Generation 1 continuity family

The Generation 1 continuity family is the biggest, oldest, and longest-running continuity family in the Transformers canon. Its core is all of the fiction published under the original The Transformers franchise, which got off to a bifurcated start in 1984 with the Marvel comic and Sunbow cartoon, two distinct universes starring the same cast of characters. Along with those two main continuities came many smaller continuities, mostly in the form of books.

For the next decade and a half, basically every subsequent franchise—most notably Beast Wars and Beast Machines—used bits and pieces of cartoon and comic lore as they saw fit, joining them together and extending the continuity into the distant future. It would take until 2001 for the first true "reboot" to break cleanly away from that which had gone before—and even that cartoon would eventually get subsumed back into the extremely complicated Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity as part of a series of complicated retcons.

In more recent years, the Generation 1 continuity family has remained a perennial favourite with modern comic publishers seeking nostalgic audiences. Companies like Dreamwave Productions, IDW Publishing, and Skybound Entertainment have published a steady stream of The Transformers-branded comics since 2003; although the majority of these stories generally take more inspiration from the more famous cartoon than the Marvel Comics continuity, both have received their fair share of sequels, spinoffs, and homages.

Within the fictional Transformers multiverse, the TransTech classify every Generation 1 continuity as a part of the "Primax" universal cluster.

Blurring the lines

A Prime villain, two Beast Wars protagonists, a fan-created Autobot, and an Animated crowdfiller walk into a bar...

Most continuity families—the Unicron Trilogy, Animated—are synonymous with individual franchises; they arrive, bringing with them a slew of toys, television shows and ancillary media before eventually petering out several years later. Of the various continuity families, it is Generation 1 alone that has managed to buck that trend—initially through the efforts of ancillary comic publishing houses like Dreamwave Productions and IDW Publishing, whose teen-to-adult-focused Transformers media, marketed to nostalgic fans of the original cartoons and comics, focused on new versions of the Generation 1 cast and stories at a time when Hasbro itself was promoting franchises like Armada. In this way, the Generation 1 continuity kept itself alive, albeit in a reduced state, as other franchises like the Unicron Trilogy, Animated, and Prime came and went.

Some time around 2013, following the rise and fall of G1 revival toylines like Classics and Universe, Hasbro twigged on to the increasing popularity of "neo-G1" among the fandom; in particular, IDW's More than Meets the Eye ongoing garnered mainstream attention and became a gateway for many new fans. As a result, the "Thrilling 30" subline of the Generations toyline would contain number of IDW-original characters and designs, a transition between the old and what was to come.

As IDW's ongoing comic universe chugged along, it began incorporating characters from many other Transformers universes: "Aligned" characters like Knock Out and Airachnid, new versions of Robots in Disguise Megatron and Midnight Express, and many, many Beast Wars characters. While this kind of "bleed" between continuity families is not a new phenomenon within the franchise itself—the Allspark Almanac duology is a good example of this phenomenon in action—the rate and speed at which this phenomenon occurred was unprecedented, and soon spread to other IDW comics: Prime Airachnid randomly appeared in the pages of 2018's Star Trek vs. Transformers crossover, and the second My Little Pony miniseries contained a veritable bonanza of characters, ranging from Cyberverse Slipstream to Armada Sureshock to Cyberverse Wildwheel to IDW's original character Killmaster.

"Damn continuity-transplanting punks, get out of my universe!"

It is a well-established fact that Hasbro doesn't really care about the idea of separate continuities: to them, Airachnid is Airachnid is Airachnid, regardless of the universe or which set of characters she's interacting with. With the rise of Generations as Hasbro's primary "adult" brand, so too was Generation 1 as a concept pushed increasingly to the forefront: the producers of the "War for Cybertron Trilogy" cartoon spoke of their show as a "prequel to G1", although this statement is more metaphorical than literally true. IDW's second Transformers universe pushed the concept even farther; as a result, the "bleed" between different iterations of the brand has grown increasingly murkier. Megatron's past as a downtrodden miner-turned-gladiator, for instance, began with 2007's Megatron Origin comic, wound its way into the "Aligned" universe via Exodus and the Prime cartoon, and has subsequently become the basic "origin story" for basically every new version of Megatron: ranging from IDW's rebooted Generation 1 universe, to Cyberverse, and even 2021's Shattered Glass miniseries.

