conisder canon? Is there a reading order anyone has come up with?

I'm a huge GI Joe fan and I know there are two main camps there - the Marvel Comic and the Sunbow Cartoon. What is that like here?

Thanks for your time!!

There are quite a few different continuities from over the years and while they may not all agree with each other all that much or at all they have all been produced under license from Hasbro so can all be considered canon to some extent. Check out my post here:

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

For a breif overview of the different takes on G1 from across the years with some notes on what's been collected into book form.

As for the best place to start my personal recommendation would be the IDW books, beginning with Infiltration. It's a different take on G1 than anything that's been done before but as it's recently published and currently ongoing material it's easy to find and the writing is really multi layered with different strands linking from their various titles back to their core books more and more as you get into it.

If you're hankering for some more 80s cartoon themed stories then the Dreamwave titles from a few years ago fit the bill. Be warned with these however that the writing can be quite 'fanish' and that the series just stops mid story due to the company going out of business. The War Within books from Dreamwave I would recommend above the rest of their output.

My main focus is the G1 books, but I've read most titles from other continuities as well, so feel free to ask specific questions about any of those, but I sort of gathered from your post that you were mainly thinking about G1. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the help and the link. It's a messy Transformers Universe out there isn't it?

I like what I've seen of the Dreamwave G1 - but I will check out the War Within as well. I guess I will go pick up all the IDW ones as well. Are they IDW comics all fairly recent?

Question - so did IDW pick up the comic after Dreamwasve shut it's doors?

IDW didnt pick up the storyline from Dreamwave. They started their own continuity which is turning out to be very engaging.

IDW picked up the license but didn't continue with any of the existing Dreamwave titles. They have reprinted some of the Dreamwave material in book form, but not continued or added anything new to it.

The IDW material has been coming out for around two years now. The way it works is that every year they give us a six issue miniseries that form the core story in the continuity, so far 'Infiltration' and 'Escalation' with 'Devastation' to launch shortly and 'Revelation' to come next year. In the gap between these minis we get a four issue series that is in the same continuity, last year was 'Stormbringer' and currently it's 'Megatron Origin'. On top of this there's the 'Spotlight' one shots that also fit into the main continuity and focus on one main character, usually someone who's not getting a lot of screentime in the main books or to provide some relevant backstory before that character joins the main story arc. There's also a crossover series with the New Avengers being put out by Marvel at the moment which fits into this continuity, but it's not very good.

IDW also publish other TF material besides their G1 continuity. There are reprints of the old Marvel comics, Beast Wars minis in 4 issue arcs that tie in with the BW cartoons, titles that tie in to the current movie and 'Evolutions' titles that are self contained story arcs placing Transformers characters into unfamiliar settings. The first Evolutions book was 'Hearts of Steel' set during the steam age with disguises such as steam trains, paddle steamers and prototype biplanes.

As you said there's an awful lot out there.

i know alot of fans consider dreamwave canon. Another popular canonization is a taking of genericized trends across the comics (such as a smart, crafty, grimlock or a god like unicron) and making them canon.

For me my reading of the comics was quite limited. As a kid I got a handful of the marvel ones (Ihave fond memories of blasters excape from cybertron (poor scrounge), the scraplets, and the deathof skids). i also found part of the matrix quest in the cheap comics bin and bought it. I tried collecting dreamwave through trade paperbacks but they went out of business. As for IDW the series kept changing their names so I kept falling behind as the comic shop guy forgot to pull them and eventually stopped getting them.

Here is a quick review of the comics from my limited experience with them.

MARVEL: To me the marvel comics were the best, not just because they were the first I read, but (from rereading theones i still have) because their storylines often(but not always) hold up as readable and enjoyable years later.

DREAMWAVE: their are alot of dreamwave fanboys out their, sadly I am not one of them. To me I found the dreamwave storylines unimpressive and they suffered from trying toput way too many characters in a single storyline. I'd rather a story stick with a small core of characters to explore and develope rather than it popping in appearances by every pretender, deluxe insecticon, and headmaster on every page. However I must say dreamwaves "More than Meets the Eye" character guides are indispensible and very useful.

IDW: IDW (the current comics) are an interesting middle ground. They have the character focus and exploration of marvel with the cool graphics of dreamwave. However from what i seen the stories lack the originality and wow factor of the marvel ones.

As for me, what continuity do I prefer? The G1 cartoon, it is the one I know best and theone I thought of when I played with my transformers as a kid. To me the cartoon will always feel like the real transformers, even though it's appeal has dropped alot on growing up (when i got back into transformers a couple years back i was shocked how childish it seems now that I am older).

The marvel comics (and Simon Furman) lost me when it seemed more and more that it was about how liking the G1 Cartoon was badwrongfun. (It really reached a crecendo with "Prime's Rib")

The Budiansky comics were goofy, but at least I didn't feel like I was being preached to.

Might want to try Transformers Magazine.

#1 came out this past month... it had three stories in it I think...a Dreamwave Armada issue...Stormbringer #1 from IDW... and a Marvel reprint.

Also, the IDW Optimus Prime vs. Megatron TPB is a nice smattering of stories from G1 Marvel, War Within, IDW '85 Movie Adaptation, and Armada I believe.

look what i found on continuity
http://images2.wikia.com/transformers/images/1/1d/Continuities.png

http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Continuities

That flow chart's pretty good, but it does seem a little convaluted on where the various iterations of the Marvel comics fit together as regards G1 going forward to G2. Also The Marvel comics should show links to GI Joe (crossover with US G1 and introduction story to US G2) Action Force (crossover with UK G1) and possibly mentions of Death's Head and Spiderman. The G1 cartoon should show links to the GI Joe cartoon. The IDW section is a little out of date generally, but I assume that this will be updated as time goes by being a wiki entry.

More controversial is the lack of any mention of the TMUK comics. Although fan produced these were endorsed by Hasbro when the UK title folded after issue 332, and although largely overruled in canon terms when the failed UK G2 comics came on to the scene were still technically canon at the time. Overall though it more or less works.