Transformers

And these are just your characters from G1!

Transformers is a series of Robot Toys created by Hasbro and Takara Tomy that typically turn into cars and other vehicles. Robots are cool, cars are cool and so they became popular. In 1984 they made some comics and a cartoon show. The comics show created a lot of toy sales and the toys kept the shows and comics popular. Over the years they changed things up to sell more toys and new series were made, some worked quite well (Beast Wars, Prime) others did not (Armada, Energon, Cybertron).

Why has there never been a roleplaying game about this shit? Only comics, cartoons, anime, and finally video games. So much potential. Seriously, it's a setting about sentient, shapeshifting robots fighting a war that spans motivations from political to racial to theological. Fuck, there weren't any tabletop Transformers games beyond the usual tie-in bullshit until 2018 when Hasbro announced an official Transformers CCG. How the fuck has nobody realised the money-making potential there?

Main Guys

As the series come and go, a certain bevvy of characters seem to be archetypal to the Transformers. Not helped by the fact that, ever since the flop of Beast Machines and the riotous financial successes of the Bay, Hasbro seems to only ever stick with recycling Generation One, with some other characters jumping continuities. These are the Transformers who appear in some form or another in every iteration of the setting.

• Optimus Prime: Leader of the Autobots, Lawful Good to the computer-core, the Big Red Hero-bot himself. There's always an Optimus leading the Autobots, and he usually turns into some kind of red truck or hauler. His name is the Latin words for "best" and "first", and he really is both. In the original show (and in the Michael Bay movies -- one of the decent things about them -- and Transformers Prime and the Cybertron games), he was voiced by Peter Cullen, whose awesome deep voice you probably hear in your head whenever you read any of his dialogue. Check it out: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." Also has the record of dying the most times out of anyone ever, making one wonder how the hell the GM lets him get away with it each time. Might be because he always goes out fighting, never like a punk.

• Megatron: If there's an Optimus Prime, there's always a Megatron, the Evil (of some flavor, depending on the series) to his Lawful Good. Megsy remains pretty consistent throughout his appearances, usually varying only in what level of honor he has (which usually depends on his backstory; sometimes he started as a charismatic gladiator turned freedom fighter against the corrupt Cybertronian government -- Angron, anyone? -- but sometimes he's just nuts) and/or how much of a cold-blooded psychopath he is. He used to turn into a gun (which could inexplicably shrink down to be small enough to be wielded by another Decepticon or even the occasional human), with the barrel scope giving him a wicked arm cannon in robot mode, but nowadays he usually turns into a tank or a jet. He was first voiced by Frank Welker, whose versatile voice was also used for just about every other Decepticon except for Starscream (and probably at least one role in just about every cartoon ever made). David Kaye did a bang-up job voicing Predcacon Leader Megatron in Beast Wars, Yeeesss.
  • Galvatron:Whenever there is a Megatron there is a Galvatron. He's everything you love about the M taken up to eleven. This guy is seriously bad news, he's probably insane and violent enough to give Doombreed pause and he's probably the strongest non-God transformer there is in G1 comics it takes a friggin' time vortex to finally put him down. After a dying Megatron found himself adrift in space, he had a lovely chat with the physical Cybertronian God,Unicron who reconstructed him into this indentity. Didn't work for long though; Galvy kind of went off the reservation pretty quickly.

• Bumblebee: The yellow kid-friendly one, he's usually the main one to interact with the resident token humans. He usually turns into a sports car. Can be surprisingly badass in some adaptations -- his Beast Wars counterpart, Cheetor, went on to basically take Optimus Primal's place as leader of the Maximals in Beast Machines. In the Michael Bay movies, he became a mute who talks only in radio quotes/beeps and boops like a 60s robot which just got ANNOYING. His Prime Counterpart retained the mute quirk, but his voicebox was eventually repaired by the time of the sequel series.

