What if you got into Transformers?

Trick question I'm going to make you get into Transformers. People often tell me, sevencents.net, I can't get into Transformers, there's just too much, where do I start? The Micheal Bay movies? No you fucking idiot. What the fuck are you talking about? Never mention that mental drip swill to me again.

Anyway.

I'm gonna help you out. I will be your guide. There's alot of ground to cover so just relax. Don't be afraid. If you make it through this you WILL get a kiss on the lips so.

If you need to look anything up, the tf wiki is so absurdly detailed it will tell you everything you'd ever need to know about transformers.

But what is Transformers?

Transformers is a series of cartoons, movies, toys, and comics that revolve around a race of robots millions of years old. In almost every series there is a war between two factions, the heroic Autobots, and the nefarious Decepticons.
And this war has been going on for... awhile. For most of their lives. Millions and millions of years of fighting and death, sometimes even Cybertron, the planet they're from, the thing they've been fighting for, has been destroyed in the line of fire. Why the war broke out varies and not every series covers it, usually it has something to do with the oppressive government and Megatron rebelling against it.

There are alot of characters, too many to name. Thousands even, but you only need to know a few off the bat.


Ngl when I was writing this list I kept thinking of more important characters to add, Hot Rod, Prowl, Wheeljack, Skywarp, Thundercracker, but that's gonna take up way too much room so let's stop here.
Just in case you get caught up on terminology, at the end I have included a glossary.



Where do I start?

First thing you need to know is continuities. Each transformers series is not really connected with the others. There are some exceptions but not really. (Technically Rescuebots is in the same universe as Prime but iiiiiiiiiiiiis it though?) Though they have similarities, the characters aren't really the same from one continuity to another. Optimus from Prime and Optimus from Animated are completely different characters. There's aboooooooout, 29 cartoon series, 38 comic series, 8 movies, over 50 games, and 29 manga series. I could list off every show, including the Japanese spin offs like:

Transformers, Headmasters, Transformers Super God Masterforce, Transformers Victory, Beast Wars, Beast Wars 2, Beast Wars Neo, Beast Machines, Transformers Robots in Disguise, Transformers Armada, Transformers Energon, Transformers Cybertron, Transformers Animated, Transformers Cyber Missions, Transformers Prime, Transformers Resucebots, Transformers Robots in Disguise 2015, Transformers Rescuebot Academy, Combiner wars, and Titans Return, and Power of the Primes. Then Cyberverse. Then The War for Cybertron. Earthspark. Transformers One. And those are just the cartoons. But we'll be here all day, and I'm trying to get you into Transformers, not overwhelm you.

Obviously there's too much to talk about here, so I'll cover the best and easiest continuities to get into. First thing you gotta know is most Transformers media is nothing, like it's phone it in movie tie in games, white noise for five year olds, or edgy war is hell comics (some of these are ok).





G1



The original Transformers series came out on September 17, 1984, created by Hasbro and Toei Animation. This series, often called G1 (Generation 1) was basically specially designed to sell toys as a direct result of the Reagan adminstration deregulating advertising. Previously no commercials could be played during children’s programming and any hosts on these shows couldn’t sell anything. Because prior to that shows had to tell you at the beginning of the program if there were to be any commercial breaks.

However in 1981 Reagan appointed Mark Fowler as head of the FCC who then went on to undo all those silly rules and regulation because how else were those poor little corporations supposed to get more money? So basically from thereon out anyone on television can peddle whatever they want to children. Thanks satan, I mean Reagan.

The story stars when both the decepticons and autobots crash land on Earth, they stay in stasis for four million years before awakening to a new world they must escape from. And maybe, they'll have a few adventures along the way. And also try and kill each other.

The great thing about the 80's show is that it makes no damn sense, not a smidge. There's errors in the animation, there's zero continuity. But that's what's great about it. What do you mean you don't want to watch an 80's glorified commercial? You need robot jesus.

There are 65 episodes in the first two seasons, a movie, and thirty three episodes in the last two seasons.





Animated



In 2007 Cartoon Network started their own reboot of the Transformers series called Transformers Animated. It had three seasons and was pretty well liked, but it was still cancelled and we didn't get the fourth season.

Animated makes alot of distinctions from itself and G1, for instance, Optimus Prime is not the leader of the Autobots. He may be the leader on a small team, but he's pretty low in the grand scheme of things, having been thrown aside to repair old space bridges in the middle of space with his crew of other misfits.

Another thing is, the war is kind of over. Decepticons are still out there but they're more like nuisances. Megatron himself, haven't been seen for many stellar cycles, just floating around empty space searching for the All Spark, the key to him having a chance to win.

