If this video has made you interested in checking out this series, have a look at this very comprehensive reading order including all the tie-ins, mini-series, crossovers, and related comics, assembled by @jalaguy! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bl1qyqsiSJa4aEAzj7XpSGqFO2P93KEF/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=104902380619747537634&rtpof=true&sd=true
RIP IDW Transformers. It was a Hell of a journey from High School to College, and I thank you for all the weird, wonderful and awesome tales of our favourite robots.
Knowing this makes me wanna hunt down the IDW Transformers comics(preferably in Trade Paperback or Hardcover collections), but I doubt I'll be able to find the entire series before the license expires.😭 Unless I get REALLY LUCKY and find them during a convention.
@@matthew_natividad IKR! I've avoided reading comic books for years, all because I tend to prefer moving pictures over colored stills. But after watching this episode, dammit I wanna know what happens to the Transformers after their war ends! Plus IDW's artwork is really pleasing to look at IMO.
@@matthew_natividad Agreed. Although I feel Dreamwave comics might be a lot harder to find, since they went out of business a long time ago. And even if I get lucky and do find them, they'll probably cost an arm and a leg by modern price standards. Especially with inflation going on(as of this reply)
Arcee was also confirmed to be Galvatron's brother before Jihaxus performed the CNA operation and made him a her. They actually used the gray version of Galvatron as Arcee's original appearance in flashbacks
@@fahadmalik8862 that was part of Arcee 's whole idw story. She wanted revenge on Jhiaxus for the forced alteration to her CNA. The other Cybertronians saw her as an aberration. It wasn't until she met other female transformers from the colonies in the series that she saw herself as being Normal.
As much as I loved the first half of RiD and Starscream’s ambitions to lead, I REALLY got hooked at Prime’s attempts to try and be a war-time leader during peace. The question of whether the power of the Primes was inherently corrupting was a really good one, but it was balanced really well by insights into Optimus’ guilt at the calls he felt he had to make.
Since Dreamwave and idw, shockwave become one of my fan favourite villains, especially his cold logical science personality,we really need to see shockwave with that personality in tv shows,and I think that idw/Dreamwave shockwaves was the inspiration for prime shockwave
@@dryceraidfanficksyoutube That's the direction they logically should've gone in after Predacons Rising. Instead we got a repetitive villain of the week show with no Shockwave in sight. :(
Virtually everyone in OP was taking a dump on him and you just wanted him to snap back at them, telling them that they can lead if they so know much about leadership but it never comes.
I'm really glad to have been able to sponsor this one, from one "JB" to another - RID/OP and all the rest (Action Man included!) isn't just my favourite Transformers story ever, it's one of my favourite overall comic "runs" of all time! While MTMTE had a reputation for being the "character-focused" one and RID the "plot-focused" one, the arcs of Arcee, Optimus, Soundwave and more will always stick for me as some of the greatest character stories to come out of Transformers. Barber's writing is funny, dramatic and often tragic, with a great sense of pacing and an incredible talent for adapting to the circumstances of Hasbro mandates and changes in publishing schedule. Notably, his use of continuity - while maybe intimidating to some readers who didn't want to go back and read previous runs - was always in the service of the stories, characters and themes, and I personally felt he always made sure you knew everything you needed to up-front. Oh, and it somehow managed to make me care about Sideswipe, which I had previously thought was impossible...
Action Man was sadly underrated, the book and character provided much needed levity to Barber’s work and that whole universe really. You look at RiD/TF/OP and everyone is talking about the problems with Cybertronians on Earth and how they can’t be trusted and all that type of stuff over and over, and then you had Ian going, "I want a giant robot friend to go on adventures with!" He was us, the fans, and it was great, and I wish there had been a little more stuff like that. But nothing lasts forever, and IDW decided Kup would be the perfect character to kill off to show how serious things were going to get. SIGH The ups and down of the original IDW Universe.
I think both series are phenomenal companions to each other, their whole is certainly my amongst my favorite comic runs of all time. Thanks for sponsoring this one!
This series is the only comic series that I have read from start to finish, it was so good. I know all good things have to come to an end but I wish IDW continued the main storylines instead of rebooting everything.
@@nic8577Late response, but if you’re wanting to get to the consistently good stories like this you’re better off starting with Phase Two. Anything you need to know from Phase One will get explained. Phase One has plenty of great stories too, but it was a much more volatile time.
R.I.P. IDW Transformers. You'll be sorely missed. It would curious to see what would have happened if there was a schism in the Autobots due to Megatron's sentencing. What if that meant Optimus had to lead his autobots against former friends and comrades who broke away because they felt Megatron's sentencing was too lenient...
I really like it that IDW decided not to reveal Megatron's ultimate fate in the main universe. It added greater poignancy to Rodimus placing Megatron's tattered Rodimus Star on Ratchet's memorial.
You gotta do more than meets the eye!!!!! Rodimus, the lost light, autobot megatron, the DJD, whirl, cyclones, swerve, and soo much more. It’s an amazing comic!,
I did enjoy the Robots in Disguise series, the transition to peace was interesting and trying to keep it. The one character development I really liked was Thundercracker's want to be left alone to do his thing of writing of all things, who knew?
IDW's RID/OP series was one of the few comic book lines that asked some of the most difficult questions to answer in life. Chief among them, Optimus trying his best to reach out to other species as a way to atone for transgressions of the past. Everyone does want peace. But what are we willing to do and sacrifice to achieve it? Is it right to take means into your hands and by contrast, force others into something they never asked for? What can we do to make sure we stay true to our goals? Or perhaps, what is the cost of building a better world? What does it mean to be a leader? What defines the role of leadership? We got our answers, as harsh and grimy they may be. But, no one ever said the road to peace was clean or easy. If anything, it can be tangled, winding, oftentimes obscure. If Unicron was any indication, it was that imperialism was always a short term, bloody solution. A solution that ruins more than it reveres and becomes a very existential consequence for those learning about it generations later. It ultimately brings shame and disgust when visited in hindsight. The best answer is to stop running from the problems and find the courage to acknowledge and stone for them. Sure, they may not culminate in the doomsday weapons of science fiction, but the impact and vibes are just as powerful. In short, the path to peace was never an easy one, and everyone has ideas on how to make it work. However, it is easier to start a conflict with everyone because paranoia is easier to feed than premonition. Peace was always the longshot during and after the war. Same time, there will always be those who seek to take power by force because they think they have all the answers only to buckle under the pressure of challenges and adversity. Some wind up falling from grace or succumbing to fatalities. Some will effectively silence opposition or conflict in order to get what they want and screw over the dissidents for stepping out of line. But just because the world is more rotten and unsavory than a moldy batch of apples or oranges, doesn't mean you have to be the same as your predecessors. If you are willing to stand up to an adversary that practically TOWERS over you, stay true to yourself (not without some bending and rewriting) in order to lead society to a better tomorrow, then I guess we know what we have to do. Even if we know that it is going to be messy
Have to admit, the first half of the comic does well to make me feel conflicted. On the one hand, I know the Autobots well just like other fans. They want to do things right this time around and have good reason to be cautious towards the Decepticons. And it’s frustrating to see the Nails because they have no idea the hardships the Autobots went through. It’s like how I would feel watching Star Wars civilians bad mouth the clone troopers who have already gone through so much in their lives that was thrust on them. However, the comic also makes me recognize that as good as the intentions of the Autobots are, they’re definitely not the ones who should be leading peacetime Cybertron. Their feelings towards the Decepticons make them implant bombs in their heads, they treat civilian Nails with disrespect despite the fact these people fear the Autobots and Decepticons will restart their war, and of course you have to remember IDW 2005 Continuity’s version of Pre-War Cybertron and Autobots. We may know Optimus is the greatest Prime ever and redeemed the Autobots, but everybody else in the comic has good reasons to not know or completely doubt that. I mean, look at the second half of the series. Optimus basically uses the mythology and religion around Primes to lead a colonization effort of Earth. Again, we know his true intentions and for a guy colonizing people, he sure doesn’t act like it. But as frustrating as it is to see humans keep fighting Autobots, I can’t blame them. They don’t want to be in another Transformers War. The Autobots made Megatron, the warlord who ravaged Earth, one of them. And all the Transformers that doubt Optimus? Well, there is the fact all other Primes were either frauds or tyrants, Optimus keeps trying to get people who hate each other for understandable reasons to work together, and the fact he is basically manipulating people via his position as well as defying an elected government. Talk about really testing one’s faith in one of the greatest heroes in fiction.
Yeah, that's something I really like about Barber's writing - even when we know a character to be wrong (cough-Slide-cough), their behaviour and attitudes always make sense when you consider what they know and what they've experienced.
That's one of the best things I like about the IDW comics. The fact that there's different sides to everything, and nothing's entirely stagnant. Optimus trying to be a leader in a post-war environment, the Decepticons trying to return to their roots as revolutionaries, even Prowl's obsessive qualities that drove a wedge between him and his former comrades. The worldbuilding especially is my favorite.