• Grimlock: A fuckmothering robot Tyrannosaurus that usually breathes fire. He's the leader of a pack of other robot dinosaurs called the Dinobots. He's not exactly smart (well sometimes, he's either a stupid beast or a no nonsense leader with a speech problem), but who cares about that? HE'LL FUCKING EAT YOU. No seriously he once ripped Shockwave's arm off and ate it.

• Starscream: Megatron's loud-mouthed, whiny, scheming, sneaky, backstabbing second-in-command who always wants to lead the Decepticons. He is neither strong enough to bump Megsy off, smart enough to trick him to his death, or charismatic enough to persuade others he's a better boss. Sometimes Megatron himself wonders why he keeps Starscream around, but (when the writers remember) he is actually an extremely competent air commander who leads The Seekers, Decepticons who are typically recolors of him with the most prominent being Skywarp and Thundercracker. In Animated, the Seekers were replaced by actual clones all named after classic Seekers with the only one original to the series being Rule 63. Starscream usually turns into the latest and greatest fighter jet (unless he's turning into some Cybertronian future-jet) historically an F-15, F-16, or F-22. In the original cartoon, his catchphrase (delivered in the classic 80s-villain screech as his first voice actor also voiced the similarly screechy Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe) was probably "Decepticons, RETREEEAT!" Was also voiced by fucking Tom "Spongebob Squarepants" Kenny in Animated; man, is that a blow to your dignity. Nowadays, though, he's more consistently competent (and given a more menacing voice by Steve Blum in Transformers Prime). Is such a total backstabbing traitor that "The Starscream" has entered pop-culture as a term to describe someone who seems more dedicated to fucking his own team over in ostensible pursuit of power than to actually beating the guys he's supposed to fight.

• Soundwave: A major character for the Decepticons as Megatron's legitimately loyal number two. Is also the biggest source of nostalgia because he turns into a fucking tapedeck. Even though he lacks a personalitySOUNDWAVE SUPERIOR; PAGE WRITER INFERIOR, he manages to be awesome merely through dogged determination and because he's the one guy who'll never give anyone any bullshit. He has a number of minions who turn into cassettes (or goddamn guitars in Animated's case), but the main ones are Rumble (Whose arms turn into piledrivers so he can cause earthquakes), Frenzy (Who has a sonic scream), Ravage (A fucking robot jaguar who turns into a cassette), Laserbeak and Buzzsaw (robot birds), and Ratbat (a robot bat). The IDW comic gave him an origin about how he used to be homeless due to his mind reading powers until Laserbeak and Ravage found him and helped him control them. In the Marvel G1 comics he acted as toady to whichever Decepticon had usurped Megatron that month while steadily scheming to increase his own power, making him like Starscream but actually competent. He also spoke in complete sentences and had a functioning mouth.

• Shockwave: The real mad scientist of the Decepticons, whose arm is a gun and also turned into a gun in G1 (a giant flying gun). While he's also pretty loyal to Megatron, he's nowhere near Soundwave levels because his true loyalty is to pure logic. There are several times where he became an bigger threat than Megatron, requiring both Autobots and Decepticons to stop him. Most series have him involved with the Dinobots, either by creating them, or just they have major beef with him (he doesn't give a shit as he has better things to do). He's another guy who happened to be blessed by Steve Blum in the Cybertron series. The IDW comics gave him an origin about how he used to be an idealistic Noblebright senator (and Optimus' BFF) until he got unpersoned and mutilated by the corrupt Cybertronian government. Ouch. His Prime adaptation is fucking badass and intimidating, both in voice work and design, but unfortunately he suffers from Villain Incompetence Syndrome whenever the good guys show up, like so many other good bad guys.

