#only like 10 people have read exrid

[lord-squiggletits]

There are two wolves inside of me

One recognizes MTMTE as the peak of IDW1 and possibly all transformers writing in general so is happy it gets that recognition

The other is sooooo fucking tired of MTMTE overshadowing every other worthwhile series in IDW1 to the point that half the fanbase hasn't even read anything besides MTMTE can we please talk about something besides MTMTE I'm begging you to read a Transformer comic besides MTMTE please please please

[quetzalpapalotl]

I wish to love and appreciate idw optimus more too. But I also don’t want to read through the entirety of IDW 1.0. Can you please recommend me any specific issues/parts?

Hi!! I see that you have already reblogged my IDW1 Optimus-focused reading guide, so I assume that you read that and still felt like it was too much. I'd do anything to spread the OP love, so I will try! But before that, please forgive me for rambling a bit.

That guide is not the entirety of IDW1, I tried to cut as much as possible, and I want to reiterate that I consider Barber's Optimus the definitive take on IDW1 Optimus. To the point that I like all other stuff with him only in because I read them through Barber's characterization which serves to give them depth in retrospective. And it does this because Barber's writes Optimus with the intention of consolidating all the other writer's takes on him (which were uh... a mess). It's a very contextual reading, a conversation, there's more to get from it if you know the background. So I would ask you to reconsider giving it a try, skip the crossovers if you want. I'll redo the reading guide with links to download/read online if you want.

That being said, I understand that sounds like "read these bad comics in the hopes you will like this one other comic" and the point is to have fun, not to do homework. So in that case I'll say to just read exrid/Optimus Prime and the JRo stuff (but we'll come back to teh later)

See, the exrid/OP is a whole story, so recommeding individual issues doesn't make much sense to me, it would be like recommending one episode of an anime or one chapter of a book, it would entirely lack context and lost much of it's meaning, especially because Optimus is a main character whose actions cannot be taken out from the rest of the plot. My favorite moments require build up, like when Optimus annexes the Earth to the council of worlds, that doesn't hit the same if you didn't read all the previous issues where Optimus was trying to remove all Cybertronian influence from Earth and the series of events that led to him changing his mind and think such a fucking move was a good idea.

And I've talked about this before, but while Mtmt/LL has its biggest strenght in character dynamics and out-of-screen build up, exRID/OP has it in thematic consistensy and narrative cohesion. All parts of it and there to make a point that feeds the whole, character's perspectives feed each other and the biggest pay-off comes at the very end. Also, Optimus Prime is a story about him as a character as much as it is about him as a symbol, so seeing the effects he has on other people is important.

I suppose you could read exRID starting from post Dark Cybertron as it basically becomes a different story and the first part doesn't feature Optimus (except in issues 6, 10, 19) I would not recommend this as there are still a lot of links between the two and you would miss a chunk of Arcee's story (who is the one other character on which the whole thing falls upon). But you could. Don't skip Combiner Wars tho.

Other than that here are some hightlights:

The Death of Optimus Prime: This is the one that works best as a single issue, as it is a one-shot. It sets up phase 2 so definitively read it.

JRo's stuff: That is Chaos Theory, Mtmte #9-11, Mtmte #36 and Spotlight: Orion Pax. Now, JRo's OP is certainly the one that is more likeable, but I don't necessarily think that it's good. JRo kinda wants to have Optimus be more morally grey but always reels back and portrays him as the ultimate good seemingly without considering the implications of a lot of the stuff he does. But still, Chaos Theory is the backbone of phase 2, they are fun reads and it introduces a lot of backstory and aspects of his personality that will be important.

Punishment: As this is a mini series, it's good to read on its own. It's still set in the broader context of exRID, but at least it's a complete story and a compelling one! Lots of Optimus brooding, but not in an annoying way.

Optimus Prime #1-6: Okay, so if you don't want to read all of exrid/OP or are testing the waters before commiting to it. This arc deals with Optimus trying to get people to accept Earth as part of the Council of Worlds and risking war for it, contrasted with events of his past. This may be the easiest arc to read on its own, but I also think it does a great job of building Optimus character. It's also a great example of the narrative not shying away from Optimus doing bad things, stupid things and having anger issues (and also the cop thing), while also retaining the core of his character as someone who genuinely wants to do good and getting into his head to make sense of his actions (not justify them). This is something that I feel only Barber gets right. Also Zeta Prime is there and he's the most important character that barely shows up.

Autocracy: Ok, ok, listen... this may or may not be the most disliked series in IDW1 and while I think it has a worse reputation than it deserves, I still wouldn't call it good. While its more honest abotu what being a cop entails than Chaos Theory and is willing to have OP be unsavory, that aspect doesn't really go anywhere and it fails to make OP an enganging character whose actions make sense. But it still has the backstory of how Orion became Optimus and a friend likes it, so hey, maybe you will too. Also the aforementioned flashbacks of OP 1-6 feel to me that they are written in direct response to Autocracy and try to explain how that is the same character than the one in Chaos Theory. I'm actually working on meta about that (anon, if you're reading this, I haven't forgotten). So for all that Barber is trying to recontextualize and reconciliate all the other takes on Optimus, this is the most obvious one and Autocracy is not that long. So it may be worth checking out.