@@kira-dk2mx The various reasons the Great War starts sure make me think of ways I could write a Fanfiction. Like maybe I could have the war start because Unicron and Primus were once brothers who destroyed organic worlds to create new ones, only for Primus to grow sick and horrified with ending life and deciding to become Cybertron and create his own people. When Unicron tries to get his brother back into business, those that want to aid Unicron become the Decepticons while those that agree with Primus become Autobots. When the Decepticons help Unicron in attacks, the organics pressure the Autobots to intervene, maybe with sanctions since it is members of their species helping Unicron. War breaks out and a tragic point is when Unicron and Primus go head to head, with the latter losing and Cybertron being destroyed. Unicron sends the Decepticons to hunt down surviving Autobots to ensure his brother’s legacy doesn’t hinder him again. Or maybe the war starts because of the 13 Primes. Like maybe long ago, most became power hungry and wanted to be the sole leader of Cybertron. Solus Prime is one of the few Primes who calls for peace, but Megatronus kills her and it becomes a free for all. Two parties eventually form. The power greedy Primes rally under Megatronus against the Primes that oppose these grabs for power. It comes down between Megatronus and the 13th Prime, the youngest of the Primes. The 13th wins, but stands down as leader of Cybertron fearing the next Primes will be like Megatronus. Primes become heads of the military, answerable to an elected council. Centuries later, corruption plagues the council as some city-states run an organized gladiator fight. Megatron is one of these gladiators who suffers. Also, Cybertronian colonies don’t get fair representation, usually depending on corrupt members of the council to get by. Orion Pax uncovers this with the help of Megatron and they go to Sentinel Prime for help. Unfortunately Sentinel uses the chance to become a dictator, forcing Pax and Megatron to lead a rebellion against him. But Megatron becomes the next tyrant, revealing himself as a sort of follower of Megatronus and who used Sentinel to wipe out the Council. Now Megatron becomes sole “emergency” ruler of Cybertron until he declares elections can be held again after Orion Pax and his Autobots “assassinated” Sentinel, a misguided patriot of Cybertron. When Orion gets the Matrix of Leadership and becomes Optimus Prime, he denounces Megatron as a deceiver and vies to restore the council and make it better than it was. So, got any of your own fan versions of the Transformers in your head? Like why the war begins, how it ends, and what Cybertron is like?
@@tristankawatsuma8962 I've always loved IDW's version of the war, where it was born from the chaotic downfall of false primes in a totalitarian regime so bad it could make Stalin have a seizure. I'm already writing my own TF fanfiction that takes a lot of elements from the IDW comics and the Aligned Continuity. Cybertron is declining as a society under the rule of a false Prime and the Functionist Council, whose increasingly narrower views of "useful" alt modes are growing more and more restrictive every day. The war begins when the cybertronian government launches one of many horrific "cleansing" raids on Tarn, Megatron's home city, to purge it of rebellious criminal elements. It sparks a revolt across Cybertron as Megatron declares war against the Primal Dynasty. Optimus, at the time Orion Pax, is leading a very, very rough version of the Autobots and for a time he and Megatron work to fight back against the Cybertronian Council and its despotic functionist rule. After a series of guerrilla warfare battles, Orion and Megatron finally destroy the Functionalist Council, but they split over how they want to rebuild Cybertron's government and society. Orion wants to reform society from the inside, with the representatives of the cybertronian city states and abolish the caste system that fractured their species to start with. Megatron, hurt and scarred physically and mentally from his time as a miner under Sentinel Prime's rule and having witnessed too many atrocities committed by the false Primes, wants to wipe the slate clean and create a new Cybertron, a world where cybertronians are the strongest species in the galaxy and seek to make Cybertron an empire that rivals Nova Prime's Golden Age. This causes a schism between the two (aside from more personal reasons) and Megatron critically injures Orion in the process. Orion finds the Matrix in a hidden chamber underneath Iacon's Citadel, sparking a reformatting that changes him into Optimus Prime. Optimus regroups with his scattered Autobots and launches a counterattack on Decepticon-controlled Iacon with the aid of Omega Supreme. This marks the first battle of the Third Cybertronian War. I can't go into detail on how my war will end, but it will last for millions of years and will lead to a slow but steady decline in the galaxy's cybertronian population. Both sides struggle to remember why they were fighting in the first place beyond "because Autobots/Decepticons" and several combatants become disillusioned with the war. I designed Cybertron as a planet that was born naturally, looking more like a metallic Earth composed of stone and metallic ore of varying compositions. The first cybertronians were born from hot spots created by pulsewaves emanating from Vector Sigma, but over time cybertronians evolved to reproduce through "budding" splitting apart a small fragment of their Sparks and living metal to create embryotic protoforms. The Thirteen Primes weren't the first Transformers, but they were the forefathers of the first thirteen settlements that would become the first city-states. Seriously, IDW really helped me a lot with how to create my own universe.
@@kira-dk2mx You know, I honestly wonder if internal reforms only work for democracies and semi-democracies. As imperfect and corrupt they can be, they still answerable to the people to an extent and most people in such societies at least prefer doing things democratically, including some politicians. Meanwhile with authoritarian regimes, they’re basically designed to make revolution the only option, and one that doesn’t have a guarantee of success. Anyways, with my lineage of Primes, they sort of have a mixed history. On the one hand, they get damn great Primes because the Matrix of Leadership and by extension Primus chooses them. However over time, somebody figures out a way to cheat this system by making a fake Matrix of Leadership, allowing false Primes to rise. I’m not sure whether they are just stooges for corrupt council members or if they are like Star Wars Sith who create a lineage designed to carry out a master plan over centuries. Anyways, Megatron basically learns of this hence why he ensures Sentinel becomes the one who takes down the council, knowing he has the resources and can be blamed for things going wrong. Maybe I have this be because Megatron was one of the candidates to be the next false Prime, though probably gets dropped. Megatron gets into the gladiator business for both glory and money. While Cybertron’s economic situation is decent, miners like Megatron only have a little extra beyond what they need to get by. While not poor, they’re kind of stuck where they are. Then Megatron learns of the gladiatorial pits. The chance to not just be rich, but also famous overrides any concerns he and any friends have about the fact the city-states demand complete secrecy, such as how injured gladiators can’t go to Cybertron’s equivalent of public hospitals, or the fact the matches are only held in a few city-states. Part of this is due to the secret support from politicians of these city-states who have security done by their law enforcement and security units. They also have criminal organizations in this city get leeway and run free so long as they ensure crime gangs in other cities have help so they can run interference and distract other politicians and cops. Megatron quickly learns the truth when in his first match, he is forced to murder a gladiator who has juiced himself up despite it being a non-lethal match. The crowd watching act confused and think they got the wrong schedules instead of terrified. And the body is just handed right to the cops who write it off as gang violence, with the actual gangsters leaving their mark on the corpse so that any outsiders who check the police report don’t doubt it. And when Megatron wants out, he’s told that for the secrecy of the games, he can’t. If he leaves, the former miner-Yes, all gladiators must quit their jobs do their bosses and coworkers don’t ask questions if you come in battered-will either be blacklisted do he can never get a job in all cities and even Cybertronian colonies or he’ll be killed even if he hides in a non-gladiator city or even goes offworld. Either he runs back or dies. Orion Pax is just your regular archivist. He’s got a friendly relation with Iacon’s cops since his brother Ultra Magnus is one of their officers. He’s got a girlfriend, Ariel. The only negative about his life is that he’s the apprentice of Alpha Trion, an archivist deemed to have a malfunction for claiming the Matrix of Leadership is missing. While Orion doesn’t believe Trion like everyone else and at times laughs behind his back, he sticks around because Aloha is both a nice guy and very competent at his job, great qualities for a mentor. He just ignores the old guy’s conspiracy theory about the Primes. Orion finds out about the gladiator matches when the council member of Iacon, a young and eager bot, is convinced by other council members to bring the games to Iacon as the profits will be tremendous and make the city of archivists, professors, and nerds integrate better into Cybertronian society. Pax finds himself in the bleachers, where he and the council member have the same reaction as they watch Megatron fight the current champion of the pits, horrified. Megatron is nearly killed until Pax yells out for the match to stop, prompting the council member and some others to do the same, though most of the crowd stays silent. The distraction allows Megatron to turn the tables and win. There is a rule against interference in the game. Those who do so get tossed in to fight, so as to shut them up and bring back the “fun”. Megatron however goes easy since Orion did save his life. He gives Orion an opening to escape. Orion looks into this whole plot and realizes this began in one city-state shortly after the 13th Prime established the council. He and Megatron bring this to Sentinel as half of the Council are in on this and the police and security forces in their city-states are better armed, trained, and have more officers than the other half. With the help of the army, these corrupt council members are arrested, only for Sentinek to arrest the others in the same charges and disband the council. Alpha Trion stops seeming like a crackpot as people realize Primus wouldn’t choose Sentinel as a Prime. Sure he can make mistakes, but would never choose a tyrant. Orion and Megatron rally the people to fight back when it is revealed Sentinel sold off the council members and other political enemies to the Quintessons and organics who enslave sentient robots instead of exiling them. With the fall of Sentinel, all seems right until Megatron takes power and declares that Orion murdered Sentinel when he was unarmed and helpless, intending to make the city-states that avoided the corruption become a higher social class and establish a cruel autocracy. Megatron becomes acting ruler of Cybertron until this last “threat” to peace is eliminated. On the run, Orion finds the Matrix of Leadership which turns him into Optimus Prime. Optimus denounces Megatron as being deceptive, pulling the wool over everybody. He calls for the people to either join the Autobots and stop Megatron or for people to evacuate Cybertron as this wouldn’t be a coup, but a full blown war.
