I recommended Stormbringer, Megatron Origins, and Last Stand of the wreckers. as they are roughly stand alone, the spotlights could be based around which character you like best but i suggest Shockwaves at least. but for the -ation, All hail and Ongoing its hard to say. honestly if you wanna get into the current comics pick up what issues of Ongoing you can starting from issue 1, as the writer of All hail megatron pretty much erased any previous story elements of the -ation series, they (at the moment) dont hold any weight in the new series, while it easily cover what happened in All hail megatron, during the first issue
Last Stand of the Wreckers Spotlights (can vary in quality, but imho are among the best stuff IDW has put out) Shockwave, Hot Rod, Kup, Blaster, Soundwave, Drift, Jazz, Cliffjumper, plus the Drift and Ironhide minis are all somewhere between good to awesome in my book. I did enjoy the -ation series and AHM, but your miliage may vary. The new ongoing has been iffy, I really enjoyed issue #13 though.
I would consider myself a casual comic fan. Of IDW, I've got and have read All Hail Megatron (vol. 1 and 2), Maximum Dinobots, and Last Stand of the Wreckers. I really enjoyed them all.
i just recently got the idw collection #'s one and two and am waiting on three to be released. will these cover all the g1-based stories?
Last Stand of the Wreckers, Revelations and Maximum Dinobots are pretty good. Infiltration and Stormbringer bored me to tears and are overrated to be honest. I don't remember enough of Escalation to comment on it, unfortunately. All Hail Megatron was decent but the ongoing has sucked for the most part except for issues involving the Decepticons (7, then 13 and up I think??)
I'd say it's work reading up to AHM and the coda before LSTOW. then leave it at that, Ironhide was an ok series but the ongoing just seems so much build up for so little payoff. From what I remember it was Sixshot on Earth and the Machination playing around with headmaster technology to track down the other autobots.
The biggest problem with the IDW comics is poor story planning. When you write your comics for graphic novel format (6 issue increments), and you're not a skilled enough writer/editor, it's going to show. Now, I'm not saying anyone there is unskilled ... obviously they have the job and we do not - but it's so boring to have all this story fleshed out in to 6 issues, with maybe 2 issues of filler in between "arcs". The build-up, the drama, the background on-going story that eventually leads up in to some huge thing ... that's all gone. Comics are written for the trade paperback version down the road. And especially in Transformers, it shows, and not necessarily always in a good way.
the spotlights that can stand on their own are the best. wheelie, cliffjumper, kup, blurr, just to name a few. if those interest you, pick up the main stories as most of the other spotlights weave in there.
