As Transformers entered its 26th year, a new continuity dawned. Dubbed “the Aligned Continuity”, it was a multi-media reboot of the franchise comprising the novel Transformers Exodus, the video game Transformers War for Cybertron, and the new fully CGI animated cartoon series Transformers Prime. The toyline transitioned from toys based on Revenge of the Fallen to a newly rebranded “Transformers” line, commonly referred to as Hunt for the Decepticons. Combiners got a whole line dedicated to them – sort of – with Power Core Combiners, and Classics returned for a third outing with the Transformers Generations line. IDW’s Transformers comics continued, with two very important miniseries released alongside the ongoing comic – Last Stand of the Wreckers by Nick Roche and James Roberts, and the movie continuity based miniseries Transformers: Sector Seven by John Barber.
A selection of releases from the Revenge of the Fallen: NEST Global Alliance series and the subsequent Transformers “Hunt for the Decepticons” series, including the Leader class Starscream, Deluxe class Ratchet, Ironhide and Battle Blade Bumblebee, Voyager class Bludgeon and a movie-styled version of Lockdown, based on the Transformers Animated release[/size]
For 2010, the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen line underwent a mid-line retool and adopted a “NEST Global Alliance” branding, shifting to a series of toys chronicling the further adventures of the Autobots and their human allies in NEST, a process which started late in 2009. This led to some all-new Movie styled characters being added to the line, including a movie universe version of Transformers Animated Lockdown and a new version of Bludgeon, the Decepticon samurai. A new mold version of Ratchet, in the Deluxe class, was also released. The line notably introduced C-clips which could attach to 3mm rails on many of the toys of the year. While never as widespread as 5mm fist holes, the C-clips proved to be another way to customize the loadout of a Transformer toy.
The line underwent a further transition mid-year, shifting from the red packaging of Revenge of the Fallen to a gold packaging which was merely branded as “Transformers”, but is often referred to by fans as “Hunt for the Decepticons” owing to the promotion that was prominently featured on the front of the packaging.
The Hunt for the Decepticons releases were very much an extension of the Revenge of the Fallen line, and major releases in the series included a Leader class movie Starscream which Takara-Tomy would release as a “Movie Masterpiece” in Japan. He shipped alongside a remolded Revenge of the Fallen Leader class Optimus Prime, named “Battle Hooks” Optimus Prime, which traded the arm mounted blades for hooks. A large scale Bumblebee, named Battle Ops Bumblebee, was also released and retailed for approximately $60. Like the Leader class Starscream, he was released in Japan as a Movie Masterpiece figure.
Other prominent releases in the Hunt for the Decepticons series included a new Voyager class movie Optimus Prime, which was essentially a smaller version of the Revenge of the Fallen Leader class Optimus Prime, this one including a Matrix and blasters formed from his gas tanks. An updated deluxe Bumblebee, Battle Blade Bumblebee, was also released in this series and was generally considered to be the definitive Deluxe class version of Movie Bumblebee with his flip-down battlemask and transformable arm cannon. A Deluxe class Ironhide also featured in the line, along with a remolded Voyager Fallen which included a screen-accurate spear accessory and a removable face to recreate the “GIVE ME YOUR FACE” scene.
The line also featured some all-new characters, including Sea Spray, a hulking homage to the original Generation 1 Minibot, Tomahawk the Autobot Apache helicopter and Terradive, a spear-wielding Decepticon jet with an extremely clever transformation.
Hunt for the Decepticons also brought back the Activators from Transformers Animated. The four Movie themed Activators were larger than the Transformers Animated ones, and did not catch on much like the previous year’s Gravity Bots.
Among the Hunt for the Decepticons releases there were a number of store exclusive sets. Some of these sets were two packs of Deluxe class toys, while others mixed Legends Class toys with Deluxes. A major part of the exclusives were a subseries dubbed the “Most Wanted”. These sets included special codes that could unlock bonus content on the Hasbro Transformers website, based on the “main” Decepticon who was in the boxed set. Released exclusives included a green Generation 1 colors version of Devastator and a set depicting Ravage’s infiltration of the NEST facility in Revenge of the Fallen, complete with Legends class Ravage, PVC soldier figures and a pair of the Revenge of the Fallen Scout class toy redecos. Two major releases from the series were cancelled as Hasbro could not find a store chain to carry them. The sets included the Sideways Sneak Attack, which featured a redeco of Revenge of the Fallen Deluxe Sideways with battle damage and Legends class versions of all three of the Autobot motorbike bots. The second Most Wanted giftset which did not see a release was the Megatron Rising set, which would have featured a redeco of Revenge of the Fallen Voyager Megatron and packed in a set of Legends class Constructicons, based on the scene where Megatron was revived in Revenge of the Fallen.