IDW has my favorite iteration of the TF universe. It's not perfect but I think that comes from having such long run. It might have been a good thing that it ended when it did. The comics have so many of my favorite versions of characters and newly introduced characters. Hope whoever takes on the comic franchise can provide further enjoyment.
And great artwork. Cause out of all the Comics/Graphic novels I've read, IDW tends to have, IMO at least, the best artwork. Although that's more due to the artist, and not the publisher.
i liked that idw rid focused a lot on soundwave,but as a fan of the Unicron triolgy,I found Dreamwave a better comics,the idw rid cybertronian mods are pretty solid and they are as better as the war within' ones
The Dreamwave took the “details” of transformers lore to another level! Showing fans, long imagined cybertronian modes to various characters…and exploring Japanese and unreleased characters was so boss.
It just goes to show what kind of damage that theft can do. I like IDW's take as well, but the loss of the Dreamwave series due to embezzlement was a massive downturn to the potential lorebuilding. I'm glad IDW's team was so good.
@@YAKUZA7759 Dreamwave were even better than idw imo, especially the unique artstyle,the characters,my first introduction to Dreamwave was the more than meets the eye bios/profiles comic
The overlooked kid brother. Fittingly, it focused on Bumblebee a lot. One thing I appreciated about John Barber's writing was that when he did something funny, it landed HARD. Roberts was more a firehose of gags and quips and bits and not all of them landed. When Barber decided to be funny, it usually was an A++ joke. Thundercracker's tracts of script made me laugh harder than anything any of the Scavengers ever said. Also, I will stand behind my feeling that the Onyx Prime reveal was more (S)hocking than the Rung reveal. We always knew there was something special about Rung. I don't think anyone saw what Barber did with Onyx Prime coming, and he set it up for YEARS beforehand without anyone noticing!
Yeah, nothing in MTMTE could compare with the sheer "oh my god, WHAT?!?!?" of that last page Onyx reveal. And yet once you know it, a bunch of stuff snaps into place!
After you do More Than Meets The Eye, could you do the entire second IDW Transformers continuity that went from 2019 to 2022 and compare its version of Pre-War Cybertron settings and characters as well as early war Cybertron to the first continuity’s version?
This episode was pretty good 101 summery of old IDW's Robots in Disguise. Luckily I had managed to follow this (though not from the start) and it's arcs via online comic library. I'll say that Unicron final event was interesting to read about.
I honestly consider the universe created in this series to be the definitive Transformers universe. Honestly my favorite, even if I loathed the way it ended (felt rushed)
@@Gigas0101 yeah it was, but something can be rushed and still be good. With the ending of this you can really feel it. Things that were being built up, like leige Maximo, are just kinda ended anticlimactically.
The whole Revolution even might have been too much. ROM and GI Joe were nice addition, and I could get behind MASK and Action Man being expension on the world of GI Joe, but I don't think we needed the Micronauts and I feel like the Visionnaries thing should just have been a non-canon crossover mini series.
IDW comics got me back into Transformers, so for that I’m glad it exists. However, I can’t help but see countless missed opportunities littered throughout the series.
I may not be a comic reader, but I do love how IDW revisits character profiles that Bob Budiansky wrote for the Marvel comic back in the 80s. It's a great way for new fans and old fans of Transformers to connect.
Thank you very much for talking about John Barber's run on Transformers, Chris. I really, unapologetically, loved his work on Transformers more than James Roberts's, mostly because of Bee's failing efforts to unite Cybertron, Dark Cybertron, the great development for characters like Prowl, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Thundercracker, the 2018 annual, and, most importantly, the deconstruction of Optimus Prime himself. Still, I would like you to talk about Roberts's run, since both he and Barber represented the Golden Age of Transformers in comic books.
This is where IDW went off the rails as far as i was concerned. the first 12 issues of RID was fantastic, i STILL remember sharing the palpable sense of dread the characters had when megatron walked out of the wilderness with all those sweep heads adorning him and the knowledge that ALL they were trying to build the last year would just fall apart as none of the three leaders had the force of personality that megs had. then there was an obvious shift in editorial or something as scott got the cybertronian stories and barber shifted us to earth. IMO its clear punishment/redemption etc were basically his original "season two" for the book , but we never got it in lieu of some absolute hokum on earth. and then they went off on the deconstructionist stuff whilst focusing on characters i didnt give a monkies about and i was gone. but barber can be proud of those first 12 issues . they were SOLID stuff up there with the best in the lore.
IDW made an incredible job with this franchise and created, as you said, some of the greatest versions of many characters, many of which were mentioned in this video. As a hardcore dinobots fan, however, my favourite has to be how Slug gained a lot of personality, going from the most murderous out of Grimlock's posse, to friendly supporter of Windblade, to disillusioned mercenary, to guide and friend to the newly mutated Strafe, to someone who aknowledges his past ant the mark it left on him, going as far as to willingly sacrifice his life to give the new generations a chance for a brighter future. Also: "Slug-you won't last a MINUTE!" "Then we'll get this done in FORTY-FIVE SECONDS!" What a bada*s!
I really love how they made Megatron an Autobot and STUCK WITH IT TIL THE END. They could’ve back peddled and made him a villain again, like Marvel and DC does all the time, but the fact they 100% committed to it, really made Megatron a much more complex and compelling character then just a violent dictator.
Don't forget that James Roberts left Autobot Megatron aboard the 'duplicate' Lost Light with the hope that fans would write further stories. I am tempted, sorely tempted, to investigate how the Autobots might be led by Megs in Optimus' place with Rodimus as a critical voice.
The Prowl issue right before he gets taken over by Bombshell was so great. I was just jumping into IDW again and that was the issue where I realized we were seeing something special play out.
RID is a bit of a mess that barely holds it together, a very enjoyable one, as was most of phase 2, but over the years i've learnt to appreciate it despite is flaws for its overarching themes, willingness to critique long standing franchise tropes and as you said, be extremely attentive to continuity. While Titans Return turned out to be the worst of the events by far, the idea of sentinel's xenophobic and fascistic tendencies returning in a post war world was a fantastic one, among other examples. But probably the best example is how obvious it is that the Dark Cybertron event, arguably the only one besides the ending that wasnt a toy tie in, was mangled in a million ways for the sake of future plotlines to the point its barely coherent, BUT the results of it are some of the best storylines in the franchise: starscream becoming a sham of a ruler haunted by the ghost of bumblebee, prowl's descent into madness, arcee's recovery from her trauma, pyra magna's loss of faith and most important of all, megatron's doomed road to redemption, all possible thanks to barber aborting the unicron plotline to save it for later, which was ultimately the right call.
The Optimus Prime run has one of my favorite moments in Transformers. That being Soundwave's Psionic Scream of Sorrow, finally showing the world the Cybertronians have feelings and care for humans.
Blue deceptions in Franchise: Evil Enemies to the Autobots Blue Deceptions in IDW: A good guy working for optimus, and a Seeker living a happy human-like life.
I still believe Cyberverse Soundwave was partially inspired by IDW Soundwave in both becoming Unlikely Allies and doing the right thing in the end to protect their people.
While I absolutely LOVE the IDW line, and enjoy RiD quite a lot, the latter part of the run took a very steep nose dive in quality to me. Once RiD switched focus to Optimus on Earth and it became the "Hasbro-verse" with obligatory new toys=comic event storylines, it really fell far far far short of what came before it in my eyes.
6:34 I cannot believe you did not mention Buster here! (I know you did in TCs solo episode) But you can redeem yourself with an episode of "The Basics" on Buster ;)
This is the IDW series I'm most interested in. Really interesting direction to take both Optimus' character and the overall story. Seem like it also didn't commit as much character assassination as the other series', even making a decent effort to salvage IDW Arcee.
The only one who actually made an attempt to salvage IDW Arcee was Mairghread Scott. John Barber put off dealing with it for eight years, ignored Scott's writing completely, and then in the very last issue of the comics, """fixed""" it in the most outrageously ugly, transphobic way possible.
11:22 That last part would definitely sum up Peter Cullen's thoughts about his character being used in a way that he would find appalling or revolting (after the live-action film series). I wonder if John Barber knew about this?
I don't think Cullen is interested how Prime is portrayed in comics. He's only worried about versions he lends his voice to. Besides, comic versions of most characters are different than their versions from other media. This applies to most higher profile characters.
I wouldn’t say it’s revolting, just a different less black and white take and Optimus realistically struggling in a post war situation and having people increasingly lose trust him him because of his desperate and destructive actions, all his life all he knew was fighting, and that caused him to struggle
And yet people call Bayverse Prime a psychotic murderer lmao. Dude literally decapitated and incinerated a surrendering Galvatron and put his head on a pike for the world to see. He also became a religious zealot who used younger generations of cybertronian colonists for political purposes and as soldiers. Not to mention, before the comic named after him, he just up and abandoned Hotrod, Bumblebee and Starscream to not only lead cybertron into the future but also left them to deal with the entire struggle of keeping things from going back to the way they were.