All of this has led to a considerable amount of debate among the fandom and users on this very wiki regarding the prevalence of G1 ideas, characters, and concepts in different stories. Should, for instance, the Cyberverse cartoon be considered a subfamily of G1? The answers to these questions are unclear, and as a result the Generation 1 continuity family as a whole has become a bit of a wastebasket taxon that incorporates all of those stories that don't really clearly fit anywhere else.

Major continuities

The sheer number of Generation 1 media makes a complete list of every possible continuity a near-impossible task. As of 2024, we identify ten major continuities, many of which possess a number of notable sub-branches and micro-continuities. The lists below are not meant to be complete guides to every work in that continuity, but provide a quick overview of that continuity's most notable media.

Marvel Comics

Main articles: Marvel Comics continuity and Marvel Comics timeline

The first-ever Transformers continuity—beating the cartoon to markets by four months—tells the story of the Autobots and Decepticons, two feuding factions of alien robots from the planet Cybertron who brought their ancient conflict to modern Earth; their struggle for energy and new fuel sources initially brings them into contact with a cast of eccentric human characters, including a crossover with the cast of Marvel's contemporary G.I. Joe comic. A considerably more serialized affair than the contemporary Transformers cartoon with an ever-rotating cast of new toys to sell, the book eventually branched out from its Earthbound setting to tell stories set on Cybertron, the Moon, and various alien worlds. Following a dramatic battle against the dark god Unicron, the comic concludes with a final showdown on the planet Klo that sees the Decepticons defeated.

At the same time, Marvel's UK division produced its own Transformers comic; in between reprints of the American stories, the UK magazine published a number of new Transformers tales, intended to slot in between these American reprints. Some discrepancies inevitably arose; the UK universe, for instance, did not count the US's G.I. Joe crossover as canon. The UK continuity was a considerably more tangled affair than its American parent, and featured several history-altering time travel stories and glimpses into alternate futures; perhaps, then, it should come as no surprise that an increasing number of storytelling discrepancies eventually led to future UK stories like "Earthforce" taking place in their own self-contained timelines separate from the ongoing events over in the US comic. UK writer Simon Furman eventually jumped across the pond to become the chief writer on both Transformers books.

From this point, there are three notable sequel series that all spin off from the conclusion of Marvel US #80, all of which mostly ignore the UK continuity. After another crossover with G.I. Joe, Simon Furman returned only two years later to write the Generation 2 comic, a direct sequel to the original comic that pitted both the Autobots and Decepticons against the malevolent Jhiaxus and his Cybertronians. The comic would be cancelled after only twelve issues, but Furman's unofficial novella "Alignment" provided a semi-definitive ending.

Some years later, Fun Publications established the Classics timeline, a separate reality that followed several minor characters as they struggled to pick up the pieces from the Great War. In 2012, "Invasion" brought this universe to an unceremonious end when evil Autobots from the Shattered Glass universe destroyed it. However, many "Classicsverse" characters survived by evacuating into this parallel universe of evil Autobots and heroic Decepticons, where they continued to have adventures for some years afterwards. 2012 also saw the debut of Regeneration One; again helmed by Furman, this comic adapted several characters and plot points from both Generation 2 and the UK comics, but was otherwise its own universe. Set twenty-one years after Marvel US #80, Regeneration One tied up various loose ends from the original comic before throwing the cast into a final battle against Jhiaxus and the Dark Matrix. Finally, in 2019, Furman penned Transformers '84, a "lost history" miniseries that acts as a prequel to the US Marvel series.