Transformers Generations provided a series of characters representing a cross-section of different Transformers incarnations. Shown here you have Drift, from IDW’s Transformers comics, Straxus and Thunderwing whose fame came from the Marvel Transformers comics, Skullgrin who featured prominently on the 1988 box art, and Optimus Prime, Megatron & Soundwave from Activision’s Transformers: War for Cybertron[/size]
Alongside the ongoing Movie line content, Hasbro brought back the Classics line in full force with the new Transformers Generations line. The line was limited to just Deluxes and offered up a mixture of new molds and redecos of existing toys from Classics and Universe. Some of the initial new molds were based on the new game from Activision and High Moon Studios, Transformers: War for Cybertron. Other releases in the line delved into the Transformers back catalog, and offered up some exceedingly obscure choices like Straxus. IDW’s designs saw some attention from Hasbro too, as the line featured toys of Drift and Blurr, based on their appearances in IDW’s comics.
Late in the year, the Hunt for the Decepticons line rebranded into Reveal the Shield, which was effectively a second series of Classics. The “gimmick” of this set of toys was that the toys did not feature faction symbols on the packaging or on the toys themselves, instead you had to rub a heat-sensitive patch reminiscent of the original Generation 1 rubsigns to reveal the character’s faction. The Deluxe class featured the likes of Jazz and Tracks, plus some redecoed and remolded Movie series releases. Other size classes would follow, but not until the following year.
The Transformers RPMs series also underwent a rebranding, changing into Transformers Speed Stars. The Speed Stars line included a slew of new styled releases, including Revealers, vehicle forms where the outer panels were removed, exposing robot parts within; Double Siders, which had large wheels allowing the cars to run both ways up; and Robot Riders, which depicted the characters in robot modes mid-dash (and these too were on wheels so they could be pushed along the floor). There was also a mighty variety of regular cars, in different styles, making up the bulk of the releases in the series.
The Speed Stars line also spawned a subline of its own, Stealth Force. The Stealth Force line had larger vehicles which by pressing a trigger could unfold to reveal concealed weapons. The line had more in common with MASK or Starcom from the 1980s than the Transformers line which spawned it, but the idea behind the line went over well enough that Dreamworks incorporated it into the third Transformers movie, Dark of the Moon.
The Power Core Combiners series consisted of a series of Scout sized robots, who could combine with spring-loaded “drones” to form larger combiner robots. Any of the robots shown in this picture can potentially combine with any of the drone limbs to form a larger robot mode[/size]
Aside from Movie and Classics themes, Hasbro also introduced Power Core Combiners in their 2010 Transformers toy lines. Power Core Combiners were an interesting series, broadly set in the Movie universe but aesthetically set apart from it. The main Transformers in the line were all roughly Scout sized, but were sold in two different pricepoints – one at $10 with a pack-in Mini-Con, and the second pricepoint was $20 and included four vehicles. The core idea of the line was that any Transformer in the series could transform into the main body of a larger robot – a “core” – and combine with four of the vehicles from the $20 sets to form a larger robot, with the vehicles unfolding into arms and legs using spring-loaded auto transform features. The Mini-Cons with the $10 sets could form body armor or weapons for their Transformer partners.
While a brave and fun idea – not to mention a clever way to get some Combiners back on the market – the line only got a lukewarm fan reception, largely due to the fact that the auto transforming limbs lacked robot modes and did not give the combined modes much articulation. Evidently kids agreed, since the series only lasted through five assortments, the last two of which were extremely hard to find (although retailers likely under-ordered these last assortments, in anticipation of the third live-action movie toyline’s release in 2011).
Transformers Animated Japanese intro, featuring Transformers Evo by JAM Project. Probably the most ridiculously awesome Transformers intro ever! Uploaded to Youtube by Carlos Martinez[/size]
In Japan, Takara-Tomy released Transformers Animated. The show’s Japanese dub was accompanied by a theme song titled Transformers EVO, which was written and performed by JAM Project, whose work included themes for the Super Robot Wars games (individual members of JAM Project, namely leader Hironobu Kageyama, had also provided songs for past Transformers series – Kageyama produced many of the insert songs for the Japanese Headmasters series).