Maybe someday you’ll do the Basics of Jetstorm. The character never fully have an identity. Although, most people would say their favorite version is the one from Beast Machines
Well, not *forever!* Assuming the license works the same way it did with the Marvel and Dreamwave stuff, the new publisher ought to be able to reprint all of IDW's stuff too. But it'll undoubtedly be a few years before they'd think about doing that!
@@ChrisMcFeely it still sucks because it looks like they won’t finish phase 3 of the IDW collection in time before the license expires and lost light, Optimus prime and Requiem of the wreckers individual copies are getting increasingly harder to find
I adore what this run of books did for Prowl and Devastator and the first real looks into Combiner Psychology. Keith Zama's art on the Optimus book was amazing. And the fact that we still don't have a toy for Junkion Matriarch Rum-Maj is absolutely criminal.
Started reading MtMtE and RiD last year. Think I just have the All Hail Optimus part left of RiD to read. Feel kinda confused where to go from there. There's Till All Are One and then the crossover stuff it seems. The comics are great but I can never get a grasp of what I'm meant to be reading and when cos there's all these side things and different lines of comics. RiD was real good though. Not as light and adventurous as More The Meets The Eye but definitely was doing a great job of just being dramatic and full of big character arcs.
@@ChrisMcFeely Oh that is very helpful and a fair bit more clear than some of the ones I've looked at before. Vol 10, then titans Return and then Till All Are One. Cheers!
I love These books they got me into this comic book because show what it be when war is over seeing what they are doing and Inspired me do many ideas and stop motion movie I made in 2019 and still going today and love watching your videos there are awesome!!!!!!!
Very happy to see this episode - I'd probably have sponsored it myself at some point if Jo hadn't beat me to it! Barber's RID/OP run is probably my favourite Transformers story, and turned tons of characters like Thundercracker, Arcee and Shockwave into my faves as well. There's obviously loads of killer issues and stories across the run, but in particular, Unicron #6 is maybe the most gripping comic issue I've ever read - I always say that it's more cinematic than a lot of actual films! And I can't not shout out Earth's greatest heroes of them all, the Revolutionaries - what a series!
IDW's RiD (and More than Meets the Eye) runs were what got me back into transformers, particularly all the storylines in RiD. i LOVED all the reimaginings and explorations of the various characters, and the post-war storyline is something i really feel more transformers stories need to explore as well.
Most probably, yes! But they almost certainly won't do it right away, they'll want to assert themselves, their stories and the universe, before they start reprinting the older stuff, and it's pretty likely that however they collect them, it'll be in a different format than IDW did.
Can one of these animators do a IDW indepth video collection from start to finish with this story line. I work to much to read them all. But I love the ones I did get to read.
I’m definitely going to read these comics in the near future. Meanwhile, can you do episodes on these subjects please? Fortress Maximus. Kup. The Trainbots (maybe for obscure characters month?) And Sunstreaker.
This series is definitely the most detailed and well-developed series out of IDW’s run. Showing a side of the Cybertronian race that we’ve never seen in most media beforehand. Not just the political side of Cybertron, but also the religious or neutral sides of Cybertron and it’s colonies, continuing it’s character development for Optimus Prime, and the side effects the war caused to other planets coming back to haunt both Autobots and Decepticons alike.
my issues with the this comic was how everyone was a jerk in someway of form, Metalhawk just dame Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots, Prowl being a manipulative dick, Bumblebee being an massive prick(SPOLIERS) yay he may have not been the one to kill Horri-Bull but from what Bumblebee knew they were pressing a kill switch on Horri-Bull, and Optimus exploring people's religion into getting what he needs are all things that good people should not do. I did like Wheeljack, Ironhid and Bluer's trying to work and adjust to the new climate. I also do not entirely like how John Barber continued use of Shockwave as a ultimate masterminded usurping all other antagonists in series.
To be fair bumblebee was way in over his head (and Horribull was threatening the life of a NAIL) and did get better later on (I mean, he basically helped redeem Megatron and pushed Starscream in a better direction), Prowl was a dick but he’s an interesting case since he things everything he does is for the greater good and that the ends justify the means, not saying what he did was good but he does have layers I’d say it’s the same case for Optimus. As for metalhawk yeah screw that guy for picking on bumblebee but thinking starscream was trustworthy, I’m glad it came back to bite him in the ass. I thought the use of shockwave was interesting though, in making him rewrite the world the way he wanted things.
@@2bdaqueen268 Gonna be honest, if you choose to trust STARTSCREAM over Bumblebee, in any situation, you're pretty much asking to get backstabbed. Metalhawk wasn't the sharpest blade in the box.
@@randomcenturion7264 yeah i practically cheered when he died, it’s ironic since after Bee ‘died’ he and Starscream actually became unlikely friends, even Starscream, hell, Megatron of all people came to like Bee and Metalhawk was like “Nah he’s gotta be evil I’m gonna bully him constantly”
@@tomnagy3010 It's considered part of the G1 continuity. Yes though after AHM it got far from G1 which is what made it great. Still it used the same characters and tropes from G1 to launch its post war stories.
If this video has made you interested in checking out this series, have a look at this very comprehensive reading order including all the tie-ins, mini-series, crossovers, and related comics, assembled by @jalaguy! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bl1qyqsiSJa4aEAzj7XpSGqFO2P93KEF/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=104902380619747537634&rtpof=true&sd=true
Thanks
Who gets it in 2023 then?
Currently reading the TPBs. Thanks for all your work.
I am making an Unofficial soundtrack to the entire comics run starting with megatron origin. It's on spotify right now.
@@michaelwatkins2475 link
I love the idea of Thundercracker having a puppy. Nothing to see here, just a forty foot alien robot getting kisses from his dog.
Buster is Bester.
I know it's amazing
"Decepticon scientist, Shockwave, had a plan of his own in motion."
Well, that's quite an understatement.
The biggest question to ask about IDW Shockwave is when does he not have a plan in motion
@@dr.steelworth5775 Never
@@dr.steelworth5775 he never has a plan for the 0.2 seconds it takes him to make a new one
RIP IDW Transformers. It was a Hell of a journey from High School to College, and I thank you for all the weird, wonderful and awesome tales of our favourite robots.
Knowing this makes me wanna hunt down the IDW Transformers comics(preferably in Trade Paperback or Hardcover collections),
but I doubt I'll be able to find the entire series before the license expires.😭
Unless I get REALLY LUCKY and find them during a convention.
@@nine_tails137 fr tho I may not have time to read em all but damnit it am I gonna try considering all they’ve done and most I’ve missed
@@matthew_natividad IKR! I've avoided reading comic books for years, all because I tend to prefer moving pictures over colored stills. But after watching this episode, dammit I wanna know what happens to the Transformers after their war ends! Plus IDW's artwork is really pleasing to look at IMO.
@@nine_tails137 hell even dreamwave mainly the war within series
@@matthew_natividad Agreed. Although I feel Dreamwave comics might be a lot harder to find, since they went out of business a long time ago. And even if I get lucky and do find them, they'll probably cost an arm and a leg by modern price standards. Especially with inflation going on(as of this reply)
Arcee was also confirmed to be Galvatron's brother before Jihaxus performed the CNA operation and made him a her. They actually used the gray version of Galvatron as Arcee's original appearance in flashbacks
@@fahadmalik8862 Optimus Prime issue #5 and Optimus Prime #10
@@fahadmalik8862 that was part of Arcee 's whole idw story. She wanted revenge on Jhiaxus for the forced alteration to her CNA. The other Cybertronians saw her as an aberration. It wasn't until she met other female transformers from the colonies in the series that she saw herself as being Normal.
oh that grey guy was ARCEE??
As much as I loved the first half of RiD and Starscream’s ambitions to lead, I REALLY got hooked at Prime’s attempts to try and be a war-time leader during peace. The question of whether the power of the Primes was inherently corrupting was a really good one, but it was balanced really well by insights into Optimus’ guilt at the calls he felt he had to make.
Prowl: *"I'M FUCKING INSANE"*
Arcee: *"I'M FUCKING INSANE"*
Thundercracker: "I have a dog!"
The L in Thundercracker stands for Loss
Bumblebee: IM DEAD
Starscream: IM A DICTATOR
Optimus: IM DESCENDING INTO MADNESS
Windblade: Im dying on the inside
Soundwave: my dog is dead
@@2bdaqueen268
You mean Cat?
Since Dreamwave and idw, shockwave become one of my fan favourite villains, especially his cold logical science personality,we really need to see shockwave with that personality in tv shows,and I think that idw/Dreamwave shockwaves was the inspiration for prime shockwave
Shockwave is easly one of the best Transformers
In my TF: Alignverse FanFiction, Shockwave is the final villain in the Aligned Continunity.......
@@dryceraidfanficksyoutube he should be
@@dryceraidfanficksyoutube That's the direction they logically should've gone in after Predacons Rising. Instead we got a repetitive villain of the week show with no Shockwave in sight. :(
Are you saying that as cool as the villain Shockwave has been, you want to see a different version like the cartoon version?
