WARNING: This article contains mild spoilers for the entirety of Transformers: Lost Light and Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye.

This week, one of the best comics of the century came to a close. A series that defined a new era of growth for its characters, its wider world and the publisher that took a risk on it way back in 2012 when it started under a different name. An epic narrative that brought together hard science fiction storytelling, the question of how a person's class can affect their life, time travel, parallel universes, dystopian dictatorships, pondering how to move on when war is all you've known, what to do when you find yourself in a world you never made, how to keep finding love when all your loved ones don't grow old with you, and what it's like to move beyond society's expectations of what you're supposed to be, either career-wise or in terms of sexuality.

And would you believe it's a Transformers comic?

Yes, really. Transformers: Lost Light's 25th and final issue hit stores this week. Between this series and its predecessor, Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, it told a storyline that ran a combined 82 issues, told a sweeping tale about all those things described above and more. The books revealed the story of the brave, optimistic and brash Rodimus (don't call him Hot Rod!) convening a team of Transformers after the end of their war to find the legendary Knights of Cybertron to help restore their planet, but found so much more along the way.

Sorry, Did You Say the END Of The Transformers' War?

Indeed, that was the big push IDW Publishing had when it began what's known as "Phase 2" of its Transformers universe, which comes to an end this month after 13 years. After various and sundry events, the dead husk of the planet Cybertron has been revived, and in the aftermath, those Transformers who hadn't chosen a side in the conflict have returned.

Finding a map inside part of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, Rodimus concluded it must lead to the Knights of Cybertron, a legendary group who'd been in charge of Cybertron but left to spread utopia to the cosmos, eventually settling -- or so legend had it -- on a world dubbed Cyberutopia.

With the help of the cynical Ratchet, obsessive-compulsive Ultra Magnus, ronin and reformed Decepticon Drift and a few others, Rodimus put together a ragtag crew and launched into space aboard the starship Lost Light. Unfortunately, things started going wrong almost immediately. The ship's quantum engines malfunctioned, transporting the crew much farther than they intended, and setting in motion a grand, hilarious epic involving hostage situations, betrayal, all sorts of romantic hijinks and all sorts of madcap adventures.

How madcap? Well, Megatron becomes an Autobot and joins the heroes. Yup.

NEXT PAGE: Transformers Broke New Ground with its Transexual Characters

The Most Progressive Transformers Story Ever?

When we spoke with series writer James Roberts last month at TFCon, he mentioned that he always wanted to portray the Transformers as fully human because "they are persons." He said that he hoped his work, and the rest of IDW's "Phase 2," had shown "an appetite for more humanized, character development in Transformers fiction," and "opened doors for representation and showed that there was a proven demand; hopefully, that can continue."

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Roberts' commitment to representation, as well as that of his collaborators like artists Jack Lawrence, Alex Milne, Casey Collier and many others, shines on the page, mostly because it goes an obvious, unexplored route. If the Transformers are functionally immortal, and the majority of named characters identify as male, why wouldn't they fall in love? Lost Light and MTMTE explored this theme fantastically, with many wonderful romances, from the tragic/heroic tale of archivist Rewind and surgeon Chromedome, to the star-crossed slow burn of the haunted ancient Cybertronian Cyclonus and similarly ancient Autobot Tailgate.

More Than Meets the Eye did more than any other iteration of Transformers in the sexuality department, and then Lost Light broke even further ground. The series introduced new characters like Anode, a blacksmith-turned-renegade-archeologist, and Lug, her long-suffering life partner and geologist. In a two-issue adventure with story consulting by critic and writer Rachel Stevens, Anode revealed that she and Lug were born male but transitioned to women after traversing the galaxy and expanding their own understanding of gender and their relationship to it.

Roberts told me that he worked with Stevens, who is trans, to make the dialogue in Anode's speech "inclusive, welcoming and human." He said further that the longevity of the two comics isn't something he takes for granted. "I don't know if we'll ever see another Transformers title last that long," he said.

That remains to be seen--a new Transformers title and continuity launches in 2019--but for now, Lost Light and More Than Meets the Eye combined tell probably the most sweeping, human story the Transformers have ever been put through. Now that it's all over, it's easier than ever to go back and marvel at it all. Check it out.

'Til all are one.