It’s simple: Shockwave. Hands down. IDW has established Shockwave as the Doctor Doom of the Transformers franchise. The pan is hot and ready to flash with this character. If Hasbro and IDW had any sense of character establishment (honestly, they don’t; one of the main reasons Transformers has yet to established any sense of true longevity as a comic book series; and before Anyone says IDW just did that; may I recommend you all look up Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men and find out how long it took to close the story arc on The Siege Perilous and its aftermath) they would do Everything In Their Power to Not bring him back as just one of Decepticons. Doing so would be an even louder, deeper dropping of the proverbial ball than Barber’s use of Galvatron the Barbarian. (Seriously; how do you introduce Galvatron as Conan the Barbarian in flashbacks, have him burn and pillage over the course of 4 million years and not have him return as Conan the King with a galaxy burning armada, or something...hell...anything that would have allowed you to evolve the Autobot vs Decepticon war to another level with more epic possibilities for future storylines?!...rant over...sorry).

I can’t stress enough how Shockwave cannot simply be shoved into this upcoming reboot as just another one of Megatron’s minions. Not after how he’s been presented as a cataclysmic schemer in the prior universe.

We TF fans FINALLY have Our Epic Villain. We FINALLY have Our Own Doctor Doom, and his name is Shockwave, dammit!

 

Overlord was the best IDW villain. Of course his end was bad, but every villain in IDW ended badly...but the premise LSOTW gave Overlord was the best, someone who could actually believably best Megatron, the sheer outlook of a Megatron vs. Overlord showdown is what made him the best.

Tarn would be my second, again, another great setup and another let down at the end, the premise for him, leader of the DJD that simply hunt down deceptions who don’t help Megatron a vision be realized, was awesome.

Galvatron was another one who had great potential but it was squandered, never understood how Galvatron is all I’m the baddest but was subservient to Nova...I mean Galvatron showing up in dark cybertron after chaos was a wtf moment.

Shockwave was just all over the place and him being some grand architect of the IDW universe is why I’m glad they ended it.

Overall IDW had great villains and great ideas, but very poor execution

 

Definitely thinking Tarn or Getaway. Both have their own qualities that make them stand out in my mind. Tarn being a blind faith, militaristic, ruthless Decepticon. Getaway being a backstabbing, manipulative, cunning Autobot who thinks he is the next prime.

 

is Costa an acceptable vote?

 

Furman GV
and shockwave, simply because he basically controlled the tranformers' history.

 

*Shoots Ore-14 into thread*

So, having now reread MTMTE/LL from beginning to end, it's... kind of incredible how huge a black eye the Mutineers trilogy gives to the characterization of Getaway (who was far and away my favorite IDW villain up until that point). Especially since seeing Spider-Man: Far From Home, which essentially did Mutineers' whole "enigmatic cool guy is actually an unstable egomaniacal bullshit artist who quickly turns murderous to protect his status" schtick much better, down to the "altering people's perception of reality" part.

It's not so much that his descent into complete lunacy is rushed (it is) as it feels like Roberts unwisely bought into the Getaway hate and turned him almost into a caricature of himself, taking the rest of the crew along for the ride. MTMTE Getaway is interesting because while he's a horrible person, you still get why so many different people would side with him against Megatron, but LL Getaway is a cartoon whose actions set up the rest of the Mutineers being punished by the story for collectively making a flawed but compelling decision (which I think you might've elocuted already on Twitter, Jala).

Satisfied sigh... I love complaining when I should be asleep.  

 

Gotta go with the 'Wave.






Dude tried to collapse the entire universe.

 

Wait... why isn't PROWL on this list? His faction symbol? A whole lot of the worst things we saw happen in that 'verse were absolutely his fault. He was villainous enough that the other Autobots didn't even notice when Bombshell took over his mind.

 

Shockwave isn't a villian. He's a plot device.


Gotta go with Tarn.

 

I would take Costa over Ruckley any day of the week.

 

Actually, good point. Prowl's always been my dark horse favourite Autobot- first ever TF toy, back in the '80s, and up to [IDW] Robots in Disguise I was pretty much in agreement with him, philosophically, but... maybe the problem is that after that, he seized the villain ball too implausibly, during Combiner Wars and so on? Unless we're supposed to assume that Bombshell's mind control did in fact do some lasting damage to his judgement.

 

If I recall, it was less this than Roberts legitimately being surprised(?!) that people were siding with Getaway and dialing things up so that it was less ambiguous. I have to say, that is most definitely one of the more disappointing things of his run to me.

 

Prowl blew up an entire city of innocent civilians just to try to sway people to the Autobot cause waaaaay before that timeline-wise. (Another plot point I didn’t like at all, and I generally liked all of Roche’s contributions)

 

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Tarantualas.
Seriously, he and overload might be the only internally consistant villains in the whole run. He's got it all:
Strong Motivation
Humanizing qualities alongside depravity
Fleshed out character relationships
Compelling backstory
Excellent Design
He's one of the few idw villains who can pull the rogue scientist and psychotic angles while still reading as a person. In sum: He's pharma written competently.

 

I like Prowl as the villain.

 

I entirely agree with the rest of your post, but... it's technically not the first time. Armada did something similar, with its Unicron effectively being the embodiment of the futility of the Transformers' conflict; to defeat him they had to let go and be willing to stop fighting, with Megatron dying because he couldn't give up his hate for Optimus. I'd say Armada's take was the second-best Unicron after IDW's.

Unicron has never been a good character, but he makes for one hell of a metaphor.

 

Gawd, I forgot all about that! I never out-and-watched Armada, but knew the gist of it.
Does make it kind of frustrating/hilarious that what would've actually been a really conclusive way to end the Unicron Trilogy comes first, necessitating its prompt undoing so the trilogy can continue. SomethingSomethingTheViciousCycleOfWarSomethingToys...