English cartoons

Main articles: Generation 1 cartoon continuity and Generation 1 cartoon timeline

• The Transformers (1984–1987)
• The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
• The Transformers (Madman comic) (2007)
• "Rodimus vs. Cyclonus" (2011)
• Mars Attacks: The Transformers (2013)
• Wings Universe (2009–2015)
• Deviations (2016)

Over the course of its three-year run, the original The Transformers captured the imagination of millions of children, and it is arguably one of the best-remembered and most iconic components of the entire Transformers franchise. In 1986, The Transformers: The Movie and its cavalier approach to merchandise-based storytelling likely traumatised those same children—the film featured the abrupt, violent deaths of many cast members to pave the way for that year's new toyline, and the most infamous casualty would be Optimus Prime himself. Though Rodimus Prime became Autobot leader for a time, the third season of the cartoon would ultimately undo this controversial decision by restoring Optimus to life in "The Return of Optimus Prime, Part 1".

Though most, if not all, subsequent Transformers works draw at least some inspiration from either the cartoon or the animated film, very few works of American fiction have directly revisited the universe. Madman Entertainment's The Transformers comic touched on the twenty-year timeskip between the cartoon's second season, and IDW Publishing's "Rodimus vs. Cyclonus" comic took place during the movie, while the very silly Mars Attacks: The Transformers crossover one-shot satirized many of the tropes and writing conventions endemic to the cartoon.

In 2009, Fun Publications launched the "Wings Universe". Though it initially focused on the adventures of a young Kup and the other members of Cybertron's Elite Guard during the early days of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict, it eventually jumped forward to a point set after the events of "The Rebirth, Part 3" taking place in the futuristic year of 2010 and featuring a cast of next-generation Autobots and Decepticons. As per official sources, however, the Wings Universe stories are not set in the original cartoon universe: they are set in a closely connected timeline that is almost identical to the original animated series, but with enough leniency to accommodate for storytelling and minor aesthetic differences. In 2016, IDW took a sideways look at the universe with Deviations, a "what-if" tale about what might have happened had Optimus Prime survived The Movie.

Japanese cartoons

Main articles: Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity and Japanese Generation 1 cartoon timeline

The sprawling labyrinth that is the Japanese Generation 1 continuity has its origins in the original The Transformers cartoon. When the American cartoon and movie were exported to Japan, only the first three seasons were broadcast—although declining sales and viewership in the US meant that the cartoon's truncated fourth season wrapped up the show, the franchise was still going strong in Japan, and so Takara created The Headmasters to carry on the story. The Headmasters spun off from the events of season three while ignoring the events of "The Rebirth" entirely, creating an entirely new origin for the Headmasters by introducing them as tiny Transformers from the planet Master; eventually, the show rotated out most of the movie's cast in favour of new toys. 1988's Super-God Masterforce introduced the Headmaster Juniors and Godmasters, humans who could become Transformers and vice versa.

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Victory turned command of the Autobots over to Star Saber and his Brainmasters as they fought Deathsaurus. By this point, however, the Japanese line was on the wane, and Zone only got a single OVA in which Dai Atlas battled Violengiguar. After several more short-lived manga adaptations and toylines, the line went dormant for a time.

In 2004, the resurgence of the Transformers brand prompted Takara to produce numerous new series starring the Generation 1 cast, setting them in-between installments in the cartoon universe—these included stories like Robotmasters and Binaltech, which took place between the second season of The Transformers and The Movie, while Kiss Players took place between the end of the movie and the beginning of season three. Then, two years later, a Kiss Players paperback collection produced a new timeline that chronicled the entire universe up to that point, a complex, labyrinthine affair that integrated stories that had never been directly connected to the Generation 1 cartoon universe, such as the Battle of the Star Gate or even television shows like 2001's Car Robots cartoon. This timeline also incorporates Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and their two Japanese-exclusive cartoon sequels. In the years since, official Takara publications have continued revisiting this complicated universe through mediums like Legends and Generations Selects, marking it as one of, if not the, largest, longest-running continuities in the Transformers multiverse.

