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decepti-thots · 1 year

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OHOHOHO. I am always ready to help enable someone's reread, anon!

The way I'm gonna do this I think is, I'll put down a list of what I think is worth reading if you want to follow the IDW Prowl arc in a way that hits the main beats that wind up paying off in retrospect, with the luxury of examining the entire continuity from the vantage point of it being complete.

I'll also mark some of this stuff as "optional". Some of this is optional because it is not very relevant to the overall arc, or is out of sync with later depictions in some way; some of it is frankly just optional because it's bad, and forcing yourself to read endless shit TF comics is something that should never be demanded of anyone with limited time on this Earth if you aren't the kinda freak who wants to. LMAO.

Finally: I'm gonna write this as though it's for someone totally new to the whole thing. Because that way I can have fun infodumping. Hehe.

Below the cut is an excessively long explanation of what I would suggest and why. But the short, just-a-list version is:

[OPTIONAL] Transformers: Infiltration Spotlight: Kup [OPTIONAL] 99% of All Hail Megatron All Hail Megatron #15 specifically Last Stand of the Wreckers [OPTIONAL] Read all of Costa's run on the ongoing (#1-#31), inflicting horrific psychic damage on yourself Read just issues #8, #25-29 and Spotlight: Prowl The Death of Optimus Prime The early MTMTE Prowl stuff (#1, all of Shadowplay, #14) Robots in Disguise ("exRiD") in full Combiner Wars crossover event Sins of the Wreckers Titans Return crossover event [OPTIONAL] Requiem of the Wreckers Optimus Prime ongoing issues #1-7, #13-14, #22 Unicron (+ Optimus Prime #25)

[OPTIONAL] Transformers: Infiltration

Up front: Infiltration is a miniseries that is mediocre at its best and pretty bad at its worst IMO. It is, yanno. A Simon Furman comic, so.

Why am I putting this here anyway? One, it's the literal start of the IDW continuity and contains a shitton of stuff that will go on to be referenced through even comics like MTMTE. Two, it establishes Verity's character, which is obviously relevant for Wreckers later for our purposes here- and more specifically how she and Prowl actually know each other, which gives some context to their interactions. And three, it establishes the "original" Prowl characterization for IDW1, prior to Roche coming in and mucking about with him later on. Rather than be something which later retcons and developments undermine completely, this is more something where if you've been reading from the start, it makes it feel a bit less weird that every other character isn't constantly going 'why the fuck would we trust Prowl, though'. You get a sense of like 'oh OK, he was being Fucking Normal around them', haha.

Spotlight: Kup

Prowl is actually barely in this page time wise, but it still has big implications for stuff later down the line by way of setting stuff up, and since it is 1) only a single issue and 2) Actually Fucking Good, I'm putting it in. This issue works to help set up the eventual Prowl characterization we get, as well as his ties to both Springer and Kup. (Actually, I would generally say that if you've read Wreckers but not this, go back and give it a read, as it contextualizes a lot for the relationship between those three!)

[OPTIONAL] 99% of All Hail Megatron

This is a similar thing to Infiltration, really. Prowl is in it somewhat, it helps establish a kind of baseline characterization for him at this point in the comics. None of it is super important down the line but it gives more context if you want it for some later choices, and there's a few bits that establish stuff like e.g. his unpopularity with certain segments of the Autobots, that sort of thing. Also uhhh. Spike is in it! Y…ay. But I mean, he WILL be unavoidable in this overall trajectory; and he starts off here.

You can skip it though. Or skim it; again, it's soooo goddamn LONG. Sigh. You know, this series was what was coming out when I got into TF, it put me off IDW for years, hah.

All Hail Megatron #15, specifically

The one bit that's not optional because this is where his entire post-AHM characterization hinges, basically. The first half of this issue, which contains two 'coda' stories, is basically just one long inner monologue of Prowl showing himself to be someone who lies his ass off and manipulates people around him using his position and resources to do whatever he thinks is necessary, and it sets up a major plot point in Sins of the Wreckers with Kup and Springer. So, this is where Prowl goes from being kinda an asshole interpersonally to actually a war crimes man in-canon, haha. …well uh, sort of… we'll get to that later.

