I just ordered the entire series, 17 books for around 700dollars (yeah i´m crazy about this stuff). I noticed that volume ten of the IDW books hits store shelves in december so now to my question. How long will this book series go? Will the unicron chapters be in one eventually? I also noticed that they seem to mix in completely diffrent storys like "more than meets the eye" and "wreckers" stories in the same books. Does this get confusing for the readers? It seems a little confusing to me with several diffrent stories going on at once in the same book. Love you all and hail TRANSFORMERS!
I read the monthlies for years and never went back with trades. So I'm sorry but I can't comment on the number of volumes you're gonna be looking at or when the Unicron arc will be collected. I will say though, that the Unicron stuff is the end of the road for that continuity so that'd be your stopping point. More Than Meets The Eye/Lost Light and the Wreckers stand pretty well on their own and are easily distinguished from one another. What might trip you up is Robots in Disguise/Optimus Prime... Especially towards the end of those stories. There was a lot of mingling stories with other Hasbro books at the time and things were happening at a really rapid fire pace. Keeping tfwiki.net handy should help you sort everything out.
Thank you very much for your reply Maverick Hunter Christian. I hope reading these books in their order does not get too confusing. Another question that came to mind is the binding and glue of these books. I have seen some people complain about their books falling apart, pages fall out etc. Are their other people here with the same experience?
Over in this thread, we reckon there will be 28 hardcovers to cover the entire IDW1-verse, give or take. I personally reckon Phase Two will be twelve volumes and the final eight will be called something else, maybe Phase Three, maybe Hasbroverse, maybe Final Phase - and end with Unicron around late 2024 / early 2025. I personally like the way it jumps from book to book, as it kind of mirrors buying the monthlies (and getting the story beats in the same order). Though they generally batch story arcs together, so it's not *exactly* like the monthlies. I've had no issues with loose pages in the hardcovers, and my 11yo has read them pretty hard I *did* have loose pages in several of the trades which is one of the reasons I switched.
This is not true. The comics from other franchises do not affect the comics of Transformers, you're not required to read them to understand the comics of Transformers, and Revolutionaries is practically a comic of Transformers because of the 4 main characters 3 are characters of Transformers ex-RID, and also have two Transformers (and the writer is Jon Barber). Even the GI Joe characters that appear in Optimus Prime are pretty much the same characters that were part of EDC, just changed the name of the organization and they have GI Joe stickers on some of the military vehicles. And about the crossovers only Revolution and First Strike you have to read to understand Barber's comics (although Revolution is not 100% mandatory but your comics contains some references to it) and they are good. You read exRID after Revolution and the Transformers tie-ins (which was better than the Transformers events) and then you had to read Optimus Prime and Revolutionaries after First Strike and then continue reading Optimus Prime until you get to Unicron and only. You were not required to read the other comics (there were Revolutionaries you had to read but it was a Transformers comic).
I deal with complex litigation files on a regular basis and I threw up my hands at the Revolutions and subsequent Unicron crossover nonsense, in large part because I was not interested in them in the first place. This isn't an issue of comprehension. Anyone can "get" the book if they try hard enough. It's an issue of interest. Crossovers are by their own nature disruptive and designed to introduce and/or sell comics from other titles out of hopes that the reader will get interested in those titles, too. However, if you don't want these other books in your main book, it's distracting and annoying - in other words, a basis for someone to slow down a prospective reader that just wants to get through the main story. @Maverick Hunter Christian didn't say that any of the non-Transformers books were necessary reading. He said there was mingling and rapidly moving plot points. They are in fact distracting -specifically because they're meant to be so you buy those other books. If you don't like crossovers or any of the characters involved, they're not going to make you want to read the book. IDW was suffering enough at the end without it attempting to jam Micronauts and Visionaries in, no matter how much anyone may or may not have liked them. It's like getting a pizza with a surprise dog turd inside. Maybe you love pizza, but once you discover the dog turd, you're not going to want it anymore.
I thank you all for your insightful information. Looking forward to these books. Another question just came to mind. Have "the lost light" series begun to enter the books yet? 28 hardcovers, that is just crazy
Not yet. The trade paperbacks are all out, but the hardcovers are still catching up with the MTMTE era. They should finish up end of next year with Phase 2 Volume 12, then Lost Light will appear right after that.
I think that should continue the name of Phase 2 since the comics of Transformers are the continuations of the previous comics that only changed of name, they are continuing the plots of before and TAAO began before Revolution and finished later.
It's a possibility. I'll happily admit one reason I'd like to see a Phase Three is that I reckon there's eight hardcovers to fill it, and 8x Phase One, 12x Phase Two and 8x Phase Three will be visually appealing on my bookshelf