Beast Era

Main articles: Beast Era and Beast Wars timeline

• Beast Wars (1996–1999)
• Beast Machines (1999–2000)

When the Generation 2 franchise failed to reinvigorate Transformers as a successful intellectual property, Hasbro farmed out the ailing Transformers brand to its subsidiary Kenner. Kenner went back to the drawing board and introduced the world to Beast Wars, which featured organic animals who changed into Terminator-style cyborgs. The tie-in cartoon revealed that these Maximals and Predacons were the time-travelling descendants of the original Autobots and Decepticons, and the franchise proved popular enough to garner a sequel franchise—Beast Machines returned the action to Cybertron and featured technorganic Maximals against evil Vehicons.

From the late 1990s until the early-mid 2000s, almost all contemporary Transformers fiction fell under the banner of the Beast Era, including 3H's Universe comic. Japan independently produced two more installments in the series, set many thousands of years after the events of the Beast Machines cartoon. Although an enduring and popular addition to the Transformers mythos, the Beast Wars continuity has a complicated, many-tiered relationship to the rest of the Generation 1 continuity and even its own cartoon.

See the Beast Wars continuity page for more details.

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Main articles: Dreamwave Generation One continuity and Dreamwave timeline

• Generation 1 (2002–2004)
• The War Within (2002–2003)
• War Within: The Dark Ages (2003)
• More than Meets the Eye (2003)
• Micromasters (2004)
• War Within: The Age of Wrath (2004)
• The Transformers Trilogy (2003–2004)

In 2002, Dreamwave Productions acquired the license to publish Transformers comics; in addition to the contemporary Armada comic, it capitalised on the then-current eighties nostalgia boom by publishing a series of Generation 1-themed comics. This new universe begins on Earth some time after the Autobots and Decepticons mysteriously disappear, and the first arc of the comic deals with the return of the Transformers as they clash with each other and the sinister Lazarus. The second arc sees Shockwave take center stage as he travels to Earth to force an end to the war on the planet, while The War Within and Micromasters detail the early days of the conflict on Cybertron and the events leading up to the Great Shutdown.

This continuity also encompasses a trilogy of novels—Hardwired, Annihilation, and Fusion, in which Autobots and Decepticons contend with a malevolent faction of alien Keepers—and the Transformers: More than Meets the Eye guidebooks, which provided profiles for basically every Autobot and Decepticon who had appeared up until that point.

Ultimately, however, a combination of poor management, numerous financial troubles, and some extremely dubious business practices resulted in the company declaring bankruptcy in early 2005, though Hasbro had already decided to not renew their partnership with Dreamwave the year before. As a result, several miniseries abruptly ended partway through their scheduled runs; although several scripts have since come to light, the abrupt, messy dissolution of Dreamwave left many dangling plot threads and unanswered questions in this particular continuity.

2005 IDW continuity

Main articles: 2005 IDW continuity and 2005 IDW timeline

In 2005, IDW Publishing inherited the license to publish Transformers comics, and wasted no time establishing a brand-new continuity of their own. Simon Furman began the universe with Infiltration, which followed a group of humans embroiled in a cloak-and-dagger war between the Autobots and Decepticons over a miraculous fuel source known as Ore-13, until a devastating cosmic "Expansion" interrupts their battle. Pulling evenly from just about every Transformers story that had gone before, and unafraid to dramatically reimagine characters and events to fit the needs of its story, the 2005 IDW continuity is notable for changing hands multiple times over. 2008's All Hail Megatron saw the Decepticon conqueror vanquish the Autobots and shift the tone into an action-oriented romp in line with the concurrent live-action film; the 2009 The Transformers ongoing continued this theme as the Autobots form an uneasy alliance with the humans of Skywatch to mop up any remaining Decepticons until a betrayal in their ranks and a crisis on Cybertron prompts both sides to abandon Earth.