The Japanese dub of the series was once again overseen by Yoshikazu Iwanami, who made a few changes. The dub featured some of Iwanami’s trademark pop-culture references and fourth-wall breaking humor. As well as this there were some changes which were most likely mandated by Takara-Tomy, including changing Bulkhead’s name to Ironhide to include more characters from the movie series. This led to the actual Ironhide, who appeared in a couple of later episodes, being renamed Armorhide. Paradoxically, other character names were not changed – with Optimus Prime remaining Optimus Prime in the series, rather than being changed to Convoy. Episode orders were changed, such as making Soundwave’s introduction the show’s fourth episode, and in order to fit the series into a standard 39 episode “3 cour” running order for Japanese airing, three episodes were skipped. The three episodes were “Nature Calls”, “Rise of the Constructicons”, and “Sari, No One’s Home” – the latter two introduced the Constructicons who played a role in the season finale. The three episodes were however dubbed, and were included on the DVD releases of the series. In addition, live-action segments featuring a Japanese family called the Otoboto family were added to each episode, with these segments primarily serving to advertise the Transformers Animated toys.
Japan’s Transformers Animated line got some toys that never saw a release in the US, including Blackout and Wingblade Optimus Prime, center, while the rest of the releases featured metallic finishes, such as Rodimus in the center front. 2010 also saw the final four Transformers Animated toys released in the US as Toys R Us exclusives, which included Rodimus and Arcee, Ironhide and Cybertronian Ratchet who you can see here[/size]
The Japanese Transformers Animated toy releases notably included metallic paint applications on their vehicle mode parts. These finishes were more prominent on some of the toys than others. The Japanese Animated toyline also included several toys who only saw limited release in the US or who did not get a US release at all. Chief among these were Blackout, Hydrodive Bumblebee and Wingblade Optimus Prime who never got a release outside of Japan. In 2010 four final Deluxe class Transformers Animated toys were released in the US as Toys R Us exclusives, and they were Ironhide, Rodimus, Arcee and Cybertronian Ratchet.
Takara-Tomy expanded their Disney Label in 2010. The second release in the vein of their Mickey Mouse / Optimus Prime mashup was a mix of Donald Duck and Generation 1 VW Bumblebee. The third release in the series dropped any attempt at blending with a Transformer character – the Disney Label Buzz Lightyear transformed from a fairly Toy Story accurate Buzz Lightyear into the spaceship he used in his Toy Story spinoff. Buzz himself was a headmaster – his head could pop off to form the pilot of the spaceship mode. He was arguably the coolest of the Disney Label series because of how well he fit the overall theme in the first place, and the fact that he was “just” Buzz Lightyear without any need for a Transformers connection.
The much delayed Device Label Broad Blast / Blaster was also released in 2010. Broad Blast’s alternate mode was a laptop, but in line with the Device Label series’ trend of making its releases as working gadgets, Blaster also doubled up as a working USB hub. In his robot mode, his chest could fit one of the Generation 1 cassettes – a welcome addition, and one that effectively made the Device Label Broad Blast a Classics Blaster, in the same way some fans added Music Label Soundwave to their Classics shelves.
In the Japanese Generation 1 continuity, 2010 was the year that the third season of Transformers Generation 1 took place in, and as the Transformers series first reached Japan in 1985, 2010 was in fact the Japanese 25th anniversary. Takara-Tomy released a series of “Celebration 2010” releases to mark the occasion, including a reissue of Generation 1 Predaking, upgraded with metallic gold finish in the place of the flat yellow. A pair of “Sons of Cybertron sets” pairing Optimus Prime and Rodimus were also released – one pairing the Deluxe versions of the Animated toys, the other pairing the Deluxe versions of the Classics toys. Both sets featured “crystal” versions of the pair – translucent plastic variants.
Capping off the Celebration 2010 releases were reissues of the Primus and Unicron Supreme class toys from Transformers Cybertron and Transformers Armada. Primus was simply a redeco, focused mainly on making Cybertron look as much like the Cybertron in the cartoons as possible. Unicron on the other hand was an extensive redeco based on his look in Transformers the Movie, with a new, remolded head based on the Generation 1 design capping off the look. Both were extremely impressive releases.
While there was no new Transformers cartoon on TV in 2010 (until November, anyway), Hasbro did produce a series of fully CGI’ed shorts called “Cyber Missions” which were based around the Revenge of the Fallen: NEST Global Alliance characters. The shorts were nothing spectacular, but did feature appearances from characters like Bludgeon (which is, to date, Bludgeon’s only animated appearance). One of the later shorts also featured the Power Core Combiners characters Smolder and Chopster, which confirmed the Power Core Combiners were supposed to be a part of the Movie continuity. At least for the US, Japan would prove to be a different matter when the line was released there.