And then he just dies. Sorta. He's gone, Starscream's in charge, no one cares, and the Autobots just go about their business.

That's just the opening, though. The series really starts when the Autobots end up in Detroit and meet Sari Sumdac and her father. Sari being the kid who always follows the Autobots around in these shows. She has a key that's been charged by the all spark and it can do, idk, stuff. Heal transformers, upgrade shit. You know, things.

It came out in that 2000s era of anime styled shows that are very crisp and shiny. It's very expressive and flashy. NOT TO MENTION THE MAGICAL GIRL TRANSFORMATIONS, HELLO??????????

Animated has had an effect on the other series in a few ways. It's version of Swindle is iconic. Lockdown is iconic. The way Ratchet is portrayed? Iconic. Bulkhead. It sucks it was cancelled and then nothing.

There are three seasons and forty two episodes.

Robot Rollcall:



Armada



I included Transformers Armada here because some people might want to get into the Japanese side of the Transformers cannon. It's not... great. But it is one of the best anime Transformers series out there.

In this series both the Decepticons and the Autobots battle over the Minicons, Cybertronians with untold power. Basically they're like pokemon. Each side is trying to collect as many as they can.

Armada came out in 2002 before Animated, and after G1, Beast Wars, and the 80's Japanese series. If you watched all the series in order, you can clearly see the progression from silly episodic adventures, to a much more linear grand scheme approach.

After all, this is an anime and unlike cartoons, there's usually a longer story to tell. In G1 it doesn't matter who wins the war, it's about small stories you can tune into. Now with Armada, it's about character arcs, betrayals, trying to get an edge on the enemy.

Anyway. Spoilers. Everything leads back to unicron, all the secret actions and plot points. He's the main bad guy, which is why Armada and its sequels, Energon and Cybertron are called the Unicron Trilogy. Energon and Cybertron however, are... bad. They're bad. They changed the artstyle to cg and it's just not the vibe.
Honestly Armada isn't that good, the voice acting is really interesting, but Starscream has a great arc so, we must stan.

There are 52 episodes.

Robot Rollcall:





Prime



Transformers Prime is my favorite Transformers series. Also my first one. I'd heard of it before but at that point, I didn't give a shit about Transformers, I'd seen the movies and I didn't care for it. But one day when the TV was left on I passed by and caught season 2 episode 9 Crossfire where I saw my beautiful boy Starscream. And my life was changed forever.

Prime started in 2010 on the Hub network. The channel you got if you wanted to watch My Little Pony. Instead of the usual animation, this one was in 3D which had been attempted a few times before, but it never really looked... like good. (Energon, Cybertron, Beast Wars)

But Prime did the impossible. These robots look 1 sick as hell, 2 kinda sexy. Something was in the air in the animation department, and it was being way too into robots disease. I'm not saying seeing Starscream's heels got me into the show but...

Everything about this show is so cool. Soundwave is this faceless tentacle stealth jet who doesn't talk and it's so cool. There's a sexy spider helicopter and she's so cool. Arcee's on a bloodsoaked mission for revenge and it's so cool. Ratchet takes drugs one episode and punches Megatron in the face and it's so cool.

It's mainly about Optimus, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Arcee, and Bulkhead stranded on Earth. Megatron is gone and Starscream's leading what little Decepticons are left. He's not doing a great job, but give him a break. People need to lay off my baby.

This show's kind of bleak. What happened to all the other Cybertronians? Probably dead or stranded somewhere. Cybertron is a wasteland. The Decepticons hold most the power, but even then, most of the Decepticons are just drones, they don't have a spark (which is good because the autobot just kill a bunch of them). Still though, even if either wins the war, what do they have? They're just fighting to fight. They want to rule a world that doesn't exist anymore.

Also I wanna talk about the cuntiness levels of the decepticons here. Why did they give them heels and snatched waists? I don't know but it's makin me wanna keep the doctor away.

Anyway the series had three seasons, sixty five episodes, and movie. The movie's fine. I don't remember it but it was fine.

Robot Rollcall:





Earthspark



Earthspark is the latest cartoon, airing in 2022 on Paramount Plus. It stars the Malto family in their new home of Witwicky, where they find a spooky cave with weird Cybertronian objects. Stuff happens and the main Transformers of the show, Twitch and Thrash, are born. With their ultra super powers, they can, idk, do chores and read comics mostly.

