Well, I hear mention of the Marvel G1 and G2 comics. I never got to read them and have only read the Dream Wave comics, favorite is War & Peace. What where the Marvel Transformer comics like? Good, bad, silly, I dunno.
Pretty much equal parts good, bad, and silly. It started strong, but went downhill pretty rapidly once Budiansky got sick of having to introduce ten new characters each issue. Most of the middle part of the run is pretty terrible, although it started improving a lot when Furman came on board.
The Marvel G1 run. Buy #60-80. These are a good read. Buy #1-20. These are fun. Buy #46-50. These are silly. #25 is a good issue, with Megs vs the Predacons. Marvel G2 I never got into but heard its really good and worth finding. The rest are pretty dated and corny. Worth getting but focus on the above first. My humble opinion.
Marvel G2 is, IMO at least, the best TF series ever. I absolutely loved it. Tusko's breakdown is pretty good. The UK B&W backup stories were great also, but I'm not sure what their reprint status is right now.
I know there are some that are TPB now, Matrix Quest I would definitely advise picking it up, but like others have said, some good, some crap, some in between but the last 20 issues or so I liked the most.
Marvel G1 I pretty much agree with tusko and switchblade. Basically, the G1 series had very good moments and very bad moments. The G1 series was originally written to be only 4 issues. When Transformers became popular, they made last minutes revisions starting with issue #3 and extended the series to run indefinitely. The writer, Budiansky, took over starting with issue #5. Like Switchblade said, this writer concentrated his efforts on introducing characters every issue and character development. Some of his stories were interesting towards the end of his writing. The series took a different direction when Furman took over. His stories were much better, but he had a tendency to focus on only a few characters like Grimlock, Dreadwing, Scorpionok, Optiums Prime, etc. The last 10 issues were very good with a return of the story to earth. RedOktobre
G2 is a lot darker than most transformers comics, even the DW and IDW stuff. Its got a much gritter art style, and a lot of death. Its a good read, IMO, if you can find it. But remember that its the G2 continuity, so GUNN NOT TANKK people are probably going to be annoyed to some degree. Also, a pretty decent amount of tie in with the Gi Joe series at the time, so you might want to hunt for those issues too, especially for the beginning of the storyline. If you like the latter part of G1, theres a good chance you'll be interested in G2, and vice versa. You certainly haven't "missed out" though, as they're currently reprinting issues of the G1 series, and your local library or comic shop may have the rest of the series (G1 and G2) in back issues or in the graphic novel format reprints. Check it out.
G1 comics had some off the wall story lines, but very entertaining overall. Galvatron was frickin' awesome in these books.