In 2012, the IDW universe did the unthinkable: the fourteen-part "Chaos" storyline sees the effective end of the Great War between the Autobots and the Decepticons when Optimus Prime returns Cybertron to life. This did not mark the end of the universe, however: Robots in Disguise followed Bumblebee as he attempted to rebuild Cybertronian society, while the critically acclaimed More than Meets the Eye saw Rodimus and a group of misfit Autobots leave Cybertron to search the galaxy for the mythical Knights of Cybertron. The two comics crossed over in the 2013 "Dark Cybertron" event, which notably saw this reality's Megatron defect to the Autobots, and 2014's Windblade laid the foundation for a number of future stories involving Cybertron's lost colony worlds, including Combiner Wars, Till All Are One, and Titans Return.

In 2016, IDW announced the formation of the Hasbro Universe, which amalgamated a number of forgotten Hasbro franchises—including IDW's current Transformers output—into a single comic universe. The various characters teamed up in that year's "Revolution"; the ethos of the Hasbro Universe carried on into the Optimus Prime comic, which ran alongside Lost Light to continue the two primary ongoing plot threads in the universe. Eventually, declining sales prompted IDW to wrap up the universe in 2018 with Unicron, a colossal crisis crossover that pitted the Cybertronian race against Unicron himself.

Running for over thirteen years and spanning dozens of ongoings, miniseries, and one-shots, this continuity is one of the largest, longest-running universes in the Transformers multiverse, with far too many books, alternate universes, and future timelines to cover in this abridged writeup. For more information, see our full article on the 2005 IDW continuity.

Prime Wars Trilogy

Main article: Prime Wars Trilogy

• Combiner Wars (2016)
• Titans Return (2017–2018)
• Power of the Primes (2018)

The Prime Wars Trilogy is set in a universe that takes heavy inspiration from the concurrent IDW comics, featuring a post-war Cybertron jointly ruled by a post-factional alliance of Starscream, Rodimus, and the Mistress of Flame. When the looming Combiner Wars threaten to dash this fragile peace, Optimus Prime and Megatron return from their self-imposed exiles to battle villains old and new—a treacherous Starscream, Overlord, Trypticon, Megatronus, and the brainwashed Rodimus Cron.

2019 IDW continuity

Main article: 2019 IDW continuity

• Transformers (2019–2022)
• Galaxies (2019–2020)
• Escape (2020–2021)
• Wreckers—Tread & Circuits (2021–2022)
• War's End (2022)

One month after Unicron, IDW Publishing announced that they would reboot their Transformers license, a fresh start entirely unconnected to any prior IDW fiction. Compared to the sprawling, decade-plus epic that was IDW's previous Transformers continuity, this new universe would be a modest, tightly focussed affair that focussed on a single ongoing comic supported by one miniseries at a time. This primary comic, simply titled Transformers, charts a once-utopic Cybertron's slow descent into war as Megatron spearheads a populist uprising against the reigning Autobot party.

Several side stories and miniseries take place in and around the primary focus of the comic: Galaxies tells stories in outer space far from Cybertron, Escape follows a crew of scientists and engineers as they work to rescue Cybertron's alien immigrants from the Decepticons, and Tread & Circuits introduces a new version of the fan-favourite Wreckers to the universe. In 2022, with IDW's time on the Transformers brand winding down, the universe wrapped up with Fate of Cybertron, which ended with Optimus Prime and his followers fleeing Cybertron aboard the Ark.

War for Cybertron Trilogy

• War for Cybertron Trilogy (2020–2021)

The War for Cybertron Trilogy debuted on Netflix in 2020 to support the concurrent War for Cybertron toyline. Although it shares several story beats with the original The Transformers cartoon, it is a darker, grittier take that is otherwise irreconcilable with its predecessors. The trilogy is split into three separate "chapters": Siege focuses on Optimus Prime leading the Autobots to escape from a post-apocalyptic Cybertron aboard the Ark, Earthrise splits time between the Autobots and Decepticons as they travel through outer space while Elita-1 leads an underground rebellion on Cybertron, and Kingdom completes the trilogy by having both sides encounter time-travelling Maximals and Predacons from the future while stranded on prehistoric Earth.