• Unicron: Unicron was originally introduced as the big bad for the '86 movie, a planet-sized, planet-eating bringer of doom (basically, if Galactus was the Death Star), voiced by the Orson Welles in his last role. The third season episode "Call of the Primitives" revealed his original, long since abandoned, origin as a planet-destroying creation of an alien mad scientist. Later media, beginning with the Marvel comics, changed his origin to Transformers' Satan, a god-like destroyer tricked into trapping himself inside a planet, but learned how to possess the world and reshape it into his own image. That fucking anime trilogy not only pulled this interpretation back, but made it "official", saying there's only one Unicron in the entire multiverse - at least, they tried. The comics pay more attention to it, but the shows tend to avoid it; witness Prime, where Unicron is actually sleeping at the heart of Earth instead of running around eating planets.

• Primus: The Emprah to Unicron's Chaos God, except he's an actual god... who actually transformed into a planet and fell asleep for a fuckton of years. In this form, he became Cybertron and created the Cybertronian race. Like his evil counterpart, Unicron, he hails from the 80's comics and didn't make an appearance on screen (other than references to a pseudo-Bible named the "Covenant of Primus" in Beast Wars) until the Energon Trilogy, which is where he's stayed.

Generation One

The original, the alpha iteration, the place where it all to began. Sometimes mockingly called Geewun because of the nostalgia fags who hate on everything that come after it. No matter how good they are. At the time, it was just called "The Transformers", with a "four-issue limited series" from Marvel that ended up running for 80 issues, a cartoon by the same name for three seasons (and two more seasons in Japan) from 1984-87 and the animated film "The Transformers: The Movie" in 1986. The movie's soundtrack is awesomely 80's, and it features the amazing song "The Touch" when Optimus Prime fights Megatron. Quite literally, this movie shit all over Bay's multi-million crappers... and that's the problem; the movie was so good that it marked the peak for the young franchise and it began a downhill slide from there, with the show scrambling to cope with all the losses (yeah, lots of people died here, even Optimus), while the toys began getting gimmickier without getting better.

The "Generation One" title was applied retroactively after Hasbro released the "Generation 2" line in 1993. By the way, G2 was the reason Transformers was considered dead for most of the 90's. The comic was that cheap sort of "gritty for no real reason" the 90's was infamous for and the toys had pretty much burned themselves out and no gimmick could really help them on that. There was also a short-lived "Transformers G2" show, but it was just G1 with new CGI openings/endings and scene changes, so it only lasted a few episodes before flopping.

Of note is that if you want to experience G1 without having to dig up the eps from some torrent or Netflix, you can get Transformers Devastation, which is essentially a G1 ep in vidya form produced by Platinum Studios, the guys responsible for balls-to-the-walls hypefests like Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, and The Wonderful 101 (aka /m/ the game). Most of the actors are present, there's murderfests and speed, and big bosses. Also you get to run idiots over (but no pedestrians). Only letdown is the short length of the game and the lack of a Decepticon story and Abominus.

Marvel's The Transformers

What a lot of people who weren't kids in 1984 may not remember is that the first piece of long-form Transformers fiction ever was not the cartoon, but the Marvel comic book, produced in direct partnership with Hasbro as an expansion on the toy bios and character names that Marvel had already written to jam the random designs that had been licensed from Takara into a cohesive toyline. Most of the themes and tropes that people think of as "Transformers" were developed by Marvel, from the idea of living robots coming to Earth in search of energy to the most common origin for the planet-eating Unicron. Sometimes, Marvel published gripping stories exploring the dynamic of mechanical life forms adapting to an entirely alien environment and the humans caught in their crossfire. Sometimes they published stories about robot professional wrestling and evil car washes. Still, the stories had soul, and the comic ended up lasting a full year after the toyline it was made to promote ended in America. (As a sign of the times, one of the reasons the comic was canceled were its low sales of 70,000 copies an issue.)

British kids got an additional treat in the form of original stories from Marvel's UK division, printed in between serialized edits of the US issues in weekly installments. Most of these were done by the inimitable Simon Furman, who went on to write the US Transformers comic as well and has become the most prolific writer of Transformers fiction in the world.

