So WHO OR WHAT ARE THE TRANSFORMERS?

To explain who or what the Transformers are, I might want to start off with something more of a backstory. No, not about how Optimus Prime was Orion Pax prior to the Great War starting off. Let's go more back to a company in the early 80's called Takara. Takara is like the Japanese version of Hasbro. A lot of inventive and new ideas were coming out of this company. Like something called Diaclones.

So what are the Diaclones? Hmm, I am not exactly too sure but they look like the idea of Transformers but with human pilots. Imagine MASK, as we talked about a couple weeks where you would be able to have a vehicle that you can drive and then it would turn into a combat vehicle. In this case, a giant robotic exo-skeleton and maybe if you were lucky, Ripley would hang out with you if you had one of these.

Optimus Diaclone! 

So to the left, we have the Takara action figure of who Optimus Prime would later be created from. Notice that the color scheme is virtually identical to our beloved Optimus Prime.  You can actually read up all about the Diaclones being merged into Generation 1 over here: http://www.toyarchive.com/Diaclone.html and check out the ones that never made the crossover.

The other toy genetics that went into Transformers were Microman. The Mighty Mighty Megatron himself came from a toy called Browning.

So it seems like Hasbro executives were in a USA meeting and were like, "Well, these molds and toys are amazing. However, let's market them differently. Let's nix the humans. Yeah, robotic beings that turn into cars, vans, jets, trucks, tape decks, and guns!"

And thus that is how TRANSFORMERS was born...