So this is going to be about Generation One; just another great item to come out of 1984 besides Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and myself. As we went over earlier, the Diaclones and Microman toy lines from Takara were the ancestor toy lines that helped spawned the Cybertronian beings.
So in 1984, Hasbro launched Transformers. Thanks to a business relationship with Marvel working on G.I. Joe, Hasbro had the connections from Marvel to figure out how to repackage and redo the Diaclones into Autobots and Decepticons. So the story starts off with, at the present time which was 1984 where a volcanic eruption dislodges a probe or something similar enough to scan the era and to rebuild and reformat the beings in the crashed in the Ark, an Autobot space vessel that crashed on a primitive Earth millions of years ago.
Now, the life forms are given new modes to function with. Originally, the Transformers were robots that turned into Cybertron based designed vehicles but to blend in better on Earth, they were adapting more Earthly designs; like sports cars, boom boxes, guns, mach trucks, Winnebagos… yeah an awesome hot rod was upgraded into a flaming Winnebago.
The story basically is that the Autobots had a scout ship out for a resource run but was attacked by the Decepticons, led by Megatron and the ship, the Ark, crashed into Earth. Coincidentally, the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime was onboard. Now, the Autobots and Decepticons wake up on an alien planet, Earth to be forced to adapt for survival.
The Autobots make allies with the humans as they try to show they are peaceful when not harassed by Decepticons and even become involved in Earth’s military tests and studies to defeat the Decepticons. Megatron sometimes makes allies with some interesting humans who are definitely not savory characters. Megatron also spends a good part of his time dealing with his plans being thwarted by Starscream; a proud warrior of the Decepticons who believes he should be leading the forces.
The first season pretty much included ground based vehicles such as cars, tanks, jeeps, and other automobiles for Autobots while the Decepticons were more of aerial assault vehicles like jets, planes, and handguns. Yes, the mighty Megatron was a giant gun… but not all the time; since he would often need for Starscream or Soundwave to fire him.
Throughout the second season, Transformers of different flavors showed up. The Autobots gained the Dinobots; dinosaur based forms that were built by Wheeljack and Ratchet to aid in the battles against the Decepticons. Almost as a trade off, the Dinobots lacked on average intelligence but had brute strength and aggression. Being that they were almost uncontrollable at times, Optimus Prime had the Dinobots quarantined and would activate them as needed. Though, the Ark’s computer, Teletran-1, was capable of releasing the Dinobots as needed. The Decepticons were given an almost equal competitive edge as they gained the Insecticons. The Insecticon army was almost as lethal as the Dinobots and some more tricks. As the name implies, the Insecticons were insects in essence and had some cool tricks like replicating themselves for a drone army. Megatron did his best to use these to his advantage but also was aware of how these swarms would betray him.
The other great character sets included the Combiner teams; a team of Autobots or Decepticons who had the unique ability to combine into a larger robotic being. These teams would often have a gimmick; Defensor was emergency response vehicles like a fire truck and squad car while Devestator was a group of construction vehicles. Generally made up of five to six members, these characters were fully functioning Transformers with both robot and vehicle modes but can then turn into a body part of the larger mech.
In 1986, the character groups started to change. More plots were taken off Earth and into space combat zones. This was influenced from Transformers: The Movie being released. Despite not being the blockbuster that Hasbro was hoping for, it was the turning point for the line. Newer characters from Cybertron and other worlds were introduced. Optimus Prime and Megatron were both killed in the movie so the newer episodes reflected a change for the factions. Optimus Prime was replaced by Hot Rod; who became Rodimus Prime to lead the Autobots while Megatron was rebuilt by a planet eating Transformer known as Unicron to fight against opposition. Even though no longer Megatron, Galvatron had still had his personality for the most part and killed Starscream to reclaim the Decepticon Empire. And as the name implies, the Decepticons quickly used deception to destroy Unicron; but with the aid of the Autobots who were also being threatened by planetary devastation by Unicron.
After the movie, Hasbro was faced with trying to figure out newer gimmicks to sell the merchandise. We started to get the Whatevermasters; Headmasters (Transformer team ups with smaller Transformer that turned into the head), Targetmasters (regular Transformer with guns that were Transformers), and the lesser known Universemasters (Transformers from Eternia that turned into copyright infringement; also known as Masters of the Universe. Optimus He-Man…). The cartoon show was dropped in 1987 and the toy line was left to be only supported by Marvel’s comic book run. The line was then again with new gimmicks such as the Pretenders and Micromasters. The Pretenders were Transformers who had a robot and vehicle mode but also had a Pretender shell to disguise in. These Pretenders camouflages were in forms of humans, aliens, anamorphic creatures, skeleton samurais, and MTV music video stars. The Micromasters were smaller Transformers that were even smaller than the Minibots and were like the hybrid of a Transformer and a Micro Machine. Some of sets were themed like jets while some of the sets were also bases. In 1990, the last run of the US Transformers were released; more Micromasters and the new Actionmasters. If the Micromasters were the hybrid of Micro Machines and Transformers, Actionmasters were the G.I. Joe hybrid. These were roughly the same size of a Joe figure and lacked the transforming part of Transformers. They had characters from throughout the series and some new characters. To still fit the Transformer line, they had weapons and vehicles that would transform.
While Transformers halted in 1990 for the US market, Transformers lingered overseas for a while until 1993. In the UK, the series continued with the comic books and some more figures. Japan, however, was able to have more. The cartoon run continued from a different animation studio and more characters were released and introduced through Takara.
Transformers: Generation 2 would later kick off the revamp for Transformers. It was not exactly a full relaunch either. But that’s a post for another day…
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