This is my first ever partworks that I’ve ever done and my first experience of hachette.

It will be my last.

 

So, a question for anybody who could help a US resident. Does anybody know of any sites I could import these books from? Failing that, what would be the best UK websites to buy from if I opted to use a proxy buyer?

I'm only really looking to grab the first 20 volumes. I've always wanted to check out the Marvel UK material in its entirety and since IDW put the kibosh on the UK Classics collection, this seems to be my next best option. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

 

Straight from the horse's ass, here's the rest of the book titles in current expected publication order.

The Falling Pt.2
Beast Wars: The Gathering
The Everlasting Voices
G.I.Joe v Transformers Pt.2
Crucible
Generation 2 Pt. 2
Unicron
Beast Wars: The Ascending
G.I.Joe v Transformers Pt.3
The World in your Eyes
The Cracks Beneath Your Feet
Constructions Rising

So an extension is entirely possible as and when IDW print the new material. It does mean no (obvious) inclusion of Deviations, Infestation 2, X-Files, vs ROM, vs Visionaries, Mars Attacks or the currently missing 'The Gift'. I'm assuming Crucible is the end of Lost Light and something else will be tagged on to Constructicons Rising to make it 6 issues.

 

No way. Is it including the new IDW stuff too?

 

Looks like it. What they've got there is the first 12 issues of the series and the first 4 (or 6) of Galaxies.

 

God, just seen their post on Facebook. That saves me picking up the first volume of the new IDW series. Think Vol 2 is out in June

 

Yeah, I'll hold off the 2nd volume for now (have the first) but if they aren't going to carry it on I think I'll sack off the last 3 books from this run.

 

Is their precedent for them carrying on a currently ongoing series? Does anyone know?

 

How have people been getting issue 86 & 87? I would usualy pick it up at Forbidden Planet.

 

Still no 'The Gift'? This is bad comedy.

As this thing goes on it just gets more and more chaotic.

Mine just gets saved for me at my local newsagents. I'm up to date.

 

I don't regret the first 80 issues and the extension looked hopeful at first, as mishandled as the modern book reprints have been (and in general but just what personally bothers me) stuff like Ascending, more GI Joe, especially G2 is nice to get and it made some sense for the sake of 3 volumes to do the rest of Lost Light and Optimus Prime/Unicron because then you've got a nice clean end regardless of omissions and funny volumes (their handling of TAAO and volume 65 - Requiem particularly bothers me).
But why then start something else that you're either never going to finish or that I'm going to be a lot happier cancelling if they do continue. And IDW, right now, are on top of comprehensive hardcovers for the 2019 series so I would buy those. I am buying individual issues. I would buy a mishandled line of books that aren't around, which is why I'm still here and still happy.
But that's $60 of annoyance there.
EDIT: and yeah no reason not to toss The Gift in there anywhere, this thing isnt cohesive enough to argue they've missed their chance. Maybe a volume with of all the prose stories they ignored too.

 

Anyone on Twitter want to ask Furman about the Gift or the Botcon collection or if this is going to continue on again?

 

Are some of IDW in the wrong order?

 

Oh so much of it is.

 

Yes, too much to list as KingGrim has already said. But I'll take this as an excuse to make the case again for issue 65 not existing in its current form at all. Its actually issue 64, chronologically 80. Anyway, I was going to say pairing the TAAO annual and the 2018 annual is the one thing they got right, but no its the 2017 annual and the whole thing is wrong like I remembered.
Till All Are One 5-11 are in issue 76, this should've been 5-12 but instead ends on a cliffhanger. Issue 80 has TAAO 12, so you've read a dozen comics before you see how it ends. It would actually be impressive that they had all of TAAO before any of Optimus Prime if they weren't weird with the last issue. They were published at the same time but the end of TAAO is reflected in the start of Optimus Prime. The annual wraps up loose ends, happens around Optimus Prime 15 rather than before issue 1 so having that in what was going to be the final volume is fine when they weren't originally going as far as The Falling.
The 2017 annual should have been in an Optimus Prime volume, in between 8-9. This would probably move 1 issue but either at the end of issue 78 or at the start of 79.

Now in a collection that knew it wasn't ending, and one that actually collected Vs Visionaries there is actually some chronological time between the TAAO annual and Requiem of the Wreckers, which both have to happen after different crossovers but read as standalone books. But for what they did in 80 issues, those two being together is fine, just not with everything else making it a random book.

I would make vol 79 an Optimus Prime book like 78 is, keeping 9-12 but adding the 2017 annual and maybe something else.
Vol 80 would be the TAAO annual, Requiem of the Wreckers, Lost Light 9-12 (originally in vol 79) and replace the 2017 one with the 2018 annual, which even with the extension I'm not sure has been published but thats the only new addition. But that directly follows the TAAO annual in reading order.
TAAO 12 should just be in vol 76 that should not acquire any adjustments just go back in time and make that change at least its simple.
Those volumes about the same size? You could put just LL 9 in 79 if thats a little small, but I'd rather not.

 

And that's just one volume. I'm currently working through from the start and have had to go to and fro to get the -Ation stuff in order.

 

Exactly. I've looked at it again now and I forgot how messy it is with the first volume of Infiltration and then all these books from years later. Like I am invested enough in this to have written my own guide to the whole IDW universe which I've then shared with like two people as an afterthought
But regardless of my specific ideas of where to place Megatron Origin and my insistence that the order of phase 2 books be correct to the individual issue when they've been written that way
(And even if I've misunderstood Furman's involvement with this collection)
how do you mess up the Ations? You just read them, one after the other... Volumes 34-35 wont even allow that though

 

Does anybody by chance know how often Hachette restocks their online store? It looks like it went up over the weekend but several issues I wish to grab are missing.

 

Given that the new Transformers 84 comic coming out this summer is contradicting the events of ‘The Gift’ (i.e. it makes certain claims about Jetfire’s origin), do we think that Furman omitted it on purpose in the hopes that we’d forget it?

 

It wouldn't surprise me. I respect his creative talents, but he does have historical form for wanting to quietly brush his earlier work under the carpet so as to push his newer 'take'.

Heh, makes me flash back to when I first read "The Enemy Within", as the 'UK reprint' strip packaged alongside the Eye of the Storm/Price of Life US import at the same time. Even then, he was being a little dismissive in sidebar notes on Transformation about the earlier work, and the main Transformation editorial at one point quipped about how if only Megatron of "The Enemy Within", whilst raging, knew what the future held for him, as in, the Mega-Ratchetron hybrid business. Meanwhile I was thinking to myself how much more- well, fun the earlier story was, and how it felt much more comfortably in tune with the Earthforce stuff.

It'll be a real shame if nobody ever gets off their backside and picks up where IDW left off, to release digital versions of the "Space Pirates" through to "Earthforce" comic stories.

Mr. Furman, the next time you're tempted to revisit G1, it is indeed time to pick up the story after you finished it with a story entitled "The End of the Road", just as before. There is a burning question which must be answered, and the only way for you to do so in a satisfactory manner is to begin penning your next epic (yes, I used the word, this means it must have Galvatron in it, time travelling, and Dinobots); a ten part story entitled "How Motormaster Got His Feet Back."