Beast Wars

The first Western-released sequel to G1 (there were two Japanese-only continuations to G1 that never got released outside of Japan and the G2 comic mentioned above), a CGI show created by Mainframe (also responsible for ReBoot and War Planets). Set up as a "loose sequel" to G1, it involves new transformer races called "Maximals" (Autobots) and "Predacons" (Decepticons).

A Predacon terrorist leader styling himself after the original Megatron, including taking his name, hijacks an artifact with a mysterious connection to Megatron the first and goes on the run into deep space with a band of terrorists, planning on restarting the Great War and this time causing a Predacon victory. A Maximal deep-space exploration vessel commanded by Optimus Primal attempts to intercept, and both vessels end up stranded on a mysterious alien world, where an overabundance of raw energon forces them to adopt the forms of local fauna to preserve themselves. The two forces promptly start trying to wipe each other out and then escape the planet. There's also a sideplot involving an ancient alien civilization that ends itself just before the Season 3 finale.

They would eventually find out that this strange world was actually Earth, which was where Megatron II was trying to get all along, and they find the wreckage of the Ark of the original series, when new Megatron decides to headshot Prime in order to change the future for his benefit. It kinda flops when new Optimus takes part of old Optimus's soul, gets another upgrade, and becomes sorta-truck. It inspires Megatron II to try the same trick with his namesake, turning himself into a huge firebreathing dragon-bot.

Though Hasbro would mostly consign this story to oblivion after Beast Machines, the characters of Blackarachnia (sexy spider-bot who changes from evil to good thanks to love) and Waspinator (the walking punching bag who the heroes almost invariably blow up only to be fixed later), along with the concept of the Spark (essentially, Transformers' souls) would be re-used in later eras. More importantly, this show saved the franchise after Generation 2 almost killed it.

Beast Machines

Sequel series to Beast Wars. On returning to Cybertron, our heroes are attacked by armies of transforming cookie-cutter drones. It eventually turns out that Megatron broke free from the Maximals' prison and flew back to Cybertron before them; he infected the entire planet with a cyber-virus that put them all into comas, ripped out their hearts/souls and stashed them in some hidden bunker, and melted down their bodies to rebuild them into mindless robot slaves.

Awesomely grimdark concept, but hampered by two huge flaws. Firstly, a super-annoying green aesop, which was very clumsily handled because this is a planet of talking robots, not nature. More importantly, major character derailment - it was made by a different team to Beast Wars, and they weren't even allowed to watch the first series to familiarize themselves with how the Maximals were supposed to behave, so it'd be "more accessible".

Probably the reason why Hasbro only recycles G1 instead of trying to do its own thing with new shows, the way these two shows did. Even though it was their own damn fault, because they made this series into what it was. Time has been kinder to it, though, after the initial rage and denouncement. It is kind of like the Alien/Terminator 3 of Transformers. On its own its really damn good. As a sequel to what most people think is the high point of its respective franchise? Its a goddamned insult.

Robots in Disguise (2001)/Car Robots

An obscure anime that came out roughly a few months before Armada. Best known for its gag dub and general comedic focus that makes it surprisingly laughable, and certainly more fun to watch than any of the Energon Trilogy. Usually forgotten about, except for the fact that Megatron here has six fucking modes of transformation (ten after upgrading to Galvatron). In this series Decepticons are instead Predacons like Beast Wars with actual Decepticons being created mid-series, starting with an evil clone of Optimus called "Scourge". General consensus is that is far from the best or worst series, it's just "meh."

Energon Trilogy

Comprised of the shows Armada, Energon, and Cybertron, which are also called the Unicron Trilogy due to the antagonist's return to the spotlight after being virtually nonexistent since The Movie. Anime reinterpretation of G1, decaying from "poor but watchable" to "completely unwatchable drek" for all the reasons people hate /a/: bad dubbing, overly lengthy scenes of nothing, a shift to crappy CGI, and a plot that is so terribly paced and search-questy that you'd be praying for your GM to be railroading this. On the plus-side: competent badass Starscream (who unfortunately inspired a whole generation of Linkin Park listening wannabes). On the downside: far too much focus on humans and not enough on giant robots trying to kill each other. Kicker, from the later series, is considered one of the worst human sidekicks the Transformers have ever had. It has been said that, for all the failings of Beast Machines, at least it's better than Armada and Energon.

