Essential Comics

[i_amtrunks]

Mostly backing Paulbot up here.
DW
War Within Volume #1 was fantastic, but the other 1 and a half were not so great. I'd wait for the War Within omnibus coming out later this year (IDW reprinting DW material) and pick that up. Skip the G1 based ongoing comic, the first two trades are more or less horrible, but they did get better just before the series was cancelled.
Skip Micromasters to save your brain.

More than Meets the Eye volumes 1 &2 are certainly worth it, and with IDW just releasing re-prints, they are a good price now.

Armada and Energon are interesting but far from worth hunting down and paying for, unless you truly loved the Armada and Energon characters in the shows. Even then the comics are radically different.

IDW
It's tough to recommend IDW's main story stuff, purely because it is very much an all or nothing.

I'd suggest Stormbringer as it is easy enough to follow along, the Infiltration, Escalation, Devastation and revelation books are great reads, but not only will you be wanting those four trades, but the 3 Spotlight Trades that tie into the larger story.

It is easier to find trades than the single issues, but if you want to track down some fantastic stand alone Spotlights, Kup, Shockwave, Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus, Blaster, Wheelie and Arcee stand up very well.
If you do get into the main IDW story I do suggest getting all the spotlight Trades, as only Spotlight Kup, Ramjet, Mirage, Wheelie and Blaster do not tie directly into the main story.

If you want to skip the previous main story of IDW (Infiltration through Revelation) and start fresh with Maximum Dinobots (a great starting point) you would benefit reading Spotlights: Shockwave, Soundwave, Grimlock, and Ultra Magnus.

Hearts of Steel was as Paulbot suggested, a great concept executed badly, same for Megatron: Origins.
Only nab Beast Wars if you liked the Cartoon, and you may also be interested in the Beast Wars sourcebook too.

Avoid the first movie comics, Reign of Starscream is passable, but far from necessary reading.

Leave issues 1-6 of All Hail Megatron for now, a trade will be out in April or so, and I think AHM might be best read in Trade format.

[Hot Rodimus]

I did not mean for the criteria to be limiting Sky Shadow as they are not all meant to apply. Each of these are meant to be separate (apart from them being recent) so in effect could possibly create multiple titles for various reasons, eg comic x is good because of the story line and comic y is good because it has awesome art or the story line is really important to the cannon of TF.

Once again I may have not explained myself all to well though so I apologise for that and thanks for the suggestions so far.

[STL]

I don't think that you really need to think about "essentials". I think its more important to approach it from what you like and what you're looking for as while continuity's nice and all, there's a lot of TF continuity out there.

My personal recommendations:

1.) Dreamwave's Transformers G1 vol.2: War & Peace: one of my favourite stories of all time. Brings together so many G1 elements and gives us some strong and distinct characters with a new touch. Loved the pace at which it went, was totally break neck and to this day is my favourite all time comic.
2.) Dreamwave's War Within vol.1: the epitome of all TF comics. Great production values, great story, exceptional artwork and it sparks your imagination to take off
3.) IDW's Stormbringer: Excellent story and lots of fun but feels like its too much a part of something larger so you're not completely fulfilled with it by the time you reach the end.
4.) IDW's Escalation: the pick of the IDW series in my opinion. The pace was just right between issues, it felt like an "escalation" in the Transformers war and lots of great character moments that actually fit within the story without being jarring. There's the best comic fight between Megatron and Optimus Prime too in this story.
5.) Dreamwave's War Within vol. 2: Not flash but it gives us a lot of cool concepts about life on Cybertron without Prime and Megatron. The factions I find to be fascinating and the art is awesome.
6.) IDW's Spotlights Wheelie, Blaster, Ultra Magnus and Kup were all very good stories that could be read on their own. Strong art in all of those too except Kup which has a differnet flavour.
7.) IDW's Beast Wars: the Ascending: very, very heavy and relies on your knowledge of the toys otherwise I'd highly recommend against it. I only enjoyed it b/c I knew of a lot of the toys existence and already watched the show. Otherwise its way too heavy to enjoy and poorly written from the perspective of the uncommitted BWs fan. There's just too much nuance to it.
8.) Devil's Due GIJOE/Transformers vol.3: Excellent art and great moments but the overall story is very questionable.

Keep in mind, I'm a very G1 centric person with my roots in the US G1 cartoon. Its from there that I broadened my horizons and its always my starting point (though not always) as to what I like

[Hot Rodimus]

Thanks for the suggestions STL, very informative and from the sounds of things I would enjoy reading at least the first 5 or 6 of you suggestions.

War within sounds like a must have so will hopefully pick that up first or one of the others that has been suggested.

Thank god I have a birthday coming up real soon as there is so much stuff I want.

[GoktimusPrime]

IDW also reprint G1 issues - I believe they're currently reprinting the Time Wars (YEAH!). I've already pre-ordered the TPB.

[roller]

all you need is a slab of G2 a couple of Dreamwaves and your good to go

[GoktimusPrime]

all you need is a slab of G2

I don't know if Hot Rodimus would consider the Titan reprints to be "recent"... Hot Rodimus you might want to give us a more clear definition of what you mean to avoid ambiguity.

Click here if you're interested in ordering any of the G1 and/or G2 reprints from Titan Books - there are links for each book from Amazon and Amazon UK. You can also check out your local (comic) book store and see if they can order them in for you - book stores like Kinokuniya claim that they can order in any book for you so long as you can give them enough details to track it down (title, author, publisher - even better if you know the ISBN). Sorry, I'm not familiar with comic book and book stores in Brisbane.

[STL]

Thanks for the suggestions STL, very informative and from the sounds of things I would enjoy reading at least the first 5 or 6 of you suggestions.

War within sounds like a must have so will hopefully pick that up first or one of the others that has been suggested.

Thank god I have a birthday coming up real soon as there is so much stuff I want.

And there's great news too b/c the War Within (the first two series ie. Vol 1 + vol.2 the Dark Ages) is being collected into a Hardcover in the next two months at a great price of $19.99USD IIRC and that should equate to about $30 AUD.

Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-W...1761440&sr=8-1

I have both individual trades but will be picking that up for sure too. Maybe even in doubles.

[Paulbot]

It's not a hardcover like Marvel Omnibus. It's a paperback (in the Amazon description) and I think it's smaller sized like those Buffy and Star Wars Omnibus trades you see in the stores.

[STL]

It's not a hardcover like Marvel Omnibus. It's a paperback (in the Amazon description) and I think it's smaller sized like those Buffy and Star Wars Omnibus trades you see in the stores.

Noooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !







Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uhm, oh yeah... I'm a bit disappointed.