Of all the various continuities the Transformers franchise has had over 30+ years, none has been more explored than the Generation One continuity. Ever since 1984, the world where Optimus Prime's a semi-truck and Megatron's a Walther P38 that shoots lasers has been revisited, reinterpreted and expanded in multiple ways.
But several main branches of this complicated continuity tree stand out. And with the 1980s Transformers: The Manga by Masumi Kaneda & Ban Magami finally available in the West thanks to Viz Media, it's high time to look back at some of the most prominent G1 canons out there.
The Transformers Cartoon
Though it wasn't the first version (see below), the original The Transformers cartoon, which ran for 98 episodes from 1984-1987 plus 1986's The Transformers: The Movie, is by far the most famous and was the basis for all TF cartoons through to Beast Machines. Airing in syndication in America and kicking off with the Autobots and Decepticons crash-landing on Earth, the show was an instant hit, with its colorful characters, imaginative writing from folks like the recently deceased David Wise and edited by the likes of Marv Wolfman, (mostly) good animation from studios like Toei and AKOM, and a stable of iconic voice actors led by Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Frank Welker as Megatron.
The cartoon is a pretty simple Decepticon-plan-of-the-week format and constantly introduces new 'bots and 'cons with no buildup. This is vastly different from the other 1984 canon.
Number 80 In A Four-Issue Limited Series
Marvel Comics was contracted by Hasbro to create a backstory for the original Transformers toy line. Editor Bob Budiansky came up with much of the story and names like Megatron and, while he didn't write the initial four-issue miniseries, which came out months before the cartoon, he went on to write the majority of the comic, penning tales like the Dinobots fighting Shockwave in the Savage Land.
While the cartoon was episodic, Budiansky, artists like Frank Springer and colorist Nel Yomtov had an ongoing story that organically introduced new characters and went in new directions like Grimlock becoming King of the Autobots.
Eventually burning out, Budiansky bowed out and suggested Simon Furman succeed him. This was a no-brainer because Furman was the main writer of what might be the most obscure-yet-beloved G1 canon of all...
The British Transformers Comics
By the 1980s, Marvel's UK division published weekly comics mainly consisting of reprinted US stories. Transformers was no exception, published as the lead feature in a weekly book that was in full color, chopping an American story in half to fill two issues. But even with splitting the stories up, eventually demand outstripped supply.
The solution Marvel UK hit upon -- similar to what led to Alan Moore and Alan Davis' UK-only Captain Britain run -- was to commission original stories to fill the gaps. Mainly written by Furman with art by Andrew Wildman and Geoff Senior, these stories were dark and complex, involving time travel and dismemberment, DIE writer Kieron Gillen recently wound up accidentally curating a Twitter thread on just how traumatizing the UK title was.
Running just a year longer than the US title, but featuring about twice as many stories, the Marvel UK comic inspired many current pros like Gillen, artist Nick Roche and writer James Roberts. Those last two were key architects of what's now the longest-running G1 continuity.
The IDW Comics
IDW, then largely unknown, got the Transformers license in 2005. Helped by Furman, the new canon was built out through several interconnected miniseries, starting with both sides operating in secret on Earth, rather than crash-landing. The story grew to encompass a Decepticon conquest of Earth, the folding in of other Hasbro properties like G.I. Joe and ROM: Space Knight to create a "Hasbro Universe" and shockingly, in 2012, an end to the Autobot-Decepticon War.
This led to fan-favorite comics, More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light by Roberts and main artists Alex Milne and Jack Lawrence, where a ragtag bunch of Transformers searched for the mystical Knights of Cybertron, including a reformed Megatron, and Robots In Disguise, Windblade and other titles that saw Cybertronian society try to rebuild itself after the millennia-long war with developments like Starscream being elected ruler.
Ending with 2018's Transformers Unicron event, the entire Hasbro Universe was rebooted. At present, IDW is publishing a monthly Transformers comic set before the war and the side story anthology, Transformers Galaxies.
Meanwhile, In Japan...
While in the West, the original cartoon ended with a three-part finale, Japan ignored that and instead produced a succession of sequel series starting with 1987's The Headmasters. All of them had tie-in manga but, like every original anime that gets a manga adaptation, they were drastically different.
The series newly collected in The Transformers: The Manga Vol. 1 include Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, short stories where the Autobots befriend a boy named Kenji, The Story of the Super Robot Lifeform Transformers, set during the G1 cartoon's third season without Kenji and The Great Transformers War, which led right into the Headmasters anime.
While Magami's art is on model, Kaneda's scripts have the feel of classic tokusatsu shows. It's an intriguing blend that makes for a cool take on the robots in disguise.
The Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 1 is available physically and digitally from Viz Media at all major retailers and your local comic book shop.
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March 21, 2020 at 11:05PM
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Transformers: A Guide to the Generation One Continuity Beyond the Cartoon - CBR
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