Galaxy Force

Transformers Galaxy Force, The show that was butchered into Transformers Cybertron is more fondly remembered by fans. As it made of the strange choice of dubbing a male character into a woman. While butchering most of the series by making it a gag-dub by giving alien robots stupid accents. While putting dialouge over scenes that didn't require them. The kids are also less annoying while the dub shoehorned in older versions of the Armada and Energon brats at the last minute during the final episode. This is because Gonzo created it as independent entry until Hazblow retconned it into the Energon trilogy.

Michael Bay Films

The dark force known as Michael Bay brought Transformers back as a series of live-action + CGI movies. Considered the Matt Ward of the Transformers universe, Bay's movies are rage-inducing fails that have far too much focus on annoying human characters and on lowbrow humor. Seriously, in the first movie, we don't get to see an Autobot for, like, thirty minutes while dealing with very bland characters who get billed way too much, and we have to facepalm our way through an awful gag about Bumblebee basically pissing on a guy. The second one is no better with two black/redneck stereotypes as heroes, a gag about balls, and a two-for-one gag about farting/incontinence - from a Transformer, no less. Real classy, Bay.

About the only shallow redeeming qualities it has is that the CGI Transformers look amazing (even if some neckbeards have cracked up over how they're "not accurate" to the G1 character modes), the fight scenes are suitably glorious for giant alien death-machines ripping each other to pieces (when you can see it clearly), and most importantly is it has introduced Transformers to a whole new generation of fans, who can hopefully be shown the good stuff instead of thinking this garbage is the true representative of the setting.

After the trilogy Bay made a fourth movie which actually manages to make some considerable improvements (not that it was that hard), like a lot more of focus on Optimus Prime, killing the scrappy comic relief during the first part of the movie and more consistent fighting scenes, plus DINOBOTS! charging the enemy. There is also more grimdark as Optimus finally decides enough is enough after having tried to protect mankind for more than five years while having his whole team slaughtered by those he sworn to protect, and pulls a gun against a human frakker who was teaming up with the mercenary Lockdown to kill Autobots and use their remains to make their own giant robots that turn into cars (except instead of literally creating Galvatron last time, this time it's like the T-1000 where they turn into nanobot swarms). On the downside, though, the humans are still pointless tagalongs (though this is a new set of humans, no Shia Lebouf to be found here), there are more pointless stereotypes (Like Weeaboo Samurai-bot Drift, Crosshairs who gets a fucking trenchcoat when he transforms, and Hound, who somehow has a cigar and a wire-beard), the Dinobots don't even show up until the last few minutes of the movie, and there's this ridiculous need to hammer in the "us vs. them" mentality between the humans making their own Transformers and Lockdown trying to kill Optimus because he's betrayed their makers by siding with the humans. Than everything goes to shit during "The Last Knight". While ripping off the "Earth is Unicron" thing from Transformers Prime.

Animated

G1 inspired series with notoriously unusual but smooth animation. This time, Optimus Prime and his crew are lowly space janitors who stumble across a superweapon from the Great War and have to defend it against Megatron (GIVING HIM A GODDAMN ENGLISH ACCENT FUCK YES), who seeks to use it to restart the war and this time ensure Decepticon victory. This version's Optimus is much younger and less experienced than usual; funnily enough, he was voiced by the actor who voiced Megatron in Beast Wars. Generally noted for having the best human sidekick (who turns out to really be part-transformer anyways). The other Autobots also tend to have some interesting characterizations from "Complete dumb muscle who surprisingly knows everything about building Space Bridges" Bulkhead to "Weeaboo Robo-Ninja" Prowl to "MY EGO IS AS BIG AS MY CHIN AND MY ASSHOLEITUDE IS EVEN BIGGER!" Sentinel Prime. The Decepticons sometimes do better vis ze German schizophrenic Blitzwing, the borderline-religiously loyal Lugnut, and badass robo-Clint Eastwood Lockdown.

