Thursday, 29 October 2015

Robots In Disguise



Robots In Disguise.

While  The Savage Dragon and  Gold Digger are relatively niche,  I don't think I have to introduce  The Transformers. 
Especially not after the  four Bay movies  and the fact it's a  31  year old fran...
...I do  ?
Oh, alright then. 
Here  you  go,  look at this  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF463RT5tWc
and browse this  http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page  I'll wait. 

Okay, okay. 
The transformers chronicle  the  struggles of the  heroic Autobots  to destroy the evil Decepticons.  (  ahem  )  
They are living  robots, who  can  reconfigure  their shapes in to alt modes and truly become  robots in disguise.  (  Yeah that sounds  like marketing copy doesn't it  ? )
Anyway in 1984  Hasbro repurposed a bunch of Takara toys and turned them in to The Transformers and  the  franchise has never ever been  away since then.
It might have  diminished a bit since  the  juggernaut of  G1  in the  1980's  but the  movies for all their faults,  (  and there are many  )  have brought them  back to the forefront,  



The cartoon, original 1986  animated movie and the four live action movies might be the most  well known iterations of the Transformers,  but  there have also been  comics.
So much comics. 
From the  92  Marvel US comics, 
To the  332 Marvel  UK comics, 
To the  roughly  60 Dreamwave comics.  



After Dreamwave  went bankrupt in  2004,  IDW got  the  licence,  and that is where we  come in. 
IDW has had the licence  for  a decade now and they have released  more Transformers comics  then  anybody else,  excluding Marvel UK,  who had a  weekly schedule. 
IDW has had some heights  and  some lows and  quite a  lot of mediocrity as well. 
And this is the series  we will be  looking at, from start to finish.  



Sadly  this is the  series I have the  most gaps in.  I am missing several mini series and a chunk of the  2009 ongoing series. 

The IDW series chronology is also a tad ...confused. 
It was first released   as a series of inter connected mini series  and one shots. 
Before  being turned in to  a  new reader friendly  entry point,  maxi series. 
Things didn't  quite turn out  like that, but we will discuss that when we get there. 

These  comics will be reviewed in the  order they were released,  so Infiltration comes first. 
If I were to review them chronologically, things would become ...confusing very fast. 


2 comments:

  1. I look forward to this too. I read all the IDW stuff up to the end of ALL HAIL MEGATRON. Actually I think I may have read the first issue of the ongoing that came after that, but no further. When Simon Furman was kicked aside and they started going in other directions from the stuff he'd been laying out, I lost interest.

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    Replies
    1. I wasn't much of a fan of AHM either. I kept reading mostly because Maximum Dinobots and Last Stand Of The Wreckers managed to tide me over.

      AHM was such an oddly paced series, it ignored the main -ation continuity for 6 issues and then all of a sudden crammed everything in.

      The 2009 ongoing wasn't much better to be honest.
      And because I wavered so much, I have gaps in my collection.
      Mostly from the ongoing.
      And I am missing 3 mini series, Ironhide,
      Bumblebee,
      and the first Drift.
      Hopefully by the time we get there, I will have filled those gaps up.

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