IDW’s Transformers comics for 2010 were underscored by the ongoing Transformers series and several miniseries. Three of these miniseries were focused on characters, with Bumblebee, Ironhide and Drift falling under the spotlight. The fourth miniseries released in 2010 was the seminal Last Stand of the Wreckers.
IDW’s Transformers issue #11 cover. One of the great facets of the IDW continuity post All Hail Megatron was the character development of Thundercracker as he drifted away from the Decepticon cause[/size]
The Transformers ongoing, written by Mike Costa and with Andy Schmidt as editor, kicked off with posing the question “the war is over, what now?”. With Optimus Prime voluntarily in human custody, the Autobot side broke apart and some of the Autobots followed Hot Rod into a questionable alliance with the Decepticons, which backfired and led to Hot Rod fleeing alone into space. The whole first arc was all about the characters trying to find their place on an alien world, now that the war was over. The general theme carried over through the next arc as well where it was revealed that other human Governments were employing Decepticons as enforcers, in a story arc involving what real-life tensions between the Koreas and China might be like if North Korea and China had access to Decepticons.
Human distrust of Transformers was another theme of the series, which was illustrated in an infamous issue where the Autobots’ supposed human ally Spike murdered one of the Constructicons in cold blood with some acid and an anti-Transformer gun. But this was far from the only example, as future storylines introduced a whole group of like-minded people – and some of those people had access to replicas of gun mode Megatron, every bit as deadly as the real one.
This initial year of the ongoing had a mixed reception. Some fans enjoyed the fact that stories were no longer constrained by the need to fit within a fixed number of issues for a miniseries – while others were critical of some of the plot choices, such as the aforementioned “Spike kills a Transformer with some acid and a gun”. Others complained about how the ongoing used “decompressed storytelling” and some issues would pass with little happening.
Four miniseries were produced that were in continuity with the ongoing series. The first one, Transformers: Bumblebee, fit between the events of the ongoing series and handled both the development of the Autobot / Skywatch relationship and also the character development of Bumblebee, culminating in Bumblebee getting a new body loosely inspired by his movie continuity Camaro design.
The second miniseries, Transformers: Ironhide, focused on a newly resurrected Ironhide on Cybertron. Alpha Trion had restored Ironhide to exterminate the remaining Insecticons on the planet, and it was revealed that he was the one who had set in motion the process of making Cybertron habitable for Transformers once again. Ironhide found Sunstreaker, who was not entirely dead after his sacrifice in All Hail Megatron, and the two completed their mission – with a little help from Alpha Trion’s guardian, Metroplex.
The third miniseries was Transformers: Drift. The series was an origin story for the Autobot Drift, introduced in All Hail Megatron, and also served to introduce the Circle of Light – who would play a role in the later More than Meets the Eye ongoing series. The miniseries also introduced Transformers Animated’s Lockdown character into the IDW comics continuity, using a variation of his Revenge of the Fallen toy design.
Last Stand of the Wreckers issue #1 cover. Like All Hail Megatron before it, Last Stand of the Wreckers shipped with two covers per issue, a traditional styled cover and stylish alternate covers like the one above[/size]
The fourth miniseries was the most divorced from the events of the ongoing series, and told a mostly self-contained story. That miniseries was the fan acclaimed Last Stand of the Wreckers, by James Roberts and Nick Roche. The series followed the exploits of a new team of Wreckers as they journeyed to the Autobot prison planet of Garrus-9, which had fallen to the Decepticons during the events of All Hail Megatron three years earlier. Their mission was to liberate the planet, and recover the data of Aequitas, a computer that served as a judge and jury in trying those sentenced to the prison. The only thing between the Wreckers and their objective was one of the most dangerous Decepticons of all, Overlord.
The series won fan acclaim both for its clever writing, characterizing a series of characters who had little to no previous use in continuity, and the way that the writing made you care about the characters when they were killed, or gave up their lives in sacrifice for the greater good, which they did with frightening frequency – the series was best summed up with the quote “It’s a story of sacrifice and betrayal, and of good people dying in stupid, pointless ways.” – and the fans loved it. Overlord and Ironfist / Fisitron in particular were lifted from near total obscurity and jumped to fan-favorites in the space of the miniseries’ five issues.