The series was weird in that alongside the Decepticons were also some gimmicky human villains, from a Shakespearean Robin Hood knockoff, to a cute little girl who's a mad scientist, to another mad scientist who rips off Transformer heads to replicate an old G1 gimmick. These villains were a bit ridiculous, but it helped break up the monotony of the constant 'con fighting, especially when Megatron was reduced to a state worse than Abaddon as a head. The creators came up with the idea to emphasize just how dangerous the 'cons are, compared to their Autobot opponents; when one 'con shows up, it's an emergency that takes the whole team to try and pull out a win. Hell, Starscream could beat up the entire Autobot team in his first few appearances before they figured out how to handle him.

Cybertron Series

There were many, MANY, video games made for every part of the Transformers, but most of them ranged from forgettable to utter shit to memetically terrible. The closest we got to a good original game series (so no whining about the Movie-Games) were the games War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron, both made by High Moon Studios.

These games act as the Horus Heresy to G1's 40k by explaining how Optimus became a leader and how Megatron became a dictator while their war and its demand eventually destroyed their homeworld. (These games are also technically part of the backstory for Hasbro's "Aligned continuity" shared with Transformers Prime and a couple prose stories, but as usual there are enough discrepancies to throw a wrench in that quite nicely.) While the gameplay itself isn't much more than a basic third-person shooter, the vast amount of references to the rest of the series and the rather well-written story and characters make it stand out. Fall of Cybertron may be considered one of the most grimdark settings to see wide release, while not being as totally ham-handed with it as Beast Machines. It also helps that the second game gave some bonus variety in some segments by giving you a level as MOTHERFUCKING GRIMLOCK, and another where you get to play as a combiner (who has an awesome helicopter-arm, but is otherwise not very memorable besides being huge.) Overall great fights, no crappy human sidekicks, an awesome OST and all the grimdarkness needed to make any neckbeard enjoy it quite much, also ESCALATION mode will ensure you endless hours of good bloodless carnage.

There is a (sorta) third game called Rise of the Dark Spark, which decides to make the stupid decision of merging this series to the Bayformers continuity. It was released as tie in game with fourth movie and has less of budget, clearly shown with its number of glitches, lack of variety in levels (mostly just enemies till the game lets you move on) and downright ugly environments for the levels set on Earth. The only thing to remember is that the Cybertron segments are still awesome, while later parts will just shoehorn you with mutebee and Drift (who at least has an awesome special attack), with one level playing as Grimlock again and lacking any Decepticon plot post-Cybertron. There is also the 3ds version with mostly the same story but is otherwise a turn based strategy game kind of like a really old and obscure mid-late 00s IOS game except you have to deal with Bayverse shit.

Prime

G1 inspired CGI series that somehow salvages the fairly decent elements of Michael Bay's crapfest movies (e.g. Peter Cullen and Frank Welker reprising their respective roles, artstyle, some character elements/background lore, Rip and Tear), takes place in the same universe as the Cybertron games and crafts an awesome show out of it. Animation is fucking amazing, with fight scenes that rival if not trump the Michael Bay films. Very dark and gritty as well, where one of the Autobots (voiced by the Rock himself, mind you), gets whacked in the first episode. The Autobots are not only outnumbered and outgunned by the Decepticons, but they also have to contend with MECH, a human terrorist organization that seeks to cannibalize Cybertronians for their advanced technology.

