Transformers is 40...
How a series kind of kept with me all my life...
Transformers a toy line that started in 1984 is forty as of this posting, I guess today was the first day of the television series. So I was born in 85, but for some reason, this show and I are more or less joined at the hip. I was struggling to think of a time when I did not have some form of this franchise in my life. A lot of people zeroed into Star Wars or other franchisees of the 80’s. Now I admit that some from the fandom want to stop at a certain point. Transformers seems to be unique in the way it does things maybe because it’s in the name, or perhaps it’s simply from very early on, it always bucked your expectations. While even celebrating the franchise it continues to expand beyond what was probably thought of at the time it was made.
The childhood wonder of giant robots:
Of course, naturally, the first thing people think of at any age when they hear the name is the toys. I am not sure what exactly my first toy was, I probably had a random one not knowing the fiction and my parents buying stuff were unsure what the good guys and bad guys were. So I’ll jump ahead a bit in the timeline of me to an Easter I remember well.
I had many of them as I said, but still, when you watch the show you often see the leader himself in almost every episode: Optimus Prime. I asked one year for a figure cause in my brain, how could I not have a toy of him yet? It baffled my little mind, so lo and behold that faithful day I went downstairs to find an Optimus Prime to call my very own. I opened up and instantly was in awe once more. However, I knew something was off about this one. Why was he so boxy? For that matter, he turns into a bigger form of himself. So the time was 1988, the show started in 84 and at this point, we’ve had *looks on TF Wiki* one Optimus Prime, two if we kinda sorta count Ultra Magnus. I mean hey I was happy about this but still, it felt like an odd prime.
Anyhow, I spent that whole day playing with it, as the line died down we got micro masters, tiny transformers that did the thing the bigger ones did, but they were small and had play sets now. The media was also going strong, but as it got older Generation One was in decline. Now we were going into the nineties, and with it...well why not the next generation.
Generation 2 as it is known in the fandom (and packaging) was pretty much the first few years mostly repaints of toys from the original, I got introduced to concepts like combiners, and also finally an OG Optimus to call my own (complete with an odd sound box that sounded like someone recorded lines under about six tons of sound dampening equipment and condensed it further into this tiny box which when buttons were pushed said something like “I AM OPTIMS PREEM” or so it sounded to me, still I was instantly loving the figure, I don't know why but Power Master Prime to me just didn’t have that same feeling of this one, I felt once I got it I instantly discarded it. We also got treated to some... interesting repaints like a dark blue Grimlock, or neon green tank Megatron (guns were bad now, so he upgraded to a tank?) and other eccentric colors. For those who don’t know what the early 90s were like, we had a very intense obsession with neon colors, pastel was dead long live neon death glow robots!
Then we get to Beast Wars, for many, this was in some ways breaking a cardinal law of Transformers, which was now they are animals? To me, it did not matter but I also noticed much like how I was growing up, the product was growing. We went from simply up and down motion on arms to suddenly being able to dynamically pose figures in cool poses and also seeming to have more personality in the deco and artwork. I absorbed all the figures I could of that line, the Standouts being Cybershark (I dunno why, he looked badass to me). Transmetal Cheetor (vac metal for life!) and Baboom, some sort of odd mobile death platform thing that I think was a concept for the Mammoth from Command and Conquer at times. Still, I remember my friends and I being blown away by how far at this point Transformers got…
I’ll end on this point here when it comes to the toys, after Beast Machines, the figures were...interesting to say the least, but I remember seeing rumblings of this Japan-only series, and it had vehicles. They were more articulated than the Beast Wars even, how the hell can this be? We saw pictures on IGN (back when they were doing things good ya know) of this fire truck with multiple forms, and a truck that kind of looked like Ultra Magnus...and they wait a minute, combined into a bigger version….and had sounds AND articulation? Teenage minds were blown at this point, and we were unprepared for the overlooked yet mind-blowing Robots in Disguise line. Prime was a fire truck now? Who cares he’s awesome-looking and Magnus was an asshole...eh nothing changes every time…
RID 2001 in my mind even with classics and what followed is still in my mind the best toys in the 40 years of the line, I still have a good chunk of them, and if I found some at a second-hand shop, a good chance I will grab them. The Optimus Ultra Magnus form dubbed Omega Prime still stands out as a feat of amazing combination and engineering. It isn’t sturdy but it looks damn awesome and intimidating.
