The Energon Pub

I wanna start buying the comic books (in ORDER) of the current Transformer series.

Like I hear "Games of Deception" came out, now a "Megatron Origins", but I wanna start from the beginning of this (contemporary) series of comics.

I know the current series started like...2 years ago? So can anybody tell me which comic books was that? I bought the "Transformers: Spotlight" thinking it was the beginning, since it was labled Volume #1.. But im second guessing that idea.

And can anybody direct me to comic book website that gives the list of the TF comic books in order by date/issue, from start to today's current release.

SnipeShade wrote:I wanna start buying the comic books (in ORDER) of the current Transformer series.

Like I hear "Games of Deception" came out, now a "Megatron Origins", but I wanna start from the beginning of this (contemporary) series of comics.

I know the current series started like...2 years ago? So can anybody tell me which comic books was that? I bought the "Transformers: Spotlight" thinking it was the beginning, since it was labled Volume #1.. But im second guessing that idea.

And can anybody direct me to comic book website that gives the list of the TF comic books in order by date/issue, from start to today's current release.

I'll give it a shot:

Infiltration 0 to 6
Shockwave spotlight
Stormbringer 1 to 4
Nightbeat spotlight
Hot Rod spotlight
Sixshot spotlight
Ultra Magnus spotlight
Escalation 1 to 6
Soundwave spotlight
Kup spotlight
Galvatron spotlight
Megatron origin

Instead of getting all those separate issues, though, you can get Infiltration in its entirety, as well as Stormbringer and Escalation. Just go to a local comic book store or book store and you can usually find them, unless you want to track them all down.

I also started reading the comics recently, and this is what I did. Now that I'm pretty caught up, I don't have the patience to wait for the TPB of Megatron Origin or Devastation.

Also, get the Kup, Galvatron, and Soundwave Spotlights! Lots of goodness!

I recommend reading through TFArchive's IDW comic section for information on the series and issue synopses. Their reviews are also very good and can give a useful fan's-eye insight into the issues.

aww man. lol. So the Spotlight I bought was basically just an extra. (not that im disapppointed with that) Ah well, hehe, which means that still gives me the option to buy seperate of together from the beginning. So yey?

All the comic listed on TF archive are up to date?

And thanks for answering!

TFArchive's pages are almost entirely up-to-date as far as I can see. That is, their list of titles and release dates seem to be current with all the latest information, but their synopses and reviews of individual issues can sometimes lag behind slightly.

All u need to read are Infiltration (1-6 or graphic novel) and Essecaltion (1-6 or graphic novel), the rest are slightly outside of the core storyline.

After those pic up Stormbringer, again u are probably better off going for the graphic novel and then the spotlight graphic novel.

After that there are only i think 3 spoylights and the megatron origins 1 and 2 that u are missing, although before u pick those up id pick up the beast wars:the gathering graphic novel, the part 2 of that series is starting soon, it will be bloody good and i feel that it will eventually link into the main stream g1 story. So ur better off getting it sooner rather than later!

You mentioned Games of Deception, this doesn't fit into the IDW stories at all. It ties in directly with the Classics comics in the club magazines and indirectly with the old Marvel series disregarding the UK stories and G2.

The listing that has been provided above for the IDW titles is accurate but is in publication order rather than chronological order. Once you've got everything together it would read something like this:

Megatron Origin,
Spotlight Shockwave,
Spotlights Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus & Sixshot (before Infiltration but not specified how far),
Spotlight Soundwave (also before Infiltration but relatively recent scenes on Earth, so not too far back in the time line),
Infiltration,
Stormbringer & Spotlight Nightbeat,
(Avengers/Transformers: Man & Machine),
Escalation & Spotlight Kup,
Spotlights Galvatron & Optimus Prime,
Devestation,
Revelation.

The last couple of these aren't even out yet and there'll be more Spotlights and probably more Stormbringer style minis to fit in as time goes on, but that's the basic chronology so far.

There are the compliations for the main story lines, but is it known if there will be a collection copy of the spotlights?

There's already one TPB of the first five, and doubtless the next set will also be collected.

k! I got it! That really helped. : ) Looks like I got alot of searching/buying to do.

If you guys could reccomend something. Would you prefer the compiled version, or the individual comics?

At this stage, I'd say get the compilations. They'll be easier to find - one recent book versus four to six individual back issues - and you'll get the benefit of having the whole story at once. Plus, they generally have a couple of bonus treats that weren't in the comics, such as work-in-progress character sketches.

For price and ease of finding them it's probably a good idea to start with the trades of Infiltration, Stormbringer and Escalation. This way you get the complete arcs and aren't desperately searching for a couple of issues. With the remaining Spotlights either really. The next trade will be out before the end of the year so you can probably wait, although the three that are out since the ones in the last trade shouldn't be too hard to track down at the moment. As far as newer stuff goes that's totally down to personal taste. If you want to keep up with Origin and Devestation as they come out grab the individual comics and pick up the trades later for your book shelf if you want to. If you prefer getting it all at once wait for the trades, but it'll be into next year before we see the Devestation trade for example.

I've just remembered that the Avengers crossover technically fits into the main IDW continuity. It's not great and certainly not essential to the other books, but I'll modify my post above to include it just for the sake of completeness.

Thanks, needed something like that too.

Glyph wrote:I recommend reading through TFArchive's IDW comic section for information on the series and issue synopses. Their reviews are also very good and can give a useful fan's-eye insight into the issues.

That's a very good suggestion, they have the publication order on that site. The besty thing about the IDW Furmanverse is that you do not need to read anything but Infiltration/Escalation in order to understand what is going on.

The tpb's also make things much much easier.

If you want to start small, and work your way up, I suggest sticking with the "main" books: Infiltration and Escalation, and also picking up the Spotlight tpb/waiting for Spotlight tpb#2. Stormbringer and Megatron Origins are not nearly as essential to the main story as the Spotlights. (but are still good reads!)