The biggest problem with this series is Miko, who competes with Kicker (from the abovementioned Energon Trilogy) for the title of worst human character in Transformers history. Obnoxiously gung-ho and always charging off into danger, even when told not to, invariably making things worse for the Autobots in the process. Still, this series easily has some of the best human characters otherwise, most notably Agent Fowler, who in the company of giant alien killing machines manages to be a badass in his own right. Even Miko managed to get better as the series went on, learning from her mistakes and not being such a load. She even managed to take out a Decepticon at one point.

Then there's Predacons Rising; the made-for-tv movie meant to serve as a series finale... it was questionable at best. Plot holes everywhere, very little focus on the actual Predacons in the title, and characters doing stupid and random things to simply fit the plot. It was basically a segue into the next series; Robots in Disguise. There were some Dinobot focused IDW comics in between. They are pretty awesome. And mostly ignored. Because we don't deserve good things in Transformers.

Robots in Disguise

In this series Prime's relegated mentor-figure role, while Bumblebee (once again with a voice) has to take command of an ex-con, a stickler, and a slightly-smarter Grimlock in helping some kid and his dad's junkyard and detaining runaway Decepticon inmates, all of whom aren't related to the main bads, so this series was more original than most of the kiddie-aimed series. There was a 'con in it called Slapper. The show really doesn't become good until the Starscream miniseries after season three, and the Soundwave/Autobot Counsel arc of the fourth season. Which also introduces combiners into the Prime/Cybertron continuity.

Oddities

There have been a lot of Transformers series out there. Many of them are just spinoffs of G1 or silly throwaways like Transformers Mr. Potato Head, but some of them are good enough or just weird enough to be worth mentioning here. For full details, see TFWiki below.

Transformers Rescue Bots

The 30-minute toy commercial for the preschool-focused "Rescue Bots" toyline. In the same continuity as Transformers Prime above, which would lead to much lulz if the writers ever had the balls to let them cross over to any significant degree. Features four young Autobots who slept through the whole war in stasis and were recalled to Earth by Optimus Prime; being too inexperienced to handle the rigors of war with the Decepticons, they were assigned to the Eureka-esque island of Griffin Rock, where they perform rescue operations with their human partners. Instead of open combat, the 'bots and their human partners battle with out-of-control inventions and mundane disasters; the only true antagonist of the series is the steampunk gentleman-scientist Doctor Morocco, voiced by Slaanesh Tim Curry. Surprisingly watchable for a kids' show, Rescue Bots has the distinction of being the longest-running Transformers cartoon ever, with four full seasons and a sequel series on track to air in 2019.

Unit: E

In the third season of Transformers Prime, the writers started dropping references to other Hasbro properties like M.A.S.K. and G.I. Joe in connection with a government agency called "Unit E." This was intended to be a "backdoor launch" to a whole shared universe in the vein of the massively profitable Marvel Cinematic Universe, consisting of just about every brand Hasbro owns that has ever been remotely popular with any demographic, ever. These ranged from the sensible (M.A.S.K. was another transforming-toy brand from the 80s that Hasbro absorbed, and G.I. Joe has a long history of Transformers crossovers) to the oddball but justifiable (Jem and the Holograms was Hasbro's big new girl-toy push in the 80s and was occasionally used as a sight gag in the G1 cartoon) to blatant halo-effect attempts that made no sense at all (Dungeons & Dragons? Stretch Armstrong? Candy Land?!) The framing device for this insanity was the eponymous Unit: E, a group of explorers who scanned the multiverse for "the Eerie, the Else, the Eternities of Infinity" from an installation placed in the "slipstream" outside of reality. (Sounds kinda familiar, don't it?)

Perhaps fortunately for all involved, this product of Marketing's cocaine-fueled fever dreams did a faceplant into the sun and nothing came of it except for a one-shot comic book released at Comic-Con and the aforementioned namedrops in Prime. Hasbro never let go of the idea of seeing if their properties would blend, though, and in 2016 IDW was given the green light to weld their previously-separate licensed comics (including Transformers, Joe, Micronauts, Rom: Spaceknight, and yes, Jem) together through a Secret Wars-style crossover event called Revolution. From this point IDW's comics are set in the Hasbro Universe, with such fiction-bending events as the Decepticon Skywarp joining G.I. Joe and a multi-property superhero team called the Revolutionaries joining forces.