The show still has Optimus, Megatron, the whole gang, but they're sorta side characters. What's interesting is that in this series, the war is over, in fact it barely even started on Earth. Soon after Megatron arrived, he renounced the Decepticon cause and joined the Autobots.

Every once in awhile a Decepticon will show up to call Megatron a bitch and everyone needs to stop them.

The big focus here is on family. The Malto family are the main characters and that includes the new transformers who are quickly adopted into it. The MVP is Dot, I thought I wouldn't like her cause she dresses like a cop, but she's just a park ranger so it's fine. I just like this main character who doesn't give a shit about Optimus but Megatron's her boy.

It's also about new beginnings. They're trapped on Earth now, forever. Cybertron might be dead or not, they have no idea. All they have is each other and their lives on Earth. It also calls into question, what do you do with the decepticons now? Megatron surrendered so peace should be a given, right? Well alot of them would disagree. But even then, you can't just keep them in prison forever. What do you do? We'll see.

There are 44 episodes.

Robot Rollcall:



Transformers One



I saw Transformers One in theaters maybeeeee eight trillion times.

This movie is a masterpiece. The animation is out of control, the dialogue never misses, the story is a rollercoaster of emotions.

The fight at the end of the movie is the best transformers fight that has ever been crafted. Too many fights have these giant robots whose whole damn thing it is to tranform, just blast each other with lasers or punch other robots in the face.

But One actually thinks about how would you fight if you could transform your whole body, the answer is, you'd probably do some cool ass shit.

One has some of the best character journeys I've see done in transformers. It's a dual origin story about how these two forces that are ubiquitous across transformers came from the same place. It's engaging, it's thrilling, it's funny. What else do you want?

There is a moment in this film that made me go back to the theaters to see it four times just to watch that again. The visuals are insane, the art direction has this sort of art deco plasticy look that's really cool. Steve Buscemi is there.

Robot Rollcall:





More Than Meets the

Eye,



More than meets the eye is maybe the best piece of storytelling I've ever read. That's not an exaggeration. Every goddam character in this thing is so good. Like they're everything.

More Than Meets the Eye is in the IDW G1 continuity. Yes that G1. But this is the cooler, sexier G1. It is the fourth act in that continuity, which started with 2005's Infiltration and MTMTE begins in 2012.

And I know what you're thinking, do I really have to read all that before More Than Meets the Eye? And uh, ←_← →_→ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯who gives a shit. You can do whatever the hell you want. But fr. I got into tranformers in 2013 when MTMTE was in full swing. I saw the all the comics before it and I was like, I ain't reading that shit and just jumped into MTMTE and you know what? I had a great time so.

MTMTE takes place after the war on Cybertron. That's right, we're not going to Earth even goddam once. Swearth doesn't count. This is a goddam space adventure. It starts with Rodimus trying find a crew for his new quest, to find the Knights of Cybertron, the first cybertronians. The knights left Cybertron millions of years ago to spread enlightment across the galaxy and found Cyberutopia, a place marked on the newly found matrix map.

Chapter one introduces us to some of our wacky cast of characters.

Now that may seem like a lot, but don't worry, not all of them survive!

The characters are just so great. I, resident Autobot hater, can't help but still have a great time seeing these guys and their antics. Probably because unlike most series they're not contrasted against Decepticons and need every action they take be moral and preachy. These characters fuck up. They lie, they manipulate, they almost get their friends killed for no fucking reason, Whirl. But also there's so much found family energy it's off the goddam charts.

Did I mention? It's homosexual. That's right, baby. James Roberts went, if most of the transformers are male wouldn't that mean most of them are gay? And the answer is yes. When it was first revealed in 2013 I had a whole moment. I was on the ground. Technically they mention it earlier but you're like surely not. Not this 2013 comic based off a childrens toy for little boys.
(← these guys aren't an example by the way I just like this panel)

You should also read its sister series, Robots in Disguise. It's a bit more serious. It's more about politics. In fact it's pretty much the Starscream comic. It takes place at the same time as More Than Meets the Eye and sometimes they cross over. Do you NEED to read RiD at the same time as MTMTE? I mean, I didn't and I was only mildly confused. But sevencents, I thought you loved Starscream, why didn't you read RiD? Yeah well Prowl is in it and I hate Prowl almost as much as I love Starscream so. ACAB.

ALSO THE COMIC DOESN'T STOP AT THE END OF MORE THE MEETS THE EYE IT CONTINUES IN LOST LIGHT



More than meets the eye is actually phase 2 of the idw comics. Which starts with The Death of Optimus Prime. This is where I think it's best, but if you want to read the whole thing you can go by the order of the IDW collection.