Fiction that grew beside us:
So, most of us remember the cartoon, and yeah that was the main source for a long time, however, when I got a bit older I naturally found something else: comic books, Marvel was publishing an ongoing series through much of the 80’s and when we arrived at gen 2. We got a continuation, I remember finding this book and being blown away this thing was still around. It was to me like some sort of odd thing I felt I only knew about, like among many of my friends then had moved on from the brand to Turtles and others, but I still held the flag, I found some random issue at a local store and got it. I spent days looking at the art, and while learning to read wrapping my head around the words and concept of just what the hell was happening.
Well, it turned out I may have been the only person who knew this existed. Years later I’d learn that poor sales and readership pretty much locked in the story for only 12 issues, the writer even made a joke of this when the character when sounded out his name was “Gee, just ax us.” or Jhiaxus, and for a long time there was nothing on the written front. To make up for this, we got Beast Wars, which again the writing and fiction seem to respect what came before and built up on it. We also got very heavy themes for a kid’s show such as death now being a thing (Dinobot’s last stand still echoes in my head.)
Concepts of changing time and also the development of character, in general, were stronger. While you could go a few characters deep with character traits in the old cartoon, Beast Wars built up an impressive cast of characters from the father like Optimus Primal, to the man in the chair Rhinox (complete with chain guns of doom). Noble Dinobot, saboteur & coward Rattrap, and rounding out with the rookie Cheeteor. On the Predacon side we all remember the egotistical and megalomaniac Megatron (Yessss), Blackarchina, and her will she won’t she defect and all for the almost cartoonishly noble Silverbolt. The enslaved Rampage and bot with a chip on his shoulder Depth Charge chasing after him. It was not the deepest but looking back there was some very strong writing in this show.
This leads us to Beast Machines. I now see a lot of what they were doing, but at the time it was...an interesting story with some intriguing developments. The fiction as I grew older also seemed to take darker and more adult themes along with my own growing knowledge of the world. Gone were the days of noble Optimus Prime standing for all that was good, and at this point we had Primal questioning if he was doing the right things as Megatron began a march to enslave an entire planet to his will and remove all individuality. We also got some trippy religious thematic things going on...it was something to see, to be honest.
These themes would continue once more in the comic books when IDW got the license (I didn’t read a lot of Dreamwave and...well go look up that train wreck if you are curious). I await the grifters on YouTube who will eventually scream Transformers has gone woke. If you go look at a series called “More than Meets the Eye” and “Lost Light” you’ll find a lot of things people are grappling with now when it comes to sexuality, same-sex couples, and other themes being talked about back in 2012-2018 with giant robots in place of humans.
Now we have a new series being written over at Skybound (published by Image) that is racking up award after award and also merging G.I Joe and some other things into one cohesive universe. It’s interesting when you see licenses like these and people who get ahold of them, sometimes you get some by-numbers products. But even back in the 80’s Transformers writers were trying new things and pushing the limits of what a robot is. Fiction is not about the toys, many writers just use the characters and develop their worlds. We all did this as kids as well and I’d argue this and Lego probably opened up my imagination in a way I never would have otherwise. There is something kids today miss just looking at screens, having these figures, and watching the commercials that were cartoons was yes, effective. But while our parents may have been worried one could argue these things created a generation of creators that may not have been active if not for those situations.
Connections and Growing Up:
As I said, I have always had something related to Transformers going in my life we all have friends and mine were fans, maybe some not as many as I. A good friend I used to hang with was just as nutty and when new issues came out we’d go nuts and spend a day trying to find a local comic shop that even carried these series. At one point I knew someone who wanted the movie adaption and then they found out I had a pull list. She asked me to get her that and paid me for every issue. I’ve met people who made fan characters or wrote fan stories. While I may have dabbled every so often I never really perused it. I was happy creating my characters and stories, but I see the appeal of being in that world too. My wife even has a connection to the series that I went full circle with for her, going to see the first Bay film sticks in my mind as we all went to the latest showing on opening day, and then to a 24-hour Walmart to go get figures at like 2 am. I think I also own like…at least 4 different versions of the original animated movie. What can I say I like reliving childhood trauma…
A lot of people have connections to IPs, Star Wars, maybe Spider-Man or Batman. Mine is Transformers, I remember the last scene of Cheers where Sam and Norm are standing there, and Norm tells Sam he always knew he’d return. A puzzled Sam looks at him and asks how he knew, Norm says “You’ll always come back to your true love” and gestures to the room, the bar. So I guess at the end of the day when it comes to my fandom. I always will come back for this, it’s the constant and I guess in Norm logic, my true love.
I’m going to close this post with a video made for the 40th by Studio Trigger, it is an anime intro of Transformers over 40 years. I share it cause it made me realize how this franchise is stuck with me. If we play our cards right, I won’t be around for it but I’d love to see what people’s reaction will be to when it hits 80…
Till all are one...