Transformers: Kiss Players

After the ignominious conclusion of the Energon Trilogy, Takara decided to make their next installment of the Transformers franchise smaller and more adult-focused. Welding the bits of their various G1-sequel lines (including the "collector's choice" Binaltech line and the grab-bag Robotmasters line) with the G1 cartoon and their own anime into a single (confusing as all hell) timeline, Transformers Kiss Players takes place immediately after the events of the 1986 movie. After Unicron exploded in 2005, the broken body of Galvatron was sent hurtling towards Earth where it (what else?) destroyed Tokyo. In response, the Earth Defense Command was formed to kick the Transformers off the goddamn planet before they blew up any other national capitals, which they did with a Transformer-hostile energy field and using the tech from Galvatron's corpse to make mass-produced Autorooper mecha. Unfortunately for them, Galvatron's reentry scattered fragments of his and Unicron's life-force into Earth's atmosphere, fragments that activated in 2006. The "Galvatron cells" fused with whatever they touched, turning them into biomechanical monsters called the Legion. Humans who came in contact with the Galvatron cells inexplicably did not turn into monsters, but instead could fuse with both Autoroopers and Transformers by kissing them.

You see, Kiss Players was written by longtime Transformers fan and freelance toy designer Yuki Ohshima, who took Takara's desire for an otaku-targeted series as an invitation to freak the fuck out of people and gave them a freaky-ass magical girl horror story in the vein of Narutaru and Madoka Magica that just happened to have Transformers in it. A bunch of suspiciously young-looking women got dropped into a psychosexual nightmare in the name of shock value, and the Western Transformers fanbase crapped their pants over "pedophilia" showing up next to "their" childhood toys, accusing Oshima of wanting to diddle the kiddle. The Japanese fans, for their part, were mostly apologetic towards the Western fanbase and confused as to why the hell Takara thought that Freudian horror and moe were at all compatible with giant robots whaling on each other. The second part of the line (Kiss Players Position) dumped the original fiction's baggage in favor of taking cute girls on a whirlwind tour of the Transformers universe, but by that point the Western fans had already made up their mind. To this day Kiss Players is still the go-to acceptable target for "at least it's not as bad as..." jokes on TFWiki. The toys themselves were decent at least, being retools of the well-received Binaltech/Alternators collectible toys with vinyl loli figures packaged in the box, so picking those up is perfectly fine if you're willing to deal with faggots calling you a weeb.

See Also

The idea of "giant robots turning into vehicles" is so cool that lots of homebrew and independent mecha RPGs include mechas or characters that are "totally not Transformers" to fill the void that Hasbro has seemingly refused to fill themselves. For example:

• Giant Guardian Generation
• Horizon - Mechamorphosis is literally "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off, done by way of Dungeons & Dragons 3.5".
• Mechagenasis - Another "Transformers with the serial numbers filed off" game, this time done for True20.
• Battlechangers - Blatantly Transformers-based RPG, in both an original version and a Pathfinder version (Battlechangers Ironworks).
• Mekton - Extremely flexible with what it can do: the rules for transforming are simple (as far as Mekton goes anyway) and adapting to a Transformers setting is as easy as actually reading up on them, but the game's hilariously broken.
• Rifts - Some homebrew stuff floating around on the net for playing Transformers exists. Pity it relies on the godawful RIFTS mechanics...
• Codex: Transformers - A case of 1d4chan getting shit done, adapting Transformers into yet another Warhammer 40000 faction.
• Setting:Transformers - A tie-in article to the above trying to develop the lore to explain why Codex: Transformers is a thing.

External Links

• TFWiki.net, the unofficial Transformers wiki.