Imagine how hard it is being in Prime's shoes damn
Virtually everyone in OP was taking a dump on him and you just wanted him to snap back at them, telling them that they can lead if they so know much about leadership but it never comes.
You know he’s got it bad when someone named All Hail Megatron says “I feel sorry for Optimus.”
Roberts (and Roche) got me into reading Transformers comics, but Barber kept me there.
Can we appreciate the fact that idw rid bumblebee tooks a heavy inspiration from the FOC/WFC design of him ?
I'm really glad to have been able to sponsor this one, from one "JB" to another - RID/OP and all the rest (Action Man included!) isn't just my favourite Transformers story ever, it's one of my favourite overall comic "runs" of all time! While MTMTE had a reputation for being the "character-focused" one and RID the "plot-focused" one, the arcs of Arcee, Optimus, Soundwave and more will always stick for me as some of the greatest character stories to come out of Transformers.
Barber's writing is funny, dramatic and often tragic, with a great sense of pacing and an incredible talent for adapting to the circumstances of Hasbro mandates and changes in publishing schedule. Notably, his use of continuity - while maybe intimidating to some readers who didn't want to go back and read previous runs - was always in the service of the stories, characters and themes, and I personally felt he always made sure you knew everything you needed to up-front.
Oh, and it somehow managed to make me care about Sideswipe, which I had previously thought was impossible...
Action Man was sadly underrated, the book and character provided much needed levity to Barber’s work and that whole universe really.
You look at RiD/TF/OP and everyone is talking about the problems with Cybertronians on Earth and how they can’t be trusted and all that type of stuff over and over, and then you had Ian going, "I want a giant robot friend to go on adventures with!"
He was us, the fans, and it was great, and I wish there had been a little more stuff like that.
But nothing lasts forever, and IDW decided Kup would be the perfect character to kill off to show how serious things were going to get.
SIGH The ups and down of the original IDW Universe.
I think both series are phenomenal companions to each other, their whole is certainly my amongst my favorite comic runs of all time. Thanks for sponsoring this one!
Thank you very much.
This series is the only comic series that I have read from start to finish, it was so good. I know all good things have to come to an end but I wish IDW continued the main storylines instead of rebooting everything.
Should I start from phase 1??? I’ve heard it’s slow but don’t know everything of course. Been a fan forever looking to get into the Idw books.
@@nic8577Late response, but if you’re wanting to get to the consistently good stories like this you’re better off starting with Phase Two. Anything you need to know from Phase One will get explained. Phase One has plenty of great stories too, but it was a much more volatile time.
R.I.P. IDW Transformers. You'll be sorely missed. It would curious to see what would have happened if there was a schism in the Autobots due to Megatron's sentencing. What if that meant Optimus had to lead his autobots against former friends and comrades who broke away because they felt Megatron's sentencing was too lenient...
I really like it that IDW decided not to reveal Megatron's ultimate fate in the main universe. It added greater poignancy to Rodimus placing Megatron's tattered Rodimus Star on Ratchet's memorial.
You gotta do more than meets the eye!!!!! Rodimus, the lost light, autobot megatron, the DJD, whirl, cyclones, swerve, and soo much more. It’s an amazing comic!,
I did enjoy the Robots in Disguise series, the transition to peace was interesting and trying to keep it. The one character development I really liked was Thundercracker's want to be left alone to do his thing of writing of all things, who knew?
That was very cool indeed. Having the stories that flesh out some of these insular side characters is always a welcome surprise.
IDW's RID/OP series was one of the few comic book lines that asked some of the most difficult questions to answer in life. Chief among them, Optimus trying his best to reach out to other species as a way to atone for transgressions of the past.
Everyone does want peace. But what are we willing to do and sacrifice to achieve it? Is it right to take means into your hands and by contrast, force others into something they never asked for?
What can we do to make sure we stay true to our goals? Or perhaps, what is the cost of building a better world?
What does it mean to be a leader? What defines the role of leadership?
We got our answers, as harsh and grimy they may be.
But, no one ever said the road to peace was clean or easy. If anything, it can be tangled, winding, oftentimes obscure. If Unicron was any indication, it was that imperialism was always a short term, bloody solution. A solution that ruins more than it reveres and becomes a very existential consequence for those learning about it generations later. It ultimately brings shame and disgust when visited in hindsight.
The best answer is to stop running from the problems and find the courage to acknowledge and stone for them. Sure, they may not culminate in the doomsday weapons of science fiction, but the impact and vibes are just as powerful.
In short, the path to peace was never an easy one, and everyone has ideas on how to make it work. However, it is easier to start a conflict with everyone because paranoia is easier to feed than premonition. Peace was always the longshot during and after the war.
Same time, there will always be those who seek to take power by force because they think they have all the answers only to buckle under the pressure of challenges and adversity. Some wind up falling from grace or succumbing to fatalities. Some will effectively silence opposition or conflict in order to get what they want and screw over the dissidents for stepping out of line.
But just because the world is more rotten and unsavory than a moldy batch of apples or oranges, doesn't mean you have to be the same as your predecessors. If you are willing to stand up to an adversary that practically TOWERS over you, stay true to yourself (not without some bending and rewriting) in order to lead society to a better tomorrow, then I guess we know what we have to do. Even if we know that it is going to be messy
Have to admit, the first half of the comic does well to make me feel conflicted. On the one hand, I know the Autobots well just like other fans. They want to do things right this time around and have good reason to be cautious towards the Decepticons. And it’s frustrating to see the Nails because they have no idea the hardships the Autobots went through. It’s like how I would feel watching Star Wars civilians bad mouth the clone troopers who have already gone through so much in their lives that was thrust on them.
However, the comic also makes me recognize that as good as the intentions of the Autobots are, they’re definitely not the ones who should be leading peacetime Cybertron. Their feelings towards the Decepticons make them implant bombs in their heads, they treat civilian Nails with disrespect despite the fact these people fear the Autobots and Decepticons will restart their war, and of course you have to remember IDW 2005 Continuity’s version of Pre-War Cybertron and Autobots. We may know Optimus is the greatest Prime ever and redeemed the Autobots, but everybody else in the comic has good reasons to not know or completely doubt that.
I mean, look at the second half of the series. Optimus basically uses the mythology and religion around Primes to lead a colonization effort of Earth. Again, we know his true intentions and for a guy colonizing people, he sure doesn’t act like it. But as frustrating as it is to see humans keep fighting Autobots, I can’t blame them. They don’t want to be in another Transformers War. The Autobots made Megatron, the warlord who ravaged Earth, one of them. And all the Transformers that doubt Optimus? Well, there is the fact all other Primes were either frauds or tyrants, Optimus keeps trying to get people who hate each other for understandable reasons to work together, and the fact he is basically manipulating people via his position as well as defying an elected government. Talk about really testing one’s faith in one of the greatest heroes in fiction.
Yeah, that's something I really like about Barber's writing - even when we know a character to be wrong (cough-Slide-cough), their behaviour and attitudes always make sense when you consider what they know and what they've experienced.
That's one of the best things I like about the IDW comics. The fact that there's different sides to everything, and nothing's entirely stagnant. Optimus trying to be a leader in a post-war environment, the Decepticons trying to return to their roots as revolutionaries, even Prowl's obsessive qualities that drove a wedge between him and his former comrades. The worldbuilding especially is my favorite.
@@kira-dk2mx The various reasons the Great War starts sure make me think of ways I could write a Fanfiction. Like maybe I could have the war start because Unicron and Primus were once brothers who destroyed organic worlds to create new ones, only for Primus to grow sick and horrified with ending life and deciding to become Cybertron and create his own people. When Unicron tries to get his brother back into business, those that want to aid Unicron become the Decepticons while those that agree with Primus become Autobots. When the Decepticons help Unicron in attacks, the organics pressure the Autobots to intervene, maybe with sanctions since it is members of their species helping Unicron. War breaks out and a tragic point is when Unicron and Primus go head to head, with the latter losing and Cybertron being destroyed. Unicron sends the Decepticons to hunt down surviving Autobots to ensure his brother’s legacy doesn’t hinder him again.
Or maybe the war starts because of the 13 Primes. Like maybe long ago, most became power hungry and wanted to be the sole leader of Cybertron. Solus Prime is one of the few Primes who calls for peace, but Megatronus kills her and it becomes a free for all. Two parties eventually form. The power greedy Primes rally under Megatronus against the Primes that oppose these grabs for power. It comes down between Megatronus and the 13th Prime, the youngest of the Primes. The 13th wins, but stands down as leader of Cybertron fearing the next Primes will be like Megatronus. Primes become heads of the military, answerable to an elected council. Centuries later, corruption plagues the council as some city-states run an organized gladiator fight. Megatron is one of these gladiators who suffers. Also, Cybertronian colonies don’t get fair representation, usually depending on corrupt members of the council to get by. Orion Pax uncovers this with the help of Megatron and they go to Sentinel Prime for help. Unfortunately Sentinel uses the chance to become a dictator, forcing Pax and Megatron to lead a rebellion against him. But Megatron becomes the next tyrant, revealing himself as a sort of follower of Megatronus and who used Sentinel to wipe out the Council. Now Megatron becomes sole “emergency” ruler of Cybertron until he declares elections can be held again after Orion Pax and his Autobots “assassinated” Sentinel, a misguided patriot of Cybertron. When Orion gets the Matrix of Leadership and becomes Optimus Prime, he denounces Megatron as a deceiver and vies to restore the council and make it better than it was.