Last Stand of the Wreckers

Duh. He's not in this one as much as its sequel but this is still the first 'full' story to explore the version of Prowl detailed above and to cement him. He's an ambiguous little asshole whose presence in this story is less rooted in how much he shows up on the page proper, and more in how much his actions ripple out to effect other people.

Also like. Last Stand is great, it's just a good comic! Treat yourself to a (re)read sometime. Especially with the extras and the like.=

[OPTIONAL] Read all of Costa's run on the ongoing (#1-#31), inflicting horrific psychic damage on yourself

Prowl is in Costa's run of TF and it ties in to the above, sometimes controversially! It seems he was something of an author's favourite, honestly. Anyway it's awful. Actually doing this is a terrible idea. Costa's run of TF sucks so bad it actually kind of fascinates me, but 31 issues of terrible, badly-paced comics is way too much for most people, and rightly so.

The thing is though, Barber DOES pick up on stuff from this run in his exRiD stuff. He often makes sure to try and reintroduce it so you don't have to have read the Costa run to get it, but there genuinely is more stuff in there than you might assume given how much the fandom as a whole would go on to mostly just sort of ignore it. This includes with Prowl, who Costa seems to have latched on to a bit.

Of course, mooost of this run isn't about Prowl. So instead of doing a whole re-read, you can just read…

Read just issues #8, #25-29 and Spotlight: Prowl

Issue #8 is not actually an issue with Prowl in it. It's the issue where Spike kills Scrapper. This matters both because it gets picked up in Costa's run later, and also because Barber is gonna lean hard on a storytelling opportunity for this in early exRiD. Also, this issue is really awful, but will instill in you a loathing of IDW Spike that I think is part of being a well rounded person.

Spotlight: Prowl also sucks. It's basically a comic that exists because Costa didn't want to write the new Prowl characterization but everyone got mad he retconned it for his comic, because the Roche take from AHM's coda was wayyyy more popular than Costa's 'idealistic sort-of-noir-ish-not-really cop' take. Spotlight: Prowl tries to give an in-universe explanation for Prowl's complete personality 180 by giving us a story about how Humans Are Super Special or whatever. However, Barber doesn't retcon it, and in fact will treat this as an important if brief moment in Prowl's life in exRiD.

Issues #25-#29 are the 'Police Action' storyline which involves Prowl finding out about the above murder and confronting Spike about it. This betrayal will be something Barber also leans into very hard, though he's gonna recontextualize it a bit. Similar to the above, all this stuff is gonna get mixed up by Barber into a big old 'Prowl's having Issues around projecting his hopes for being better onto humans and getting burned' later on. So retrospectively, this is when Prowl's most recent attempt to turn a new leaf goes sour, in-universe.

The Death of Optimus Prime

This is the prelude to both MTMTE and exRiD and is sometimes overlooked when people talk about phase two these days. It sets up the new, phase two status quo for the ongoings. This is your introduction to Prowl as written by Barber and Roberts.

The early MTMTE Prowl stuff

Read the first issue, Shadowplay in its entirety, then at least issue #14 (the mnemosurgery/flashback one) from the Overlord arc. I talk about these on here all the time, whatever, you know the drill, it's Prowl And Chromedome Are Awful Exes ft. War Crimes AND Regular Crimes! Roberts has a take on Prowl that is actually pretty distinct IMO, it's fun to read alongside Roche and Barber's work in this period. They're not totally out of sync with each other, just... individual. (Sidenote: this, combined with a chunk of IDW1 fandom not reading exRiD in full or honestly at all, means that IMO a lot of disagreement over Prowl boils down to folks only knowing the Prowl in this comic and taking it as fully representative of the whole canon. Shrug.)

Robots in Disguise ("exRiD")

AKA 'the phase two ongoing where Prowl was one the main characters' so yeah, this one, obviously. This is where like… a good 70% of the Prowl stuff is in IDW, honestly. Anyway, Prowl is especially in focus at the start, where Barber gives us a lot of focus on him in the aftermath of the Earth stuff Costa did with him. The first arc of his runs through issue #16, the end of 'season one' before Dark Cybertron starts. (exRiD has a lot more arcs overlapping at once than MTMTE does, so its arcs tend to run along more issues as they take turns.) But he's around the whole time basically, right through to the end of Barber's time on IDW1. If you want to talk IDW1 Prowl, you basically gotta read everything Barber did with him. And if you want to understand it, you ought to read it fully.

