More...Much More Than Meets The Eye!
It is a world transformed...where things are not as they seem...
Mission Statement...
The purpose for this document is to provide a convenient and an accurate-as-possible view of the various continuities and aspects of the Transformers Universe, concentrating but not limited to the original cartoon series, the original comic series, the story as told in Europe and Japan, and the later iterations of the concept. This Transformers Primer is meant especially for the new fans and the old fans who haven't kept up with the world of the Transformers.
A Brief History of the Transformers brand...
The Transformers were originally made up of a number of different toylines in Japan from the mid seventies to the early eighties. These toylines were largely unrelated to each other, other than the rights to produce and market them were owned by the Japanese company Takara. Hasbro was attempting to find a new toy line that would appeal to young boys in America, and they wound up licensing a number of toy molds from Takara to this end. Hasbro also teamed up with Marvel Comics to create a back story to go along with the toys. It is here where work on the Transformers cartoon began. Set against the backdrop of a millions of years long civil war, the opposing sides of the Autobots and Decepticons, and character profiles and abilities were written up for the new animated series which would be used to promote the product. The animated series began airing in Spring 1984, when the toyline was rolled out. Later on, in May, a comic series was established by Marvel, but was only guaranteed to run for four bi-monthly issues. It is at this time when the majority of old-time fans were introduced to the Transformers, mainly through the television series. The first season of the TV program and the first wave of toys were a huge success, prompting a more ambitious run of more toys and a much larger second season. The Transformers comic was allowed to become a monthly series and was a success as well. After the second season, the Transformers were launched onto the big screen. Transformers: The Movie was released in Summer of 1986 to nearly one thousand movie screens nationwide. The third season of the Transformers was aired following the movie, and it used the characters introduced in the movie plus new ones from the toyline. It was at this point that the Transformers began to fall out of favor as newer toylines claimed the spotlight. A fourth season of sorts was made, but only covered three episodes and the series stopped production in late 1987. Hasbro ended the production of new Transformer toys in 1990, closing the toylines 6 years on the shelves. During that time, it became one of the most dominant toy brands in America, and despite its cancellation, the series continued to run in syndication and the comic book still churned out stories for Transfans. With the arrival of a new writer and artists, the Transformers comic became full of fresh ideas and fantastic storylines. However, in 1991, the comic series finally ended at issue #80 (labeled as #80 of a 4 issue mini-series). In spite of the end of Transformers in the United States, they continued to sell very well in Europe and Japan. The Japanese continued the television series after the U.S. third season with three full seasons (TF: Headmasters, Chojin Masterforce, Victory), one OAV or original animation video (Zone), and three storylines (Zone, Return of Convoy, Operation Combination) in TV Magazine, a Japanese magazine aimed at boys. For each series, a new complement of figures were released (many from the first two Japanese exclusive seasons found their way to the States under different names and origins). Eventually, the series' favor with its fans died down in late 1991, and the series ended here, as well. Even though the Transformers had been cancelled in America, Hasbro tried again in 1992. They re-released a number of the most popular Transformer toys from the first couple years of the original run. They were repainted and called Transformers: Generation Two. A new 12 issue comic series was launched to promote the reborn toyline along with re-edits of the original TV series. A number of reused toy molds were brought back, in addition to a number of new molds to go along with them. But, due to a deluge of new and generally cruddy toys, the Generation Two series began to go the way of its predessor. In 1995, Hasbro transferred the line to their subsidiary, Kenner. Seeing the futility of continuing the Generation Two series, they cancelled the line and went back to the drawing boards for the next iteration. The result was Beast Wars, and, despite the earlier qualms held by the fans of the originals, has gone on to great success, due to it's generally great toys and superb computer generated 3-D television show that ran three seasons. Another important occurance because of Beast Wars is the reintroduction of the original Transformers story line to new fans, through the plot of the television show. It is due to this re-introduction that the original Transformers (known as Generation One, or G1, becasue of the distinction made by Generation Two, or G2) have made a return in popularity. With the success of Beast Wars, the newest generation of Transformers has arrived; the Beast Machines. However this line has met with some fan disappointment because of the lackluster toys and disappointing television show. However, this line also marked a new trend: the return of vehicular Transformers, who had been absent as major characters all through the Beast Generation. Across the Pacific, Hasbro's Japanese counterparts haven't been sitting on their thumbs, either. Because of the short seasons and lenghty waiting time of the American Beast Wars program, Takara produced their own Transformers series; Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo. These series of toy figures were accompanied by traditional, cel-animated television shows, which aired while the American Beast Wars Seasons 2 and 3 were being prepared for the Japanese market. Also, sometime during the production of the American Beast Machines series, Takara produced a new line that appealed to those pining for a return to G1 - Transformers: Car Robots. This new line has been rumored to be the next series to be introduced in America.
A science fiction series that is not what it seems...
