Guys I've been away from the boards and avoiding the hobby for nearly a year (I think), so I've been getting caught up on stuff...

And it's kind of cool IDW is bringing together a shared Hasbro Universe (which I think they should have done since the beginning).

But is it just me or has the IDW Transformers Mythos become ridiculously convoluted and confusing? I mean I'm not sure if Marvel at their 90's X-Men worst could top this.

Don't get me wrong IDW has delivered some of the best Transformers stories ever.

But this stuff with their origins. There was the whole alternative creation story in MTMTE with Mortilus and Primus, etc.

Then they brought in some kind of version of "The Thirteen" myth. But different somewhat from the Aligned continuity (I think).

Has anyone created a cheat sheet of the whole IDW Transformers backstory?

With a shared universe it's only going to get more confusing I suspect.

 

This doesn't necessarily make it LESS convulted but 'The Thirteen' stuff and MTMTE Annual stuff doesn't actually contradict each other, if the latter happened at all. Thirteen just comes afterward. Maybe you knew that and I understood.

Anyway I don't give a damn about GI Joe (maybe I've just missed all the good stuff maybe it is not my thing) but if they are going to be muddling up Optimus Prime and possibly but probably not Lost Light I'll second the cheat sheet thing. There is this but it might be a little too detailed for a cheat sheet and obviously skips over the non-Transformer stuff which is what I need it for more than Transformers. Of course it might suit you.

 

This is a good place to start if you just want to fill yourself in: IDW Generation 1 continuity - Transformers Wiki

Honestly, it's less convoluted now than it used to be. A lot of the weirder stuff Furman came up with kept drifting around and twisting into different plotlines for years until it was all finally put to rest with Dark Cybertron. Everything's mostly pretty straightforward now, though as with any continuity-heavy story, it's best read from the beginning.

As far as the origin thing goes, the Primus/Guiding Hand thing is explicitly a religious/mythological belief that will never be confirmed or denied in-universe, and it really has no impact on the story (aside from those who believe it). In IDW, the Thirteen are more like ancient warlords who were worshipped as gods a long time ago, but really they're just exceptionally powerful but ordinary Cybertronians. No contradiction, but it can be a little confusing if you're used to the Aligned version, since the names are the same.

 

Thanks guys. Stryker055 I thought the Ore13 stuff was resolved as well and they dug it up again for the Revolution arc. It's like the plot device we just can't get rid of. But I appreciate the tips.

Love what Barber has done with Thundercracker. 'Cracker G1 was my first TF ever and it's good to see him finally get some character development. And so AWESOME too!

 

Compared to Japanese G1, the IDW continuity is about as convoluted as Goodnight Moon.

That said, Takara has gone to great lengths to have everything make sense. Once you untangle Japanese G1, it all fits together. But there are a couple things in IDW that flat out contradict each other.

 

Hah, no!

I mean, there's a *lot* of it, but in broad strokes it's not too hard to follow, there's no real reboots or major continuity issues. There's plenty of continuities out there harder to follow.

The origin / ancient history stuff has a very continuity-friendly approach of, "These are myths. It's unsure how much is true. Especially the oldest stuff." There's the Guiding Hand era, which is totally questionmark. Then the Knights, who's main evidence seems to be the existence of Titans, and finally there's the 13 Primes (and their 13 tribes), who were a group of very real leaders with some cool stuff who got mythologized over time, but aren't an origin story.

 

Eh, not necessarily. I got into the comics a couple of years ago and I followed them just fine by reading both Ex-RID and MTMTE. Later I got into the Furman early stuff and loved it.

Sure, there are recent events that contradict some of the early ones but they're not really huge retcons. IDW is pretty new reader friendly overall.

 

I honestly find it really simple to keep track of given the use of touchstone events/characters. All I have to remember is a few names and they link me to the various events.

 

It helps that for most of its existence it's either been one book or two/three that take pains to not contradict each other.