Various supplementary material provided via the Transformers website or the "Galactic Odyssey" short stories more or less fit in with the story presented in the Netflix cartoon.

IDW's 2019 comic book reboot makes extensive use of various Siege designs for many of its characters where applicable, but the two stories are not set in the same continuity.

Energon Universe

Main article: Energon Universe

• Void Rivals (2023–)
• Transformers (2023–)
• Duke (2023–2024)
• Cobra Commander (2024)
• Scarlett (2024)
• Destro (2024)
• G.I. Joe (2024–)

In November 2021, rumors surfaced that IDW Publishing would lose the Transformers and G.I. Joe licenses at the end of 2022; shorty afterwards, several news sources reported that Skybound Entertainment, a subdivision of the larger Image Comics company, was in talks with Hasbro to become the next Transformers comics licensee. Following the end of IDW Publishing's tenure on the Transformers license, a long period of radio silence ensued until Skybound revealed, in a most unconventional fashion, that it had indeed acquired the Transformers license.

In June 2023, Skybound released the first issue of Void Rivals, a tale about two shipwrecked aliens attempting to survive on a barren planet. Midway into the story, the pair stumble upon what appears to be a derelict starship—however, they soon find that the wrecked vessel is really the Cybertronian Jetfire. From this surprise reveal, Skybound announced that Void Rivals would be the first instalment of the "Energon Universe", a shared comic universe that encompassed Void Rivals, a new Transformers series which follows Optimus Prime's adventures on Earth, and several miniseries that laid the groundwork for an eventual G.I. Joe relaunch.

Minor continuities

Continuities that comprise multiple books, issues, or installments, and so are not micro-continuities, but are still far less significant.

Toy bios

In the early years of the Transformers brand, each Transformers toy came with a short bio based on the profiles Bob Budiansky had written. Usually, these bios were more or less faithful to the cartoons and comics—after all, the staffs of those shows were working from production bibles based on Budiansky's. As the original The Transformers franchise went into a decline, however, less and less media came out to introduce new product, and many Transformers came out without any media backup at all beyond the information on their bio card—and as time passed, even those were crowded out by product descriptions hyping gimmicks like Pretenders and Micromasters.

In more recent years, this trend has occasionally resurfaced—the Combiner Wars toyline was notable for featuring a number of intricate bios that took heavy inspiration from the 2005 IDW continuity, but had no bearing on the later Combiner Wars cartoon that would follow. A similar phenomenon occurred with the Titans Return toyline, in which the promotional comic book made to advertise the toyline presented a backstory and lore that had almost nothing to do with the Titans Return cartoon. This phenomenon is not exclusive to the Generation 1 continuity family.

Commercials

This phenomenon also arises with the various commercials that advertised the brand, particularly in the later years—the commercial that advertises the Action Masters, for instance, features multiple Autobots volunteering to undergo the change, while the concurrent Marvel US series presented the transformation into an Action Master as an unexpected side-effect from processing nucleon. A similar phenomenon arises with the Monsterbots; while both American and Japanese media depicted them as ordinary Transformers, their commercials introduced the three as laboratory experiments gone wrong.

Marvel coloring books

Main article: Marvel Books

To support the launch of the Transformers franchise in 1984, Marvel Books published a number of tie-ins, including a series of coloring books. As one might expect, this continuity incorporated several episodic stories which saw the Autobots courageously foil various nonsensical Decepticon schemes.

In 1986, the setting updated itself to align with the characters and settings introduced in The Movie and switched Optimus Prime and Megatron for Ultra Magnus and Galvatron; however, subsequent books continued to feature characters who had famously perished in the film like Ratchet and Starscream.

