Transformers 101 with Professor Rachel Stevens
BY RACHEL STEVENS
So! You’ve heard that the IDW Transformers comics are fantastic and want to get into them, but aren’t sure how. This particular universe has been around for nearly ten years, and there’s a lot of possible entry points. I’d be glad to elucidate and pleased if you’d give them a shot. I promise that they’re nowhere near as convoluted as any given five years of X-Men comics, and the act of reading them is rewarding.
Best Possible Starting Points
Transformers: Windblade
Much ado has been made about Sarah Stone and Mairghread Scott being the first Transformers creative comics duo to both be women. Even beyond that factoid, the book itself is great. Beautifully illustrated by Sarah Stone through digital painting, the four issue miniseries has been printed in trade paperback form and is available on Comixology. It takes place two years after the creative relaunch of the IDW universe with new creative teams, a decision more akin to the Marvel Now label than the New 52.
It stars a female Transformer named Windblade who has just arrived on Cybertron, the birthplace of the Transformers race. She interacts with her fellow new arrival and bodyguard, Chromia, and learns more about the planet, the society created in the wake of the Great War, and the people who survived. Windblade does this all while being a valiant and brave woman who refuses to kill and shows great strength in the face of the tyrant king Starscream along with the problem of a decaying sentient city in need of serious maintenance. Windblade knows roughly about as much as a new reader does, so the things she learns are learned at the same time as someone checking out the universe for the first time.
Read the rest of Rachel’s Transformers coverage on WWAC and be sure to check out her other Transformers pieces!