Other Notable Series



Okay so here's a few that I didn't really feel like going into detail on, because they're like, not as good. But if you think they're for you then go on then.

War for Cybertron


War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron are games made for Xbox, Playstation, and PC. They're about the start of the war and they're split up into War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron.

They're pretty good, maybe the best transformers video game but that's not very hard. Still, you can play different characters and switch between autobots and decepticons, it's like you're playing everyone in the story. Supposedly it's in the same universe of Prime but, I feel like it's not. The tones are too different. But they both have dark energon so whatever, sure, they're the same.

IDW 2019

They reboot the Transformers comics in 2019.

The old continuity ended and they still had all these characters so they were like, okay let's go again. It starts before the war, before autobots and decepticons and all that shit. There's discussion of politics and power and all that. It's okay. The halloween special was cool. Some of the interpreations of the characters are interesting. It's okay.

You probably shouldn't read these though, only because they just end. IDW lost their license so it stops on issue 35.

Skybound Comics

The Skybound comics are the new license on the block. Sure it may look childish, maybe a return to the old days of silly fun G1 but uh. Man... hm. There's only issue out at time of writing but...

STARSCREAM STRAIGHT UP SQUISHES A MAN WITH HIS HAND HE KILLS A HUMAN MAN AND HE EXPLODES INTO BLOOD THAT FORMS SQUISH WHAT THE FUCK

Rescuebots

It's transformers for preschoolers. Four transformers are on an island helping people and shit. I don't buy it. They're in the middle of a war. Blades has clearly never seen the horrors of spilled energon.

Robots in Disguise (2015)

Robots in Disguise is like if you made Prime boring. Windblade is there because Windblade is popular. Every episode is, there's an animal themed decepticon that escaped, let's get him.

Why are they all animal themed? That doesn't make any sense. They're barely characters. There's like two that have personalities. I don't want to care about autobots but it's all they're showing me. And they made starscream ugly.

Cyberverse

Cyberverse is a 2018 show. I'ma be honest I have no idea what's happening in this show. It feels like they just have characters we know show up for the sake of showing up. Most shows have like 20 bots that show up, this one has like a hundred. Windblade's in it because she's popular. Bumblebee is a main character because he always is. Idk, it just feels like they're doing stuff. Just stuff.

There's more girls in this one so.



THINGS TO NEVER WATCH

EVER


Transformers Combiner Wars


Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and Power of the Primes are the only things I'm putting on this list because where the others are somewhat enjoyable this is NOTHING. It's GARBAGE. It's an afront to nature.

The characters are misrepresented. They were like let's take all the cool characters from idw and make them bad forever. Why'd you do this to me, roosterteeth. You can't showrun your own shows well and now you're ruining transformers?
oo what if we had windblade and overlord- what if I come to your house and beat you with a mallet?

Maybe the Bay movies are here. And Kiss Players.

Actually you know what? Read Kiss Players. Go on, it's fiiiiiiiiiiine. I promise.

"sevencents.net, why didn't you talk about beast wars?"
fuck off





Glossary

Cybertron - Cyberton is their home planet.
Energon - Energon is their fuel, also their blood.
Alt Mode - Alt modes are the alternative machine they transform into.
Prime - A prime is a rank acheived by a cybertronian that is chosen by the matrix of leadership.
Matrix - The matrix of leadership is an object with a sort of undefined power, it's usually in the body of a prime. Mainly Optimus Prime, just hangin out.
Combiner - A combiner is a transformer comprised of several other transformers mashed together.
Spark - A spark is a cybertronian's lifeforce. It's a small light in their chest and if it goes out, they're dead.
All Spark - The all spark is usually the source of cybertronian life and sometimes it doesn't exist. Basically the Bay movie made it up and some of the shows were like fine, I guess we'll figure out how to make it work.
Dinobot - It's a transformer who turns into a dinosour.
Space Bridge - A space bridge is a portal used to travel to other space bridges across the universe.
T Cog - This is the part of a cybertronian which makes it able to transform.
Primus - Primus is the god of the cybertronians.
Unicron - Unicron is the chaos bringer, a giant that travels through space devouring all in its path.
Quintessons - Quintessons are a race of creatures. They are space capitalists and they're usually the bad guys in the story.

There are some other terms that you can probably use context clues for. Servos are arms, energon pumps pump energon. If you're confused how long a cycle or solar cycle is, don't worry, every one is.

Well that's everything. I hope you had a good time reading and can now move into a wonderous transformersful future.

(Also if I know the gif maker, hover over the image for credit.)