Sticker Adventures

Main article: Sticker Adventures

• "Revenge of the Decepticons" (1984)
• "Return to Cybertron" (1984)
• "Battle on the Junk Planet" (1986)
• "Galvatron Attacks" (1986)

Similar to the various Transformers coloring books, Marvel Books' Sticker Adventures featured a number of self-contained tales. In 1986, the series moved forward to the setting of The Transformers: The Movie.

Big Looker Story Books

Main article: Big Looker Storybook

• "Battle for Cybertron" (1984)
• "The Great Car Rally" (1984)
• "Decepticon Hijack" (1985)
• "Insecticon Attack!" (1985)
• "Car Show Blow Up" (1986)
• "The Story of Wheelie, the Wild Boy of Quintesson" (1986)

The Big Looker Storybooks are notable for their lavish illustrations and sometimes fanciful depictions of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict. Like many other ongoing Generation 1 titles released during the early years of the franchise, they shifted to a version of The Movie's 2005 setting in 1986 and featured Galvatron and Ultra Magnus as the leaders of their respective factions.

S.T.A.R.S. continuity

Main article: S.T.A.R.S. continuity

• Reinforcements from Cybertron! (1984)
• The battle is far from over! (1985)
• Tech-Spec Manual (1985)
• Earthlings: THE S.T.A.R.S. need your help now! (1985)
• Have the Decepticons defeated us once and for all? (1985)
• Can one boy, alone, hold back the evil Decepticons? (1986)
• The Autobots Have a Special Mission for: (1986)
• You Have Been Chosen. (1986)
• Rodimus Prime remembers the Transformers greatest battle on Earth. (1987)
• Transformers Combat Data (1987)
• The Autobots Are Under Attack! (1988)

The S.T.A.R.S. continuity, supported through a series of mail-order flyers, is notable for blurring the lines between fiction and reality by presenting itself as a series of "real" missives documenting the Autobot-Decepticon conflict on Earth and recruiting human agents to become members of the "Secret Transformer Autobot Rescue Squad".

Marvel Storybooks

Main article: Marvel Books

• "Battle for Earth" (1985)
• "The Autobots' Secret Weapon" (1985)

A pair of storybooks set in a continuity where the Dinobots and Constructicons are among the Cybertronians reactivated by the Ark.

Kid Stuff Talking Story Books

Main article: Kid Stuff

• "Satellite of Doom" (1985)
• "When Continents Collide" (1985)
• "Storms of Destruction" (1985)
• "Jaws of Terror" (1986)
• "Slaves of the Insecticons" (1986)
• "Attack of the Decepticons" (1986)

Kid Stuff published a number of Transformers titles. There were two sets of books; one consisted of adapted Big Looker stories previously published by Marvel Books, while the other group contained original stories. The original stories in this continuity are notable for their bizarre focus on Megatron and Soundwave using various drilling machines and the graphic acts of geological violence they commit while searching for oil.

Ladybird Books continuity

Main article: Ladybird Books

• "Autobots' Lightning Strike" (1985)
• "Megatron's Fight for Power" (1985)
• "Autobots Fight Back" (1985)
• "Laserbeak's Fury" (1985)
• "Galvatron's Air Attack" (1986)
• "Decepticon Hideout" (1986)
• "Decepticons at the Pole" (1987)
• "Autobots Strike Oil" (1987)
• "Autobot Hostage" (1988)
• "Decepticons Underground" (1988)

The Ladybird Books continuity draws a number of concepts directly from the original "More than Meets the Eye" miniseries but soon spins off into its own universe. Though it initially hews close to the Sunbow television series—with the caveat that the Cybertronians are unknown to most humans save Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky, and must remain a secret—1986 featured a movie-based shakeup, with the blurb incorporating a version of the popular "Target: 2006" storyline from Marvel UK into this small continuity to explain how Galvatron travelled back in time and took over the Decepticons. 1987 and 1988 moved the action to the planet Nebulos, with Hot Rod and Cyclonus taking command of the Autobots and Decepticons respectively.