So, got any of your own fan versions of the Transformers in your head? Like why the war begins, how it ends, and what Cybertron is like?
@@tristankawatsuma8962 I've always loved IDW's version of the war, where it was born from the chaotic downfall of false primes in a totalitarian regime so bad it could make Stalin have a seizure. I'm already writing my own TF fanfiction that takes a lot of elements from the IDW comics and the Aligned Continuity. Cybertron is declining as a society under the rule of a false Prime and the Functionist Council, whose increasingly narrower views of "useful" alt modes are growing more and more restrictive every day. The war begins when the cybertronian government launches one of many horrific "cleansing" raids on Tarn, Megatron's home city, to purge it of rebellious criminal elements. It sparks a revolt across Cybertron as Megatron declares war against the Primal Dynasty. Optimus, at the time Orion Pax, is leading a very, very rough version of the Autobots and for a time he and Megatron work to fight back against the Cybertronian Council and its despotic functionist rule. After a series of guerrilla warfare battles, Orion and Megatron finally destroy the Functionalist Council, but they split over how they want to rebuild Cybertron's government and society.
Orion wants to reform society from the inside, with the representatives of the cybertronian city states and abolish the caste system that fractured their species to start with. Megatron, hurt and scarred physically and mentally from his time as a miner under Sentinel Prime's rule and having witnessed too many atrocities committed by the false Primes, wants to wipe the slate clean and create a new Cybertron, a world where cybertronians are the strongest species in the galaxy and seek to make Cybertron an empire that rivals Nova Prime's Golden Age. This causes a schism between the two (aside from more personal reasons) and Megatron critically injures Orion in the process. Orion finds the Matrix in a hidden chamber underneath Iacon's Citadel, sparking a reformatting that changes him into Optimus Prime. Optimus regroups with his scattered Autobots and launches a counterattack on Decepticon-controlled Iacon with the aid of Omega Supreme. This marks the first battle of the Third Cybertronian War.
I can't go into detail on how my war will end, but it will last for millions of years and will lead to a slow but steady decline in the galaxy's cybertronian population. Both sides struggle to remember why they were fighting in the first place beyond "because Autobots/Decepticons" and several combatants become disillusioned with the war.
I designed Cybertron as a planet that was born naturally, looking more like a metallic Earth composed of stone and metallic ore of varying compositions. The first cybertronians were born from hot spots created by pulsewaves emanating from Vector Sigma, but over time cybertronians evolved to reproduce through "budding" splitting apart a small fragment of their Sparks and living metal to create embryotic protoforms. The Thirteen Primes weren't the first Transformers, but they were the forefathers of the first thirteen settlements that would become the first city-states. Seriously, IDW really helped me a lot with how to create my own universe.
@@kira-dk2mx You know, I honestly wonder if internal reforms only work for democracies and semi-democracies. As imperfect and corrupt they can be, they still answerable to the people to an extent and most people in such societies at least prefer doing things democratically, including some politicians. Meanwhile with authoritarian regimes, they’re basically designed to make revolution the only option, and one that doesn’t have a guarantee of success.
Anyways, with my lineage of Primes, they sort of have a mixed history. On the one hand, they get damn great Primes because the Matrix of Leadership and by extension Primus chooses them. However over time, somebody figures out a way to cheat this system by making a fake Matrix of Leadership, allowing false Primes to rise. I’m not sure whether they are just stooges for corrupt council members or if they are like Star Wars Sith who create a lineage designed to carry out a master plan over centuries. Anyways, Megatron basically learns of this hence why he ensures Sentinel becomes the one who takes down the council, knowing he has the resources and can be blamed for things going wrong. Maybe I have this be because Megatron was one of the candidates to be the next false Prime, though probably gets dropped.
Megatron gets into the gladiator business for both glory and money. While Cybertron’s economic situation is decent, miners like Megatron only have a little extra beyond what they need to get by. While not poor, they’re kind of stuck where they are. Then Megatron learns of the gladiatorial pits. The chance to not just be rich, but also famous overrides any concerns he and any friends have about the fact the city-states demand complete secrecy, such as how injured gladiators can’t go to Cybertron’s equivalent of public hospitals, or the fact the matches are only held in a few city-states. Part of this is due to the secret support from politicians of these city-states who have security done by their law enforcement and security units. They also have criminal organizations in this city get leeway and run free so long as they ensure crime gangs in other cities have help so they can run interference and distract other politicians and cops. Megatron quickly learns the truth when in his first match, he is forced to murder a gladiator who has juiced himself up despite it being a non-lethal match. The crowd watching act confused and think they got the wrong schedules instead of terrified. And the body is just handed right to the cops who write it off as gang violence, with the actual gangsters leaving their mark on the corpse so that any outsiders who check the police report don’t doubt it. And when Megatron wants out, he’s told that for the secrecy of the games, he can’t. If he leaves, the former miner-Yes, all gladiators must quit their jobs do their bosses and coworkers don’t ask questions if you come in battered-will either be blacklisted do he can never get a job in all cities and even Cybertronian colonies or he’ll be killed even if he hides in a non-gladiator city or even goes offworld. Either he runs back or dies.
Orion Pax is just your regular archivist. He’s got a friendly relation with Iacon’s cops since his brother Ultra Magnus is one of their officers. He’s got a girlfriend, Ariel. The only negative about his life is that he’s the apprentice of Alpha Trion, an archivist deemed to have a malfunction for claiming the Matrix of Leadership is missing. While Orion doesn’t believe Trion like everyone else and at times laughs behind his back, he sticks around because Aloha is both a nice guy and very competent at his job, great qualities for a mentor. He just ignores the old guy’s conspiracy theory about the Primes. Orion finds out about the gladiator matches when the council member of Iacon, a young and eager bot, is convinced by other council members to bring the games to Iacon as the profits will be tremendous and make the city of archivists, professors, and nerds integrate better into Cybertronian society. Pax finds himself in the bleachers, where he and the council member have the same reaction as they watch Megatron fight the current champion of the pits, horrified. Megatron is nearly killed until Pax yells out for the match to stop, prompting the council member and some others to do the same, though most of the crowd stays silent. The distraction allows Megatron to turn the tables and win. There is a rule against interference in the game. Those who do so get tossed in to fight, so as to shut them up and bring back the “fun”. Megatron however goes easy since Orion did save his life. He gives Orion an opening to escape. Orion looks into this whole plot and realizes this began in one city-state shortly after the 13th Prime established the council. He and Megatron bring this to Sentinel as half of the Council are in on this and the police and security forces in their city-states are better armed, trained, and have more officers than the other half. With the help of the army, these corrupt council members are arrested, only for Sentinek to arrest the others in the same charges and disband the council.
Alpha Trion stops seeming like a crackpot as people realize Primus wouldn’t choose Sentinel as a Prime. Sure he can make mistakes, but would never choose a tyrant. Orion and Megatron rally the people to fight back when it is revealed Sentinel sold off the council members and other political enemies to the Quintessons and organics who enslave sentient robots instead of exiling them. With the fall of Sentinel, all seems right until Megatron takes power and declares that Orion murdered Sentinel when he was unarmed and helpless, intending to make the city-states that avoided the corruption become a higher social class and establish a cruel autocracy. Megatron becomes acting ruler of Cybertron until this last “threat” to peace is eliminated. On the run, Orion finds the Matrix of Leadership which turns him into Optimus Prime. Optimus denounces Megatron as being deceptive, pulling the wool over everybody. He calls for the people to either join the Autobots and stop Megatron or for people to evacuate Cybertron as this wouldn’t be a coup, but a full blown war.
"...EYE for continuity..." (Shockwave slowly moves into frame)
IDW has my favorite iteration of the TF universe. It's not perfect but I think that comes from having such long run. It might have been a good thing that it ended when it did. The comics have so many of my favorite versions of characters and newly introduced characters.
Hope whoever takes on the comic franchise can provide further enjoyment.
And great artwork. Cause out of all the Comics/Graphic novels I've read, IDW tends to have, IMO at least, the best artwork.
Although that's more due to the artist, and not the publisher.
Also what about a list of every transformer with a dragon mode and/or tank mode. These could help fans see how rare and popular certain alt-modes are
hope we also get a "Basics" on the "More than meets the eye" Comic Series soon, love to see your take on the other TF comics by IDW too!
i liked that idw rid focused a lot on soundwave,but as a fan of the Unicron triolgy,I found Dreamwave a better comics,the idw rid cybertronian mods are pretty solid and they are as better as the war within' ones
The Dreamwave took the “details” of transformers lore to another level! Showing fans, long imagined cybertronian modes to various characters…and exploring Japanese and unreleased characters was so boss.
