15 Things You Didn't Know About Transformers

Because there's been a lot of weird Transformers stuff over the years.

1. Optimus Prime dies a lot. Like, all the time

tfwiki.net

Sure, you probably remember Prime dying in the 1986 animated movie masterpiece and in Revenge of the Fallen, but across all mediums, the various versions of Optimus Prime have died approximately 25 times. He's been shot, blown up, eviscerated and more. He's practically the Kenny of Transformers.

2. Optimus Prime committed (assisted) suicide over a video game

tfwiki.net

The first time Prime died was in the 80s Marvel comics. After beating Megatron in a virtual reality computer game, Optimus forced a human observer to destroy him as punishment for not saving some in-game civilians, thereby proving that he's so stupidly noble, he's an honorary Stark.

3. Rodimus Prime was actually pretty cool

markerguru.deviantart.com

Most people remember Rodimus Prime, if they remember him at all, as being a whiney, sub-par replacement for Optimus Prime, desperately unsuited for the burden of leadership. But while this is true for his first few episodes and a couple leading up to Optimus’ inevitable return, for most of his tenure, Rodimus kicked ass and was every bit as competent and cool as Optimus. He's really come into his own as the captain of the staship Lost Light in IDW's comic More Than Meets The Eye.

4. Galvatron underwent psychotherapy

Galvatron was the upgraded form of Megatron, made by Unicron in the 86 movie. Unfortunately, he turned out to be rather insane. In the third series episode Webworld his troops threatened revolt unless he sought help, so he was taken to a planet of psychotherapists. There, Galvatron was diagnosed as incurably insane and ended up destroying the entire planet to avoid ‘treatment’.

5. Cybertron was destroyed by the Japanese

tfwiki.net

After the original animated series ended in the West, Japan continued it with its own more anime-styled series. The first of these, Headmasters, not only saw Optimus dying (again) but Cybertron and even Mars were destroyed by the Decepticons.

6. Megatron nearly wasn't called Megatron

alteredstatesmag.com

Hasbro hired Marvel Comics to come up with name and personalities for their early Transformers. This mainly fell to editor Bob Budiansky, who suggested the name Megatron for the leader of the Decepticons. Hasbro initially rejected this for being too scary( because "mega" suggested “megaton” bombs) until Budiansky pointed out that being scary is kind of the point of villains.

7. Transformers are immigrants

tfsource.com

No, not just from Cybertron. Pretty much every Transformer figure from 1984, 1985 and most of those from 86 were originally released as part of various older toylines in Japan. Hasbro licensed the moulds and threw them all together as Transformers. Most of the reused figures came from the Diaclone and Microchange lines made by Takara, who would go on to reimport Transformers to Japan and are still partners with Hasbro on the line to this day.

8. The Transformers were saved from oblivion by becoming animals

unicron.com

In the mid-90s, Transformers was on the verge of being scrapped. Sales were way down and the line wasn’t popular enough to support a TV show or comic any more. Hasbro kicked the entire line over to its subsidiary Kenner toys, who created Beast Wars: Transformers that turned into realistic animals. Thanks to well designed toys and an excellent all CGI TV show, Beast Wars was immensely popular and saved Transformers from the dustbin of nostalgia.

9. Transformers has been in constant production since 1984

Most toylines tend to go through waves of popularity, ebbing and flowing with different generations of kids and occasionally being ‘rested’ (it happens to G.I. Joe all the time). Transformers though, in one guise or another, and in one country or another, has had constant production of new figures from 1984 to the present day. For the few years in the early 90s when Transformers was absent from American shelves, it continued on in Europe, Japan and Australia.

10. Transformers have turned into practically everything

tfwiki.net

Seriously, there’s barely anything that hasn’t been a Transformer’s alt-mode at some point. Signal Lancer, from the mid-00s series Energon, turned into a traffic light, for instance. Or how about…

11. Optimus Prime turned into a shoe

tfwiki.net

In 2007, Takara created Transformers: Sports Label, a cross-promotion effort with Nike. It consisted of three figures that transformed into trainers. Not ones big enough to wear though.

12. Transformers have their own real diseases

Via tfwiki.net

Collectors have been aware for years of degenerative problems that can occur to Transformers toys, everything from light plastics yellowing in sunlight to the dreaded Gold Plastic Syndrome, where gold coloured plastic crumbles to dust. The latter has since made the jump to Transformers fiction, appeared as a ‘real’ disease in a comic.

13. There have been Transformers sex-pests

tfwiki.net

The 2001 animated series Robots In Disguise was originally created just for Japan as Car Robots and so is a lot more distinctly Japanese than other Transformers series. Among its quirks is Sideburn, an Autobot with an obsession for hitting on red sports cars. Yes, it’s every bit as weird and creepy as it sounds. Stil, RiD also gave us...

14. And a Transformer poet

tfwiki.net

What with the millennia old civil war, most Transformers tend to have ‘functions’ that are pretty militaristic. Air Commander, Leader, Medic etc. Sky-Byte though, one of the evil Predacons in Robots in Disguise, was a poet by nature. He also transformed into a flying shark, because why the hell not?

15. GoBots are now Transformers

tfwiki.net

Let’s face it, if you got a GoBot in the 1980s it was likely a present from a well meaning relative who didn’t really know what a Transformer was. Even if they came first, GoBots were the inferior alternative to Transformers. In the early 90s though, Hasbro bought Tonka and thus gained the rights to the GoBots name and characters (though not the toys). Since then, they’ve used it for a variety of Transformers lines, usually aimed at pre-schoolers. Burn.

BONUS: GoBots weren't even actual robots.

tfwiki.net

Gobots, as per the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, were actually orangic beings who had transplanted their brains into transforming technological bodies, meaning they were cyborgs rather than robots. Or perhaps the ultimate Transformers cosplayers.