Transformers: Nefarious issue #3 cover. For Transformers: Nefarious, Simon Furman introduced new minions for Soundwave, including Rumble (rhino), Beastbox (ape) and Ratbat (bat). Buzzsaw, a condor based on the Real Gear Robot Booster X10, was also used in the miniseries[/size]
Movie continuity Transformers comics continued to be published by IDW, with 2010 bringing forward a Revenge of the Fallen sequel comic, Transformers: Nefarious and another set in the continuity of the Movie comics, Transformers: Sector 7. Nefarious was written by Simon Furman and chronicled a secret human organization called The Initiative, who had constructed a copy of the Allspark on Earth – one that threatened to go out of control and endanger the planet, forcing an uneasy alliance with Soundwave. While an entertaining enough read, Nefarious felt like a rehash of plots Simon Furman had previously written for IDW – in particular the Initiative, who were controlling Transformers they had tracked down over the years, seemed to be almost entirely the same deal as the Machination from the Escalation / Maximum Dinobots miniseries.
Transformers: Sector 7 was the first work that writer John Barber did on Transformers for IDW. The miniseries took the Transformers Movie continuity and wove the tale of the mysterious Sector 7 around events chronicled in previous comics, in the backstories of the two movies, and real life historic events – reconciling the sometimes conflicting plot points and telling a good story at the same time. The miniseries followed the history of the Simmons family across the generations, and basically served as a prequel for the live action movie universe. Each issue was accompanied by notes explaining the references to historic events and how everything fit into the bigger picture, a very welcome addition. The miniseries established John Barber’s role as a writer who not only cared about continuity, but who was clever enough to retcon even the most confusing events of the tangled mess of plot points from assorted different miniseries and novels into something resembling a coherent narrative.
Titan UK carried on with their own Transformers comic, though new issues became less frequent as the year went on. The comic was now down to one story per issue, but an ongoing story began to emerge. The plot shifted from Skids and Mudflap to some of the offscreen characters from the Revenge of the Fallen toyline, with Bludgeon becoming something of a recurring antagonist.
The production of the next installment of the Transformers live-action movie universe continued, with the name of Transformers 3 discovered and confirmed to be Transformers: Dark of the Moon in October 2010. Principal shooting started in May 2010. 500 cars were destroyed during the production of the movie.
2010 was capped off in its second half by the launch of a new continuity, called the Aligned Continuity. The official launch of the continuity was on June 17 2010 with the launch of the War for Cybertron game, and June 23 2010 with the launch of the Transformers Exodus novel, which both represented the same approximate era of the storyline, but told the story in different ways – Hasbro themselves called the connections a “squint test”, stating that it was the broad-brush events which formed the continuity and not the details, much like how the Generation 1 cartoon and comic related to each other.
Transformers: Exodus cover art[/size]
The Transformers Exodus novel chronicled the rise of Optimus Prime and Megatron, from their early days as friends (a thread originally suggested in the Generation 1 episode War Dawn) through to the outbreak of the war on Cybertron. The novel fit into two almost distinct halves, the first half chronicling events up to the outbreak of the war, and how Optimus Prime and Megatron’s friendship crumbled. The second half covered how Megatron and the Decepticons started making use of Dark Energon to try to crush the Autobots, eventually leading to Cybertron being poisoned and becoming a dead world, forcing both sides to leave the planet.
The novel’s first half would be used for the backstory of Megatron and Optimus Prime in Transformers Prime, and included by now common elements of Megatron’s backstory, including how he started out as a gladiator standing up against a corrupt Cybertronian government.
Transformers: War for Cybertron trailer. Uploaded to Youtube by Activision’s official TransformersGame account[/size]
The War for Cybertron video game, by Activision’s High Moon Studios, left the first half of the book’s plot as implied, and covered the second half of the plot, showing the outbreak of the Great War. The game played out over two campaigns each lasting five missions – one campaign covered the Decepticon side of the story, with the Autobot campaign following on chronologically from this. The gameplay was simple squad-based run-and-gun action, with each mission giving players three Transformers fighting against waves of generic opponents. The heart of the game lay in the banter between the characters, though. The squad based system lent itself to drop-in, drop-out online co-op gameplay – and there was an online multiplayer mode as well for those who just wanted to slug it out with various Transformers, or team up and face off against hordes of enemies in the Escalation mode.
The War for Cybertron game was very well received, not least because it was a genuinely good Transformers game, but also because it successfully captured a lot of the spirit of the Transformers series as a whole. The series had some awkward continuity snarls though – High Moon Studios had designed the game as a generic prequel, or as a prequel to Generation 1, depending on which interviews you read before the directive came down to tie the game into the new Aligned Continuity.