Sorry for rambling again, I hope you find this useful!! Feel free to ask for links or any other questions!

[bitegore]

alright you got me. where do i start with transformers. is it possible to justread the comics and not watch the shows, and if not what single show would you recommend

It is absolutely possible to read the comics* and not watch the shows!

* There are multiple series of comics and this is more or less true for all of them except for Marvel's G1 comics, which are from the 80s and iirc (haven't read them) tie into the plots of the G1 (80s) cartoon episodes.

For clarity's sake, we have IDW1 (Started in 2005, ended 2019, and has the most attention on this site), IDW2 (started in 2019, the central title of it is clearly going long-form, and has received a lot of criticism on here), Marvel Comics (from the 80s, and a product of its time, as well as like i said very possibly a TV tie-in), and Dreamwave (which ran for a short period of time and then died; idk if anyone talks about it any more).

The "comics" you'd probably want to read are the IDW1 comics. WITHIN IDW1 we have:

Phase 1: my personal favorite part of the canon. Not objectively great, and a lot of people don't like it. Lays the groundwork for Phase 2, and ends with a massive fight that basically destroys and restarts Cybertron.

Phase 2: the part that holds that one comic that everyone talks about and pretends is the only part of the continuity to exist. This begins after the war ends, and deals with the reconstruction of Cybertron. In this is the comic More Than Meets The Eye and its continuation Lost Light, which is basically all anyone talks about on this website for the most part. Also contains (ex) Robots in Disguise/Transformers Ongoing, which is set elsewhere at the same time. If you want to read IDW1, a lot of advice will literally just tell you to start with MTMTE/LL and read nothing else. I don't like that advice, personally, because first of all it doesn't make sense because exRID is a direct parallel/tie in and is supposed to be read at the same time, but also because I think it literally must be confusing to new readers to have no background for any of the events referenced in them. But I also didn't love MTMTE/LL as much as everyone around me does, so there's also that.

My advice would actually be to follow this reading guide: https://web.archive.org/web/20180504120023/https://www.howtolovecomics.com/2016/10/17/idws-transformers-reading-order/ (yeah at that link specifically. they changed it after the continuity ended and made it worse). If you decide to follow this guide, don't read Hearts of Steel because it's from a different continuity altogether and has no importance on the story, and don't read New Avengers/Tranformers for the same reason (and also because it sucks mad ass? it's just written really badly). You can pretty much skip over anything too boring but bear in mind that Phase 1 basically explains the background of Phase 2- Stormbringer, for example, is dry as fuck but it's where "cybertron as a really messed up nightmare planet" comes from, and Spotlight: Arcee is transmisogynistic as fuck (actually you can skip that one, also this is why we all hate Simon Furman. among other reasons. fuck that guy).

Anyways this is like nearly 15 years worth of comics. Understandably, you might not want to read all that.

The 2019 comic is short enough so far, because they went on a hiatus in 2020 and also don't have nearly as much Content(tm) to read through. It's just (in my opinion, at least) not... super... engaging... and what there is, there, is not enough Stuff to really get engaging. It's been a while since I sat down to read it last, though, so it might've gotten better while I wasn't looking.

As an onboarding cartoon, Transformers: Prime is probably the best entry point. It largely keeps the same concepts from G1 and IDW (big war that is active, Optimus Prime and Megatron as figurehead enemies) and is fun enough. I also really like Transformers: Animated, but they took a really big step away from the normal formula and made Optimus a military school washout years after the war ended, so it won't really give you that much experience with Regular Transformers even though in my opinion it's probably far and away the best Transformers cartoon I've watched. People also really like Cyberverse. It takes me like a year to watch half a season of anything, so I haven't actually watched that one all the way through yet, but it starts out really dull and then gets pretty good and then from what I understand it just gets better after season 2. I haven't watched it that far yet though. There's a movie for it that just came out with ??? cool and interesting stuff that ive seen some disconnected spoilers for but completely don't understand??? so if you want to watch a lighthearted show that starts off slow, you'll be walking right into the like most excited fizzy core of TF fandom on here as of right now, and it also is pretty good for most of TF canon, though from what I understand it borrows heavily from IDW1 at times.

Sorry; this probably wasn't exactly what you were looking for. Ask anyone else and they'll tell you to just read More than Meets the Eye and Lost Light and ignore everything else, I just... as a person who didn't like them that much and find most of the concepts and characterization beats I like come from literally everywhere else, I cannot say that in good faith without feeling like I'm setting you up for failure LMAO.