The Energon Pub

Hi guys!

I'm pretty new in the great world of comics in general, and it's been a while I wanted to start reading some Transformers comics. I went to my local comic book store, but the guy didn't seem to know much about the different series.

So, I trusted my instinct and got Robots in disguise 4-7 (they didn't have the 1-3), Monstrosity 1-2 and Bumblebee spotlight.

Any opinion on my choice since I'm just starting in the Transformers fandom? Monstrosity seemed like a new series, so it seemed like a good choice to start and follow as it goes, but I also wanted something a bit older (I thought of Regeneration one but it seems to be pretty far and I didn't want to rage on because I couldn't find a number haha). I got Robots in Disguise, but I'm curious about More Than Meets The Eyes. What's the difference between the twos?

Thanks for your help!

Hi, and welcome to Seibertron.com!

If you're starting afresh, and don't want to run too far back, I'd say go with Robots in Disguise and More than Meets the Eye alongside each other - both leading into Dark Cybertron, and then branching out again next month. If you want to go further back, try Autocracy and then Monstrosity, which have some 'origin' stories of sorts, and both of which more or less tie in with the main continuities.

BUT if you're feeling brave...

The overall IDW-verse is as follows.


I. The Beginning…
1. Megatron Origin
2. Spotlight - Orion Pax
3. Spotlight – Blur (All Hail Megatron Vol. 3 p. 4)
4. Autocracy
5. Monstrosity
6. Primacy in 2014
7. Spotlight - Thundercracker

II. The Spotlights
8. Spotlight – Shockwave (Spotlight Vol. 1 p. 9)
9. Spotlight – Cliffjumper (All Hail Megatron Vol. 3 p. 52)
10. Spotlight – Soundwave (Spotlight Vol. 2 p. 9)
11. Spotlight – Wheelie (Spotlight Vol. 3 p. 100)
12. Spotlight - Hot Rod (Spotlight Vol. 1. p. 50)
13. Spotlight – Sixshot (Spotlight Vol. 1 p. 73)
14. Spotlight -- Ultra Magnus (Spotlight Vol. 1 p. 96)

III. Present Day Earth
15. Infiltration #0-3 (through p. 86)
16. Stormbringer #1-3
17. Infiltration #4-5 (p. 87-132)
18. Stormbringer #4 (Full page panel of Thunderwing in jet mode)
19. Infiltration #6 (p. 133 to end)
20. Spotlight – Kup (Spotlight Vol. 2 p. 28)
21. Escalation #1-2 (through p. 46)
22. Spotlight – Nightbeat (Spotlight Vol. 1 p. 27)
23. Escalation #3-6 (p. 47 to end)
24. Spotlight – Ramjet (Spotlight Vol. 2 p. 100)
25. Spotlight - Optimus Prime (Spotlight Vol. 2 p. 76)
26. Spotlight – Galvatron (Spotlight Vol. 2 p. 52)
27. Devastation #1-4 (pages unnumbered; Chapter 4 ends with close-up of Starscream talking to Astrotrain)
28. Spotlight – Blaster (Spotlight Vol. 3 p. 4)
29. Spotlight – Arcee (Spotlight Vol. 3 p. 28)
30. Devastation #5-6 (pages unnumbered; Chapter 5 begins with “Cybertron-The Past”)
31. Spotlight – Mirage (Spotlight Vol. 3 p. 76)
32. Spotlight – Grimlock (Spotlight Vol. 3 p. 52)
33. Spotlight Volume 4 – Revelation
34. Maximum Dinobots