(Note: exRiD underwent mandated name changes etc that mean at some point, the collected editions turn into 'The Transformers'. Use tfwiki if you get confused, haha. Also, Dark Cybertron gets its own trades as a crossover event- but that's the one everyone remembers, so I'll put it here. Buuut speaking of this comic being confusing...)

The Combiner Wars event, which includes but is not limited to exRiD, oh god this comic is so complicated.

There's an event that's set mostly around the exRiD parts of phase two called Combiner Wars. It includes some exRiD issues but is collected in a seperate trade called "Combiner Wars" and crosses over with the Windblade comics. Spoiler alert, Prowl is very important in it, because it deals with combiners and in exRiD he became a combiner. It's also kind of a mess because errrr, a HUGE amount of it was editorially mandated and in multiple cases basically required backtracking and retconning stuff to make work within what was requested for advertising purposes. Not... the series' highest moment, but there you go.

Sins of the Wreckers

Yaaaaay it's the Prowl divorce story! My favourite one!!! Anyway, you can actually read this one whenever after LSotW. The Wreckers stories exist as their own thing really. But this falls soooometime around, oooh, middle of exRiD, gestures at Combiner Wars, etc etc. (Basically: SotW was written while the ongoing was coming out, obviously, and by the time it was complete and being released, the timeline got a bit wobbly, so nailing it down to a super specific timeline in-universe is a bit 'eh'. The final page of SotW #5 was edited to reflect this but just read it sometime after CW, it's fine, whatever.)

This series actually has like. No meaningful impact on the broader universe's plot. But it has so many crimes and schemes! And divorce! And the one big thing: it's when Arcee gets properly sick of Prowl, after their relationship in exRiD was established throughout that comic's run up to this point.

The Titans Return event, mostly for the MTMTE bits, which I guess a lot of people skipped???

Same as CW except, thank god, smaller scale. Has its own trade, and the main bit of interest winds up being that the last two issues of MTMTE before it relaunched as LL were issues with Prowl in focus as part of this event. Apparently some folks reading MTMTE in trades these days have nooo idea these two issues exist because they're in a totally separate trade, oops. Anyway, Roberts puts Prowl on the moon and picks up some dangling MTMTE plotlines. TR makes no sense but these specific issues are fun because they are ridiculous in a way that is enjoyable to read if you just ignore the plot.

[OPTIONAL] Requiem of the Wreckers

...OK, fine, he's not really in this one. You should take the excuse to read it and conclude the Wreckers saga though, I mean. Why not.

Optimus Prime ongoing issues #1-7, #13-14, #22

I'm being nice and not telling you to read all of the OP ongoing even though I kinda want to. A lot of folks skipped out on that comic, even folks who liked exRiD, for a great many reasons. So I'll keep it to the essentials. The first arc includes some flashbacks to Prowl's early association with Orion and gives some insight into Barber's take on his backstory; he's not in every single one of those issues, but you may as well read 'em all, it's a full story. #13-14 is when Prowl comes back from his moon vacation and re-enters the exRiD playing field. And #22 is the issue that features Prowl that leads into Unicron, and. Well.

Sidenote: if the plots don't make sense this is pretty normal, and might not be meaningfully changed by reading the whole series, I'm not gonna lie.

Unicron (+ Optimus Prime #25)

Read the Unicron miniseries! It's what finishes off the IDW continuity and, crucially, is Barber's grand finale. Lost Light had its own ending where everything was at something of a remove, as a series that was able to exist a little more as its own thing. The other series, however, had Unicron. Prowl's in it, he does stuff. Some people hate this miniseries, I really like it, regardless it's the capstone to the entire segment of the comics Prowl has been a major player in. And then read Optimus Prime #25, the IDW1 universe's epilogue of sorts, which ties it up not so much in plot terms but thematically. Prowl gets his last word in there.

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'James', you may ask. 'Did you know all this off the top of your head???' Of course not; I had to look up some of the issue numbers. Anyway, if you need a ludicrously specific reference list of stuff worth checking for specifcially IDW1 Prowl across the 17 odd years of IDW comics, here it is, for no good reason. Does this reading list result in a coherent story? No, but it does give you maximum schemes per page, I guess.

#reference #idw #prowl #dumbest thing ive ever written. enjoy.

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