It just goes to show what kind of damage that theft can do. I like IDW's take as well, but the loss of the Dreamwave series due to embezzlement was a massive downturn to the potential lorebuilding. I'm glad IDW's team was so good.
Damn I miss dreamwave, shame they never got to finish the armada comic
Dreamwave is so underrated
@@YAKUZA7759 Dreamwave were even better than idw imo, especially the unique artstyle,the characters,my first introduction to Dreamwave was the more than meets the eye bios/profiles comic
The overlooked kid brother. Fittingly, it focused on Bumblebee a lot. One thing I appreciated about John Barber's writing was that when he did something funny, it landed HARD. Roberts was more a firehose of gags and quips and bits and not all of them landed. When Barber decided to be funny, it usually was an A++ joke. Thundercracker's tracts of script made me laugh harder than anything any of the Scavengers ever said.
Also, I will stand behind my feeling that the Onyx Prime reveal was more (S)hocking than the Rung reveal. We always knew there was something special about Rung. I don't think anyone saw what Barber did with Onyx Prime coming, and he set it up for YEARS beforehand without anyone noticing!
Yeah, nothing in MTMTE could compare with the sheer "oh my god, WHAT?!?!?" of that last page Onyx reveal. And yet once you know it, a bunch of stuff snaps into place!
After you do More Than Meets The Eye, could you do the entire second IDW Transformers continuity that went from 2019 to 2022 and compare its version of Pre-War Cybertron settings and characters as well as early war Cybertron to the first continuity’s version?
I hope to see a basics on "More than meets the eye" in the future.
This episode was pretty good 101 summery of old IDW's Robots in Disguise. Luckily I had managed to follow this (though not from the start) and it's arcs via online comic library.
I'll say that Unicron final event was interesting to read about.
I honestly consider the universe created in this series to be the definitive Transformers universe. Honestly my favorite, even if I loathed the way it ended (felt rushed)
hate how they killed off ironhide again
@@yurifairy2969 why does he and cliff jumper keep dying? Smh.
It was rushed, if I recall correctly.
@@Gigas0101 yeah it was, but something can be rushed and still be good. With the ending of this you can really feel it. Things that were being built up, like leige Maximo, are just kinda ended anticlimactically.
The whole Revolution even might have been too much. ROM and GI Joe were nice addition, and I could get behind MASK and Action Man being expension on the world of GI Joe, but I don't think we needed the Micronauts and I feel like the Visionnaries thing should just have been a non-canon crossover mini series.
IDW comics got me back into Transformers, so for that I’m glad it exists. However, I can’t help but see countless missed opportunities littered throughout the series.
I may not be a comic reader, but I do love how IDW revisits character profiles that Bob Budiansky wrote for the Marvel comic back in the 80s. It's a great way for new fans and old fans of Transformers to connect.
Thank you very much for talking about John Barber's run on Transformers, Chris. I really, unapologetically, loved his work on Transformers more than James Roberts's, mostly because of Bee's failing efforts to unite Cybertron, Dark Cybertron, the great development for characters like Prowl, Shockwave, Soundwave, and Thundercracker, the 2018 annual, and, most importantly, the deconstruction of Optimus Prime himself. Still, I would like you to talk about Roberts's run, since both he and Barber represented the Golden Age of Transformers in comic books.
Trasnsformers: The Basics on Alien Species ( outside of Cybertronians )
This is where IDW went off the rails as far as i was concerned. the first 12 issues of RID was fantastic, i STILL remember sharing the palpable sense of dread the characters had when megatron walked out of the wilderness with all those sweep heads adorning him and the knowledge that ALL they were trying to build the last year would just fall apart as none of the three leaders had the force of personality that megs had.
then there was an obvious shift in editorial or something as scott got the cybertronian stories and barber shifted us to earth. IMO its clear punishment/redemption etc were basically his original "season two" for the book , but we never got it in lieu of some absolute hokum on earth.
and then they went off on the deconstructionist stuff whilst focusing on characters i didnt give a monkies about and i was gone.
but barber can be proud of those first 12 issues . they were SOLID stuff up there with the best in the lore.
Hey if you’re running out of bots to “basics” on you can always do lugnut! I love that guy and I have fond memories of his McDonald’s toy
This was such a great series! Thank you for a video spotlighting it :)
You forgot to mention that in this series Megatron became an Autobot.
That was more of a thing in MTMTE than this one.
I loved the art style of these comics 😊
Same here. That's why I'm sad IDW will be loosing the license in 2023.😭
IDW made an incredible job with this franchise and created, as you said, some of the greatest versions of many characters, many of which were mentioned in this video.
As a hardcore dinobots fan, however, my favourite has to be how Slug gained a lot of personality, going from the most murderous out of Grimlock's posse, to friendly supporter of Windblade, to disillusioned mercenary, to guide and friend to the newly mutated Strafe, to someone who aknowledges his past ant the mark it left on him, going as far as to willingly sacrifice his life to give the new generations a chance for a brighter future.
Also:
"Slug-you won't last a MINUTE!"
"Then we'll get this done in FORTY-FIVE SECONDS!"
What a bada*s!
Our favourite raging triceratops went out like a badass.
Sincerely hoping for a MTMTE episode next, I've been trying to get a few of my friends into the comics.
Basics on IDW’s More Than Meets The Eye.
I really love how they made Megatron an Autobot and STUCK WITH IT TIL THE END.
They could’ve back peddled and made him a villain again, like Marvel and DC does all the time, but the fact they 100% committed to it, really made Megatron a much more complex and compelling character then just a violent dictator.
Don't forget that James Roberts left Autobot Megatron aboard the 'duplicate' Lost Light with the hope that fans would write further stories. I am tempted, sorely tempted, to investigate how the Autobots might be led by Megs in Optimus' place with Rodimus as a critical voice.
Thanks for the video. These are always a highlight!
The Prowl issue right before he gets taken over by Bombshell was so great. I was just jumping into IDW again and that was the issue where I realized we were seeing something special play out.
Yayy!!! I’ve been waiting on this
RID is a bit of a mess that barely holds it together, a very enjoyable one, as was most of phase 2, but over the years i've learnt to appreciate it despite is flaws for its overarching themes, willingness to critique long standing franchise tropes and as you said, be extremely attentive to continuity.
While Titans Return turned out to be the worst of the events by far, the idea of sentinel's xenophobic and fascistic tendencies returning in a post war world was a fantastic one, among other examples.
But probably the best example is how obvious it is that the Dark Cybertron event, arguably the only one besides the ending that wasnt a toy tie in, was mangled in a million ways for the sake of future plotlines to the point its barely coherent, BUT the results of it are some of the best storylines in the franchise: starscream becoming a sham of a ruler haunted by the ghost of bumblebee, prowl's descent into madness, arcee's recovery from her trauma, pyra magna's loss of faith and most important of all, megatron's doomed road to redemption, all possible thanks to barber aborting the unicron plotline to save it for later, which was ultimately the right call.
The Optimus Prime run has one of my favorite moments in Transformers. That being Soundwave's Psionic Scream of Sorrow, finally showing the world the Cybertronians have feelings and care for humans.
Loved the Furman era and the mtmte/lost light stories
IDW will always be my favorite continuity. More Than Meets The Eye, into Lost Light.
Please do a basics on tarantulas?
i miss this idw. this and mtmte were so good and so much fun
Blue deceptions in Franchise: Evil Enemies to the Autobots
Blue Deceptions in IDW: A good guy working for optimus, and a Seeker living a happy human-like life.
I still believe Cyberverse Soundwave was partially inspired by IDW Soundwave in both becoming Unlikely Allies and doing the right thing in the end to protect their people.
@@2bdaqueen268 I see the similarities.
He's version of thundercracker was amazing.
Thanks for the summary of the comics. It helps me a lot to learn about the big details for my fanfic.
IDW really sparked new interest in transformers for me💯 I still have all of the comics, I like to read through them about once a year🤙
I like how they brought in the more obscure toys as extra characters.
I freaking love this channel!
It’d be neat if they did a Sonic and Transformers crossover before they lose the transformers license (if SEGA and Hasbro allows it)
While I absolutely LOVE the IDW line, and enjoy RiD quite a lot, the latter part of the run took a very steep nose dive in quality to me. Once RiD switched focus to Optimus on Earth and it became the "Hasbro-verse" with obligatory new toys=comic event storylines, it really fell far far far short of what came before it in my eyes.
Since the multiverse was established as canon in Regeneration One, that makes all continuities canon.
Can you make the basics on IDW's More Than Meets the Eye series please? It's my favorite series of all.
I'd totally forgoten that combiner wars and titans return were comic ties ins
6:34 I cannot believe you did not mention Buster here! (I know you did in TCs solo episode) But you can redeem yourself with an episode of "The Basics" on Buster ;)
I enjoyed this series, but when it shot off into loads of additional mini-series and tie-ins, I just couldn't keep up.
Do you think you could do the basics on IDW more than meets the eye and Lost Light?
This is the IDW series I'm most interested in. Really interesting direction to take both Optimus' character and the overall story. Seem like it also didn't commit as much character assassination as the other series', even making a decent effort to salvage IDW Arcee.