IV. All Hail Megatron!
35. All Hail Megatron Vol. 2 Chapter 2 p. 1
36. All Hail Megatron Vol. 2 Chapter 1 p. 3-13, 17-19
37. All Hail Megatron Volume 4: “Everything In Its Right Place”
38. Spotlight – Drift (All Hail Megatron Vol. 3 p. 76)
39. Spotlight – Metroplex (All Hail Megatron Vol. 3 p. 100)
40. All Hail Megatron Volume 4: “Lost And Found”
41. Spotlight- Jazz (All Hail Megatron Vol. 3 p. 28)
42. All Hail Megatron Volume 1-2 in full
(Note: All Hail Megatron Volume 4 has #43-#48)
43. “Old Ways” Optimus/Ironhide
44. “Uneasy Lies The Head” Starscream
45. “Replay” Sunstreaker
46. “Rebirth” Galvatron/Cyclonus/Scourge
47. “The Man Of Steel” Spike
48. “Hidden” Bumblebee

V. Three Years Later (Note: #50-#58, #68-#72 are located in Last Stand Of The Wreckers Hardcover)
49. Spotlight- Prowl (Ongoing Vol. 6)
50. Autobot File: Rotorstorm p. 130
51. Autobot File: Pyro p. 131
52. Autobot File: Guzzle p. 132
53. Autobot File: Ironfist p. 133
54. Autobot File: Impactor p. 134
55. Decepticon File: Snare p. 135
56. Decepticon File: Overlord p. 136
57. Squadron X p. 161
58. BULLETS/OUT OF BULLETS: Deleted Scenes p. 116 - 128 except ‘Nine Months Later’
59. Last Stand Of The Wreckers #1
60. Ongoing Vol. 1 For All Mankind #1
61. Last Stand Of The Wreckers 2-3
62. Ongoing Vol. 1 #2
63. Last Stand Of The Wreckers 4
64. Ongoing Vol. 1 #3-4
65. Bumblebee paperback
66. Ongoing Vol. 1 #5-6
67. Last Stand Of The Wreckers 5
68. ESCAPE p. 162
69. ZERO POINT p. 170
70. IN WORD AND DEED p. 175
71. BULLETS: Nine Months Later p. 125
72. Wreckers Mosaic Dead Man’s Boots p. 129
73. Ironhide paperback
74. Drift paperback
75. Ongoing Vol. 2 International Incident (#7-#8)
76. Ongoing Vol. 4 Heart Of Darkness.“The Road To CHAOS”. Infestation occurs towards end of #4. End of #4 lines up with end of Ongoing #20 in Ongoing Vol. 5: Chaos Theory.
77. Infestation Transformers 1-2
80. Ongoing Vol. 2 #9 to #12
81. Ongoing Vol. 3 Revenge of the Decepticons #13
82. Spotlight - Megatron
83. Ongoing Vol. 3 remainder of Revenge Of The Decepticons
84. Ongoing Vol. 5 Chaos Theory through end of Police Action: Prolog
85. Spotlight - Bumblebee
86. Ongoing Vol. 6 Police Action
87. Ongoing Vol. 5 remainder of Chaos Theory
88. Ongoing Vol. 7 CHAOS
89. Death Of Optimus Prime (More Than Meets The Eye Vol. 1)

VI. The Autobots Divide
90. More Than Meets The Eye Ongoing #1 with Rodimus (Vol. 1)
91. Robots In Disguise Ongoing #1 with Bumblebee (Vol. 1)
92. MTMTE #2-3 (Vol. 1)
93. RID #2-3 (Vol. 1)
94. MTMTE #4-5 (Vol. 2)
95. RID #4-5 (Vol. 1)
96. Spotlight – Trailcutter(Trailbreaker renamed)
97. Spotlight – Hoist
98. More Than Meets the Eye #6 (Vol. 2)
99. More Than Meets the Eye Annual 2012 (Vol. 3)
100. More Than Meets the Eye #7-8 (Vol. 2)
101. Robots in Disguise #6-10 (Vol. 2, 3)
102. More Than Meets the Eye #9-13 (Vol. 3, 4) and text story “A Signal To Noise” (Vol. 4)
103. Robots in Disguise Annual 2012 (Vol. 3)
104. Robots in Disguise #11-16 (Vol. 3, 4)
105. More Than Meets the Eye #14-15 (Vol. 4)
106. Robots in Disguise #17-20 (Vol.5)
107. More Than Meets the Eye #16-21 (Vol. 4, 5) and text story “The Sound Of Breaking Glass” (Vol. 5)
108. Robots in Disguise #21-22 (Vol. 5)
109. More Than Meets the Eye #22 (Vol. 5)