There have been a number of different television shows and several comic runs from at least three countries that chronicled the Transformers story. While all the series are official, they do not exactly mesh well together. We have the original U.S. "Transformers" television show, the original Marvel U.S. comic series, the Marvel U.K. comic series, the Japanese continuation of the U.S. television show, the U.S. Generation 2 comic series, the U.S. Generation 2 television show, the U.S. Beast Wars television show, the Japanese Beast Wars television shows, U.S. Beast Machines television show, and the Japanese Car Robots television program. One must understand the concept of seperate continuities before learning about the Transformers Universe any further, as it is crucial in many areas. While this list is no doubt daunting to those new to the fandom, there are easier ways of denoting continuity. In the early years of the online fandom, the biggest distinction between various sets of continuity was that of generations. Given that the fandom blossomed during the days of the Generation Two Transformers re-release, it gave the name of Generation One to the Transformers of the middle 1980's, and the current generation carried the toy manufacturer's distinction as Generation Two. Later on, with the coming of the Beast Wars and Beast Machines, this was incorporated into the mythos as the Beast Generation. Generation One, or G1 for short, incorporated the first run of the Transformers toyline and all the related media released in conjunction with it. This is to say that the original U.S. cartoon program, the U.S. Marvel comic, the U.K. Marvel comic, and the various incarnations as anime and manga in Japan are all considered G1 material, up until the ending of the U.K. comic run in late 1991/early 1992. Each form of media had it's own storyline and histories, with much of it being contradictory to each other. However, the underlying thesis remained the same:The Transformers were a race of living, sentient robotic creatures who habited a planet named Cybertron. Cybertron had been devestated by a civil war that had raged off and on for millions of years, severely draining the planet's power. The two factions of the warring Transformers were the Autobots, a society characterized by laissez faire politics and freedom, and the Decepticons, a society that had a nationalistic predeposition toward manifest destiny at any cost. The Autobots, led by their great leader Optimus Prime, were exploring the Sol star system in a search for fuel when the Decepticons hijacked their shuttle, which led to a battle on board. Prime steered the Autobot shuttle into the Earth atmosphere, to make sure that if the Autobots died that the Decepticons would never claim the resources of the young planet. Four million years later, in 1984, an eruption of the volcano at Mount Saint Hilliary in Montana, U.S.A., revived the Transformers, who then resumed their war.Aside from this basic starting point, the G1 comic and cartoon diverged from here on and almost never come into agreement on anything. Not only were the stories not the same, but the characters themselves largely differ between the comic and cartoon. The American show lasted three full seasons before it was discontinued; the comic outlasted the show, having debuted around the same time, but the run ended at issue #80 in August 1991. In Japan, the first three seasons of dubbed American TF was broadcast almost verbatim. However, after the demise of the U.S. cartoon, the Japanese took over, airing three full seasons of completely new stories mainly starring Japanese originated characters (some of these characters made it to America as toys, but the characters were not; they were generally given new characterization in the still running U.S. comic and tech specs). Even when Takara stopped cartoon production, there was still plenty of material released in manga form for the newer toy releases, before the line finally died in Japan sometime in 1993. In the United Kingdom, there was a TF comic being produced by Marvel. However, it ran twice a month, reprinting American comics and releasing filler material as something to tide over British Transfans until the next "real" issue ran. However, it turned out that the British exclusive comics were quite well written and cover a lot of bases that were left uncovered or fully explained in the U.S. comic series. Last on the list of canonical G1 information, and certainly not the least important, are the technical specifications, or tech specs, that came with the toy of each character. Here, you learned brief information on the character, peculiar abilities and weaknesses, and personal statistics. The vast majority of these are well written and a lot of fun to read, and should be considered canonical, perhaps more than the other sources, as it came straight from the toy's manufacturer. Generation Two, or G2, started in the United States in 1991, with the re-release of older Transformer toys. Later in the year, there was a 12 issue special series of Transformers: Generation 2 by Marvel comics. This is virtually the only canonical material for the G2 years; the tech specs are still valid, but only where they don't contradict those of previous character versions from G1. With the coming of the Beast Generation, a whole new generation of fans were introduced to the world of the Transformers. With a completely new philosophy in toy design, a top-notch Beast Wars T.V. program, and a well received Beast Machines show, the Transformers world has been rolling strong for the past 6 years. As well as the American products of this generation; which encompasses the Beast Wars toyline and television series, the Machine Wars toyline, and Beast Machines toyline and television series; the Japanese have created a wide range of media in the wake of Beast Wars' success. There were three Beast Wars deviant toylines, including the new Car Robots line, which seems to be in a state of flux. It isn't known yet whether it should be considered as part of the Beast Generation or a beginning of another series, and only time will tell the story.
Where to go from here...
This part is up to you, the reader. Now that you are aware of the different facets of the Transformers Universe and can discern from one continuity to the next, feel free to browse the Internet at your leisure, soaking in as much information as you can on the subject. There are a large number of reputable web sites to visit for more information. A sure site you should bookmark is Steve Stonebreaker's TF FAQ page. This FAQ, having first been unveiled in it's present incarnation in 1994, is the authoritative source for almost any question you can have, short of very specific episode/comic information, of course. One of the best Transformer specific pages on the web is Ben Yee's BWTF.COM. This is the place for everything you'll ever want to know about the Beast Generation, with coverage of the American and Japanese continuums and every series that there were in the continuum. As far as G1/G2 sites, there isn't really an all in one site for that. In fact, that's the purpose of this very site; providing indepth and accurate information on these particular continuities. However, a really nice site to visit is Rob Jung's Electric Escape; it contains a lot of information, such as comic synopses and past Botcon reports. Another site that has some great information is Stan Lui's TF Web Encyclopedia; it's exactly what it sounds like :). Yet another way to get into the Transformers experience and learning about the fandom is to actually take part in it and converse with people who are into it. There are a great number of fan communities to choose from, each with their own style and type of poster. You have Alt.Toys.Transformers (ATT), the original Transformers newsgroup; another big community is Yee's Beast Discussion, the center of Beast Generation society. My strongest recommendation is for The Allspark; here you'll find a true internet community for the Transformer oriented person, with some really great people there. Besides, that's were I'll be :)
Thanks for reading!
Thank you for reading this, and I hope that it helped you gain a better understanding of the sometimes forbidding Transformers Universe. ~ Shwiggie