Transformers is a Hasbro toy line centered on two factions of warring alien robots. In its 26-year history, the toyline has expanded to encompass comic books, animation, video games and movies.
Transformers: G1 includes both the animated television series The Transformers and the Marvel Comics comic-book series of the same name, which is further divided into Japanese and BritishGeneration 2 comic book and Beast Wars TV series, which became its own mini-universe. Generation 1 characters underwent two reboots with Dreamwave in 2001 and IDW Publishing in 2005, also as a remastered series. There have been other incarnations of the story based on different toy lines during after 20th-Century. The first was the Robots in Disguise series, followed by three shows that consist of the "Unicron Trilogy" (consisting of Armada, Energon, and Cybertron). A live-action film was also released in 2007 and a sequel has since been released in 2009, again distinct from previous incarnations, while the Transformers Animated spin-offs, respectively. Sequels followed, such as the series merged concepts from the G1 story-arc, the 2007 live-action film and "Unicron Trilogy".
Transformers: Generation 1 (1984–1994)
Generation One (G1) is a retroactive term for the Transformers characters that appeared between 1984 and 1992. The Transformers began with the 1980s Japanese toy lines Microman and Diaclone. The former utilized varying humanoid-type figures while the latter presented robots able to transform into everyday vehicles, electronic items or weapons. Hasbro, fresh from the success of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, which utilized the Microman technology to great success, bought the Diaclone toys, and partnered with Takara. Jim Shooter and Dennis O'Neil were hired by Hasbro to create the backstory, the latter of whom christened Optimus Prime. Afterwards, Bob Budiansky created most of the Transformers characters, giving names and personalities to many unnamed Diaclone figures. The primary concept of G1 is that the heroic Optimus Prime, the villainous Megatron, and their finest soldiers crash land on pre-historic Earth in the Ark and the Nemesis before awakening in 1984, Cybertron hurtling through the Neutral zone as an effect of the war. ]
Transformers: Generation 2 (1993–1995)
It was five issues of the G.I. Joe comic in 1993 that would springboard a return for Marvel's Transformers, with the new twelve-issue series Transformers: Generation 2, to market a new toy line. The UK comic came back for five issues and an annual. This story revealed that the Transformers originally breed asexually, though it is stopped by Primus as it produced the evil Swarm. A new empire, neither Autobot nor Decepticon, is bringing it back, however. Though the year-long arc wrapped itself up with an alliance between Optimus Prime and Megatron, the final panel introduced the Liege Maximo, ancestor of the Decepticons. This minor cliffhanger was not resolved until 2001 and 2002's Transforce convention when writer Simon Furman concluded his story in the exclusive novella Alignment.
Beast Wars/Machines (1996–2000)
Main articles: Beast Wars and Beast Machines
The story focused on a small group of Maximals (the new Autobots), led by Optimus Primal, and Predacons, led by Megatron, 300 years after the "Great War". After a dangerous pursuit through transwarp space, both the Maximal and Predacon factions end up crash landing on a primitive, uncivilized planet similar to Earth, but with two moons and a dangerous level of Energon, which forces them to take organic beast forms in order to function without going into stasis lock. After writing this first episode, Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio learned of the G1 Transformers, and began to use elements of it as a historical backstory to their scripts, establishing Beast Wars as a part of the Generation 1 universe through numerous callbacks to both the cartoon and Marvel comic. By the end of the first season, the second moon and the Energon are revealed to have been constructed by a mysterious alien race known as the Vok.
Dreamwave Productions (2001–2005)
In 2001, Dreamwave Productions began a new universe of annual comics adapted from Marvel, but also included elements of the animated. The Dreamwave stories followed the concept of the Autobots defeating the Decepticons on Earth, but their 1997 return journey to Cybertron on the Ark II is destroyed by Shockwave, now ruler of the planet. The story follows on from there, and was told in two six-issue limited series, then a ten-issue ongoing series.