Frank Welker returns to voice Megatron in Transformers Prime. There was a certain electricity in the air when this fact was announced at Botcon 2010
Last but by no means least, the final piece of the Aligned Continuity debuted over Thanksgiving weekend 2010 with the fully CGI cartoon series, Transformers Prime. The initial five part story arc, Darkness Rising, had Megatron return after being away in deep space for three years, with a new advantage for the Decepticons – Dark Energon. Dark Energon, it was revealed, could be used to raise dead Transformers as zombielike Terrorcons, which Megatron could control after infusing himself with a piece of Dark Energon. The Autobots raced to stop Megatron from raising all of Cybertron’s dead as an unstoppable army with which he could conquer the Earth and the rest of the galaxy, with the help of new human allies Jack, Miko and Raf.
Transformers Prime was a darker take on the Transformers lore, which was set out loud and clear in the first episode when Cliffjumper was murdered by Starscream, then killed off again as a Terrorcon zombie in the following episode to drive the point home. The initial five episodes also featured one of the Autobots’ human allies, Special Agent William Fowler, being tortured by Starscream – something which few Transformers cartoons before this point had dared to do.
The show featured the vocal talents of Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Jeffrey Coombs as Ratchet, and Steve Blum as Starscream. The Autobot side also included Arcee and Bulkhead – Ironhide was originally going to take Bulkhead’s role in the series, but due to the plans to kill him in Transformers: Dark of the Moon it was decided having Ironhide in an ongoing role in a TV series would be too confusing for audiences, hence Bulkhead was brought back. Like his movie counterpart, Bumblebee was mute, and communicated only with bleeps and bloops. And, for the first time since Transformers Generation 1, Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime was opposed by a Megatron voiced by Frank Welker! Frank Welker’s return as Megatron was even slyly referenced in Megatron’s first spoken line in the series, “Decepticons! I have returned.”
The Transformers Prime series was also supported by IDW, who published a graphic novel (later published as a four issue miniseries) showing how Cliffjumper and Arcee arrived on Earth.
The Aligned Continuity – and with it, the new Transformers show, Transformers Prime – had dawned. Transformers Prime would run through until 2013, racking up 65 episodes and a direct-to-DVD movie, giving it the largest individual episode count of any single Transformers series other than Generation 1.
Superquad7
Agreed! Maybe @Sol Fury can give another one soon!
Back in
Need a update but that ok
Phantformer5533
Thank you for all these links! I definitely needed this in order to make my own list. Glory to transformers!
Vik
Awesome, such a dense history!
Metro Prime
Thanks. I have been doing that since that post. TF Wiki has been answering a lot of questions.
batfan007
You can always read some pages over at TFWIKI to catch up on those years, covers pretty much everthing.
John Does
Awsome looking forward,…
Metro Prime
It took me days to read all of this!
Excellent and informative write up. I'm impressed and it filled in a few blanks for me. I've been collecting since G1 with a few years of breaks until I started a major effort into collecting through the Energon era, the beginning of the Classics line, and intermittently through the years til I saw Titans Return and have been heavily collecting since. This write up has shown me where some of my more eclectic figures have originated.
Is there an update from 2015 to current in the works? I'd love to see what else I've missed.
Excaliberprime
good info here
Abishai100
Gen 1 – Gen 2
I think a good way to think about the immense shift in style and content between TG1 (Transformers Generation 1) and TG2 is to think about how the toys, cartoons, and comics focused more on variability of character significance for various storylines. TG1 offered stories relevant to particular characters, but TG2 offered a more liberal attitude towards who could be a randomized figurehead in a given storyline!
That's why TG2 was the 'gateway' to the modern Transformers era which focuses much more on general concepts and character randomization than did TG1.
That's also why TG1 is the ideal intro for anyone looking to become a Transformers fan. Hey, isn't that why we all love Transformers: The Movie (1986), the real art-piece that began showing us conceptual bridges between TG1 and TG2?
ChromedomeMaster
35 years of transformers, and i have only been apart of it for 10 years
3 Wheeler
I like the Long Haul Pic!!!
Djin
Great read
Blam320
That's really too bad. You're missing out on a lot, and I mean a lot of really good Transformers stuff by only caring about G1.
Rodimus Prime BetterPrime
For years I've wanted the G1 series in a blu-ray release. With this year marking its 35th anniversary, hopefully we'll finally get it. I don't care about anything but G1.