VII. Dark Cybertron
110. Dark Cybertron (Voll. 1-2)

VIII. Dawn of the Autobots
111. Robots in Disguise #28
112. More Than Meets the Eye #28
113. Windblade #1

Thank you for your answer!

I realized after that Monstrosity was the sequel of Autocracy. Oh well. I really like Ramondelli atworks haha.

So, are More Than Meets The Eyes and Robots in Disguise are in the same timeline?

All of the listed comics above are the chronological (more or less) order of the same continuity (again, more or less, there are discrepancies).

But RID and MTMTE are most definitely the same timeline, and run parallel to each other!

Awesome! I'll go get some MTMTE soon then hehehe =)

Yeah, I'd avoid the 2009-ish Ongoing. Just do MTMTE and RID, perhaps throw in LSOTW too, and go from there.

I am of a generally low opinion on the newer series. I was brought up on the original Marvel G1 series, so that's what I can recommend. Maybe if you can find issues of the now-defunct DreamWave series. But if you liked the RiD and Spotlight stuff, you'll like the newer ones. Last Stand of the Wreckers is kinda lame, IMO, even by iDW standards.

Sadly my comic book store didn't have anything but IDW series. But yeah, I like RiD so far. And like I said, I got Monstrosity because I wanted to go from the start of a series, but that was before I knew it was actually a sequel. They had a few more IDW series but they didn't really get my attention...

Might try to get my hand on some Marvel's in the next convention I will attend though.

Thanks!

Sadly my comic book store didn't have anything but IDW series. But yeah, I like RiD so far. And like I said, I got Monstrosity because I wanted to go from the start of a series, but that was before I knew it was actually a sequel. They had a few more IDW series but they didn't really get my attention...

Might try to get my hand on some Marvel's in the next convention I will attend though.

Thanks!

there's always the option of buying the issues digitally, IDW's app never sells out of issues.

Could be an option, but I prefer by far to physically own them.

Maerviska wrote:Could be an option, but I prefer by far to physically own them.

A suggestion, though, could be to track down the trades rather than the single issues, and if you really really really want to read the singles, do so digitally.

That way, you'll still have the books, but you'll be able to read the stories sooner!

I got RID 9, 11-18 today! (And I'm realy happy I could get #11 covers with Arcee!) And MTMTE 6 but that's because the cover got me curious haha!)
So I'll be looking for RID 1-3,8 and 10 hehehe.
I'll see if I can wait until I find them. Else, yeah, I might get the digitals.

Also, I started reading my Monstrosity today. I never thought I would care so much for Megatron hahaha, can't wait to see what happens to him!

If you want to give G1 a try you can find most of the trades on this site like this volume 2......

http://www.instocktrades.com/TP/IDW/TRA ... /OCT110325

Also I am way behind on the IDW different series so I am going to read them in hardcover. They print them in proper reading order, here is volume 1.....

http://www.instocktrades.com/TP/IDW/TRA ... /MAR100992

I actually think the colouring on the newest comics (well, MTMTE definitely, RID sometimes) looks much better on a screen. I read them digitally first, and whilst it's really nice to get the trades (which are probably a lot easier to get, and cheaper too, than the singles) once they come out, I was a little sad to read them and feel it all being a little darker, the colours popping just a little bit less.

Sigh. If you plan on getting digital copies, do it fast.

Unless you're a fan of Amazon, of course: http://www.themarysue.com/amazon-buys-comixology/