The only one who actually made an attempt to salvage IDW Arcee was Mairghread Scott. John Barber put off dealing with it for eight years, ignored Scott's writing completely, and then in the very last issue of the comics, """fixed""" it in the most outrageously ugly, transphobic way possible.
@@8x13Wolf tbf Spotlight Arcee already was a transphobic mess.
@@sophieprime4669 Arcee was a sexist, transphobic mess that they "fixed" with another transphobic mess.
11:22 That last part would definitely sum up Peter Cullen's thoughts about his character being used in a way that he would find appalling or revolting (after the live-action film series).
I wonder if John Barber knew about this?
I don't think Cullen is interested how Prime is portrayed in comics. He's only worried about versions he lends his voice to. Besides, comic versions of most characters are different than their versions from other media. This applies to most higher profile characters.
@@tomnagy3010 Barber once said that he imagined his Prime with the voice of Avery Brooks (Sisko from Star Trek), for what it's worth!
@@tomnagy3010 Yeah.
I wouldn’t say it’s revolting, just a different less black and white take and Optimus realistically struggling in a post war situation and having people increasingly lose trust him him because of his desperate and destructive actions, all his life all he knew was fighting, and that caused him to struggle
And yet people call Bayverse Prime a psychotic murderer lmao. Dude literally decapitated and incinerated a surrendering Galvatron and put his head on a pike for the world to see. He also became a religious zealot who used younger generations of cybertronian colonists for political purposes and as soldiers.
Not to mention, before the comic named after him, he just up and abandoned Hotrod, Bumblebee and Starscream to not only lead cybertron into the future but also left them to deal with the entire struggle of keeping things from going back to the way they were.
Maybe someday you’ll do the Basics of Jetstorm. The character never fully have an identity. Although, most people would say their favorite version is the one from Beast Machines
wtf they do to Arcee, weirdos.
This episode’s ending made me sad. To know these books will become unavailable is… It just feels wrong.
Well, not *forever!* Assuming the license works the same way it did with the Marvel and Dreamwave stuff, the new publisher ought to be able to reprint all of IDW's stuff too. But it'll undoubtedly be a few years before they'd think about doing that!
@@ChrisMcFeely it still sucks because it looks like they won’t finish phase 3 of the IDW collection in time before the license expires and lost light, Optimus prime and Requiem of the wreckers individual copies are getting increasingly harder to find
I adore what this run of books did for Prowl and Devastator and the first real looks into Combiner Psychology.
Keith Zama's art on the Optimus book was amazing.
And the fact that we still don't have a toy for Junkion Matriarch Rum-Maj is absolutely criminal.
The best Transformers comics, bar none. Hope this gets more people to appreciate this incredible run.
Matter of opinion. I think it's a few rungs down the ladder, but still good.
@@tomnagy3010 There are other great runs to be sure (Scott, Ruckley, Budiansky all come to mind), but no one comes close to Barber’s stuff
Kinda stupid they had to change the name of the series because Hasbro couldn't be bothered to give a subpar sequel a more original name.
Thanks Jolene!
1:43 is that Boba Fett at the bottom?
Yea, that generic is meant to look like our fave mando :33
Started reading MtMtE and RiD last year. Think I just have the All Hail Optimus part left of RiD to read. Feel kinda confused where to go from there. There's Till All Are One and then the crossover stuff it seems. The comics are great but I can never get a grasp of what I'm meant to be reading and when cos there's all these side things and different lines of comics. RiD was real good though. Not as light and adventurous as More The Meets The Eye but definitely was doing a great job of just being dramatic and full of big character arcs.
Check the reading guide in the pinned comment for what to read next!
@@ChrisMcFeely Oh that is very helpful and a fair bit more clear than some of the ones I've looked at before. Vol 10, then titans Return and then Till All Are One. Cheers!
A shame Optimus Maximus never return for the end of the IDWverse
I love These books they got me into this comic book because show what it be when war is over seeing what they are doing and Inspired me do many ideas and stop motion movie I made in 2019 and still going today and love watching your videos there are awesome!!!!!!!
Very happy to see this episode - I'd probably have sponsored it myself at some point if Jo hadn't beat me to it! Barber's RID/OP run is probably my favourite Transformers story, and turned tons of characters like Thundercracker, Arcee and Shockwave into my faves as well.
There's obviously loads of killer issues and stories across the run, but in particular, Unicron #6 is maybe the most gripping comic issue I've ever read - I always say that it's more cinematic than a lot of actual films! And I can't not shout out Earth's greatest heroes of them all, the Revolutionaries - what a series!
Better Than The 2015 Version!
Revolutionaries was way too short, but it was so much fun. I legit just got all the issues at my local comic store.
IDW's RiD (and More than Meets the Eye) runs were what got me back into transformers, particularly all the storylines in RiD. i LOVED all the reimaginings and explorations of the various characters, and the post-war storyline is something i really feel more transformers stories need to explore as well.
11:14
I have no idea how the publishing rights work, but so would the new publisher who gets the license not be able to reprint those collections?
Most probably, yes! But they almost certainly won't do it right away, they'll want to assert themselves, their stories and the universe, before they start reprinting the older stuff, and it's pretty likely that however they collect them, it'll be in a different format than IDW did.
what if transformers robots in disguise was written by another writer instead of john barber?
Thanks for covering IDW's comics. I've read and reread MTMTE/Lost Light many times. Would love to see an episode on Lost Light!
Can one of these animators do a IDW indepth video collection from start to finish with this story line. I work to much to read them all. But I love the ones I did get to read.
Expect these stories to be retold in some fashion or another in the future
I hope some will be adapted into movies or series
I have over the course of 2 years have slowly collecting the books
I’m definitely going to read these comics in the near future. Meanwhile, can you do episodes on these subjects please?
Fortress Maximus.
Kup.
The Trainbots (maybe for obscure characters month?)
And Sunstreaker.
Hopefully we get a review on the stunticons im thrilled to know what their history is
Same here. I know next to nothing about them aside from the Transformers Devastation video game.
This series is definitely the most detailed and well-developed series out of IDW’s run. Showing a side of the Cybertronian race that we’ve never seen in most media beforehand. Not just the political side of Cybertron, but also the religious or neutral sides of Cybertron and it’s colonies, continuing it’s character development for Optimus Prime, and the side effects the war caused to other planets coming back to haunt both Autobots and Decepticons alike.
Is it just me or is it writer John Barber's looks eerily identical to G1 Bumblebee in the IDW Transformers comics?!!
Aileron is coloured to look like Crasher from Go-Bots
So I have a very interesting question, what happens to the wearer of the Magnus Armor, if the armor is destroyed while they are wearing it?
my issues with the this comic was how everyone was a jerk in someway of form, Metalhawk just dame Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots, Prowl being a manipulative dick, Bumblebee being an massive prick(SPOLIERS) yay he may have not been the one to kill Horri-Bull but from what Bumblebee knew they were pressing a kill switch on Horri-Bull, and Optimus exploring people's religion into getting what he needs are all things that good people should not do. I did like Wheeljack, Ironhid and Bluer's trying to work and adjust to the new climate. I also do not entirely like how John Barber continued use of Shockwave as a ultimate masterminded usurping all other antagonists in series.
To be fair bumblebee was way in over his head (and Horribull was threatening the life of a NAIL) and did get better later on (I mean, he basically helped redeem Megatron and pushed Starscream in a better direction), Prowl was a dick but he’s an interesting case since he things everything he does is for the greater good and that the ends justify the means, not saying what he did was good but he does have layers I’d say it’s the same case for Optimus. As for metalhawk yeah screw that guy for picking on bumblebee but thinking starscream was trustworthy, I’m glad it came back to bite him in the ass. I thought the use of shockwave was interesting though, in making him rewrite the world the way he wanted things.
@@2bdaqueen268 Gonna be honest, if you choose to trust STARTSCREAM over Bumblebee, in any situation, you're pretty much asking to get backstabbed. Metalhawk wasn't the sharpest blade in the box.
@@randomcenturion7264 yeah i practically cheered when he died, it’s ironic since after Bee ‘died’ he and Starscream actually became unlikely friends, even Starscream, hell, Megatron of all people came to like Bee and Metalhawk was like “Nah he’s gotta be evil I’m gonna bully him constantly”
Hey could you do the basics on Sunstorm?
Can we get a video for the More Than Meets The Eye comic line next? Please.
9:51 Fan member Commander Radix would later make an epilogue to the series called Transformers: Resurrection.
Was it intentional that Onyx Prime looked like and shared design elements with Death Saurus?
Can you also look at other IDW Transformers series like More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light?
I’d also like him to do one on Shattered glass 2021 after part 2 ends and IDW2. IDW may be coming to an end but there’s still a whole lot to cover
there a boba fett lokin one in 1:40 if you lok around
The best G1 Prowl and only slightly behind Animated Prowl.
I forgot idw was g1.
@@justinarzola4584 it isn't. It's G1-inspired. G1 ended in 1991.
@@tomnagy3010 It's considered part of the G1 continuity. Yes though after AHM it got far from G1 which is what made it great. Still it used the same characters and tropes from G1 to launch its post war stories.
Except Prowl is an absolute asshole. How is that good?
Really good run. :D
What about a basics on Clocker