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Hi, I'm fairly new to collecting TF's (started about april of 2014). I'm looking to get into the IDW comics, where is a good starting point for the comics? It's a bit confusing with the multiple comic lines. Any help is welcome and appreciated.

Thanks!

Ok - this is the full list of the IDWverse.

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 #28-32
112. More Than Meets the Eye #28-34
113. Windblade #1-4
114. Robots in Disguise #33-34
115. Drift: Empire of Stone

IX. Days of Deception
116. The Transformers #35-38
117. More Than Meets the Eye #35-38


As to where to start from, I would definitely recommend point 89 - The Death of Optimus Prime, and the beginning of MTMTE/RID. There are parts of previous stories that come into play again, but you can catch up as it goes along thanks to the little editorial captions on the page!

Do you read digital, paper, trades, hardcovers?

Thanks! I prefer to read trades, I usually buy just one at first to try out a series, which trade would you reccomend I buy?

Depending on what you feel like!

Space opera, horror, lots of dialogue with plenty of jokes and essentially sitcom moments: MTMTE volume 1 (includes Death of Optimus Prime).

Political intrigue, Starscream, blurring the Autobot/Decepticon divide, bleaker dialogue and setting: RID volume 1. I almost lost faith in this one after issue 12 - but issues 21-22 are real gems.

The two series run in parallel up to Dark Cybertron (two trades), when they merge again. Then you have Windblade mini/one trade, and the second season of both series, with RID coming out so refreshed it's almost an entirely different beast (volume 6 of each series).

Thanks again! I can't really decide so I might buy both!

Sorry, another question, is there some sort of omnibus that collects the stuff before the MTMTE and RID era?

To a certain point, yes. The IDW Collection hardcovers are collecting everything, slowly, but IDW seems to be also releasing softcover versions, at an ever slower rate.

In September, they released the first three volumes of their 'G1' continuity (think Ultimates universe for Marvel, but for our robots), in the Phase One Omnibus.

In March, they're bringing out the Spotlight Omnibus, which eventually leads to events in later arcs, series and all the way up to Dark Cybertron and maybe Combiner Wars (very slightly so).

ThatOneMoose wrote:Sorry, another question, is there some sort of omnibus that collects the stuff before the MTMTE and RID era?

The following IDW Hardcover collections are your best friend:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1600106676/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1600107516/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1600108563/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1600109381/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613770529/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613771835/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613774060/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613776276/

As is this hardcover volume of "Last Stand of the Wreckers", as it contains stories not found anywhere else: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613771266/

As for a reading order, I HIGHLY recommend that the stories be read in as close to publication order as possible, but not in exact publication order since there's too much overlap with several mini-series.

Therefore, I recommend the following reading order for all this pre-2012 stuff, which uses publication order as a base, but is modified to prevent too much overlap and keep the story mostly going in a smooth enough path, with any stories set in the past instead of the present being treated as "flashbacks" that pause the main story to let these past stories be told along with the present ones.

And everything listed below can be found in the above-linked hardcover volumes, except for "Spotlight: Megatron" and "Spotlight: Bumblebee", which were both written after all of rest was. However, reading them in any other places than where they are listed below has them make less sense than they're supposed to, so those two are the only post-2012 ones to be read with the pre-2012 stuff (so you'd have to track them down in addition to the volumes linked above, but that shouldn't be too hard).

Simon Furman era:
Infiltation
Spotlight: Shockwave
Stormbringer
Spotlight: Nightbeat
Spotlight: Hot Rod
Spotlight: Sixshot
Spotlight: Ultra Magnus
Spotlight: Soundwave
Escalation #1
New Avengers/Transformers
Escalation #2-6
Spotlight: Ramjet
Spotlight: Kup
Spotlight: Galvatron
Spotlight: Optimus Prime
Spotlight: Wheelie
Spotlight: Blaster
Devastation #1-4
Spotlight: Arcee
Devastation #5-6
Spotlight: Grimlock
Revelation
Maximum Dinobots
Spotlight: Mirage
Megatron Origin

Shane McCarthy era (All Hail Megatron):
Spotlight: Blurr
Spotlight: Cliffjumper
Spotlight: Metroplex
All Hail Megatron #1
Spotlight Jazz
All Hail Megatron #2-14
All Hail Megatron #15 Part 1
Spotlight: Drift
All Hail Megatron #15 Part 2
All Hail Megatron #16

Mike Costa era
Ongoing #1-3 ("Things Fall Apart")
Bumblebee
Ongoing #4-6 ("Things Fall Apart")
Spotlight: Prowl
"Dead Men's Boots" Mosaic
Last Stand of the Wreckers
Last Stand of the Wreckers bonus content from the 2012 Hardcover collection:

"Bullets"
"Out of Bullets"
Character Profiles
Series Covers
Script Extracts
Guest Artwork
Squadron X
"Escape"
Promotional Artwork
Fisitron's Facts
Pin-Ups
First Draft
"Zero Point"
"In Word and Deed"

Ongoing #7-8
Ironhide
Drift
Infestation
Ongoing #9-13 ("International Incident")
Spotlight: Megatron
Ongoing #14-18 ("Revenge of the Decepticons")
Ongoing #19-20 ("Space Opera" Parts 1-2)
Heart of Darkness
Ongoing #21-23 ("Space Opera" Part 3 and "Chaos Theory")
Ongoing #25, 27, 29 ("Police Action")
Spotlight: Bumblebee
Ongoing #24, 26, 28, 30, 31 ("Chaos" & "Pax Cybertronia")

Alright, thanks for the help you two, I think I've got a fairly good understanding of where I should begin now.

ThatOneMoose wrote:Alright, thanks for the help you two, I think I've got a fairly good understanding of where I should begin now.

For anyone wanting to read IDW's stuff in its entirety, Infiltration is pretty much the definitive starting point.

After a lot of internal debate, I decided to purchase the IDW Phase 2 Volume 1 from amazon (I normally read trades, but I decided to get a larger book for reading material for a trip this weekend). It basically collects MTMTE volume 1 and RID volume 1, so I figure I'll get a good feel for the series.

Good choice!

ThatOneMoose wrote:After a lot of internal debate, I decided to purchase the IDW Phase 2 Volume 1 from amazon (I normally read trades, but I decided to get a larger book for reading material for a trip this weekend). It basically collects MTMTE volume 1 and RID volume 1, so I figure I'll get a good feel for the series.

that's basically where I started with those two volumes, however if you're like me, you'll end up with the entire back catalog....

I just recently finished getting all the IDW hardcovers and love them. I've only read through volume 5 so far but can't wait to read the rest.

prjkt, I was planning on buying the 8 previous volumes at some point as well. I'm only on the 3rd issue of MTMTE, and I'm already hooked! I do wish phase 2 volume 2 was out so I won't have to have a random hardcover among trades, but oh well, what can you do.

Maybe you'd be better off getting into Skybound instead?!