 

Not really. There's only like four major events you need to remember, and even then you don't really 'need' to remember some of them. Like AHM: barely anything happened in that series that is worth noting aside from the fact that earth got a little beat up.

As far as comics go it's not really all that convoluted.

 

For fans? Probably not. For any casual that might want to give one of the current books a go? Probably a little.

 

No.

 

Are you kidding me ? I tried to entangle that Marvel superheroes mess once. I litterally didnt know where to begin.
Even calling Marvel G1 convulted i can understand when even TF wiki just makes things up as they go along calling this annual story in continuity and this but not that. That comic where those guys are doing something in Portland while at the exact same time in the previous comic they are on another planet? Yeah, in continuity, why not. IDW G1 is a peace of cake.

 

It's only 'convoluted and confusing' if you make it that way. It's pretty darn straightforward outside of the occasional Spotlight issue.

 

  That's silly.

Yes, IDW allowed itself to get a bit convoluted (I'd say a weak editorial hand was to blame)... but it's normalized pretty decently over the past couple of years.

 

No, I'd say it is appropriately convoluted for a series that has lasted as long as it has.

 

I think you can say it's convoluted but it's not the origins that's convoluted, I think that's pretty straight forward, what is though, is the way the actual stories are presented, what characters have done and sense behind such actions. Like the dead universe, did nova prime run it or d-void? Because we get chaos which is the d-void trying to gain access to the universe through a (insane?) galvatron, but then we get dark cybertron where nova has just been chilling in the dead universe all along. And let's not forget about revelations which predates those two stories. In Dark Cybertron what was shockwave really trying to do? Did he really think that reducing the entire universe into a singularity was a good idea? Himself included? I mean what was the actually point? With all the dead universe stuff it seems like there was no actual point to what was being done. Costa's run basically went nowhere. What was Megatron's plan again? I mean he was virtually invincible but turned himself over to the autobots after prime couldn't hurt him at all. What was the point of trying to turn the humans against the autobots with mind control guns, when he already basically decimated the planet in AHM. Honestly IDW works better starting with Stormbringer and skipping straight to AHM and then from there do LSOTW, then start reading the current stuff MTMTE and RID, and dark Cybertron becomes a little more bearable, because I don't even feel like getting into the ations and how it doesn't fit with AHM, if there is any convultion, this is were it lies. Because IDW knows that stuff doesn't fit, we know stuff doesn't fit, but to appease the crowd that wants everything ever done in IDW to all fit, IDW pretends like it's all supposed to fit and everything just flows even though it's obvious it doesn't.

 

IDW continuity is really consistent up until the mandated "events", after which the authors spend years cleaning up continuity fuck-ups. The "Revolution" event is so far the most confusing of all the story line, and I wish it a quick death.

 

Yes, i'd say Revolutions is where it is really starting to get Marvel superhero comics read issue A of series A, then the first two pages of issue B of series B, then the last page of one off issue Z, continue in event issues A, B and G, go back to issue B of series B etc nightmarish.
Shared universes are not a good idea.

 

Revolution wasn't a Hasbro-mandate thing like Dark Cybertron or Combiner Wars. It was something IDW came up with themselves.

IDW got the licenses for Rom and whatnot, and then they went to Hasbro and pitched "what if they were in the same universe as the Transformers?" IIRC, folding in the existing IDW Joe comics came out of conversations John Barber and Andrew Griffith had.

And IMO, it really shows. Revolution is an excellent crossover, miles better than Dark Cybertron or Combiner Wars. The pacing in particular is so much better, because the creators said "this is the story we want to tell, we'd like five issues to tell it in" rather than Hasbro saying "we'd like you to come up with a story that fills twelve issues and features these specific toys".

I'm also kind of curious as to what these "continuity fuckups" you allude to are? Do you just mean "stuff happened which I didn't like?"

I think you're wildly exaggerating how confusing "main five-issue mini-series, with a tie-in one-shot for each of the involved comics" is. You can find a reading order for Revolution in a billion places, and there isn't any "read half an issue, then another, then the second half" stuff like you're implying.