Ladybird Books also published a book adaptation of The Movie, but it does not fit in their larger continuity.

The Battle for Planet Earth

Main article: The Battle for Planet Earth

• Terror of Mount Sheelah (1985)
• Bumblebee to the Rescue (1985)
• Menace at the Dam (1985)
• Espionage!!!!! (1985)

This continuity constitutes a set of four audio-only adventures that document a series of battles fought between Autobots and Decepticons over the course of a few weeks; unlike many other early Generation 1 continuities, the Cybertronians are unknown to most humans and must maintain their secrecy. Instead of the more famous Witwicky family, the Autobots in this reality appear to have befriended a pair of humans named John and Tim Gordon.

In 2015, Ask Vector Prime revealed that the Cybertronians in this universe had multiple dimension-hopping encounters with the heroic Guardians and evil Renegades of GoBots fame.

Find Your Fate Junior

Main article: Find Your Fate Junior

• Dinobots Strike Back (1985)
• Battle Drive (1985)
• Attack of the Insecticons (1985)
• Earthquake (1986)
• Desert Flight (1986)
• Decepticon Poison (1986)
• Autobot Alert! (1986)
• Project Brain Drain (1986)
• The Invisibility Factor (1986)

One of the weirder continuities in this article, Ballantine Books published a series of multipath "choose your own adventure" Transformers novels under the title "Find Your Fate Junior." As a result, each book features multiple endings, and, in true choose-your-own-adventure tradition, many of them involve either you or the Autobots dying horribly. As a result of these fractured narratives, there is no real carryover from one book to the next, and on this wiki we lump them together as a single "continuity" mostly for organization's sake.

Transformers in 3-D

• Transformers in 3-D (1987–1988)

Another oddball, the three-issue Transformers in 3-D comic series features a jumbled story set at some point in an unspecified future timeline. For unknown reasons, the series ended on part one of a three-part story that would've seen the Autobots and Decepticons fighting side by side against the evil Destructons, leaving their ultimate fate unclear.

G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers

Main article: G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers continuity

• G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers (2003)
• G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II (2004)
• G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: The Art of War (2006)
• G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers: Black Horizon (2007)

Devil's Due Press's G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers debuted at around the same time as the Dreamwave Generation One continuity, but was unconnected to the events of that universe and indeed outlasted it by several years. In this continuity, the human terrorist organization Cobra finds the Ark and rebuild the Autobots and Decepticons within into mindless weapons of war—their first attack upon the United States of America prompts the United States government to create G.I. Joe to fight back. The 2004 sequel series sees Shockwave step up as the new Decepticon leader after Megatron's destruction and use the Teletran 3 supercomputer to invade Earth until a freak accident strands a group of Cybertronians in different Earth time periods, forcing the Joes and Cobras to search the timestream before their presence eradicates all life on Earth.

The third installment pits the Autobots and Joes against Serpent O.R., a powerful synthetic lifeform created using pilfered Cybertronian technology, and who threatens to unite the scattered Decepticon remnants into a new army before G.I. Joe operative Hawk kills the rogue leader using the Matrix of Leadership. Black Horizon, the fourth and final chapter, draws heavily upon the cosmic mythologies introduced in The Transformers: The Movie and the animated G.I. Joe film by introducing Unicron and the hidden nation of Cobra-La as antagonists.

Transformers/G.I. Joe

• Transformers/G.I. Joe (2003–2004)
• Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front (2004)

Around the same time as the first G.I. Joe crossover, Dreamwave Productions launched their own take on the concept with Transformers/G.I. Joe. This continuity, however, changed things up by setting the story in 1939, on the eve of World War II. This reality saw Cobra stumble across the dormant Decepticons on the remote Fera Islands and form an alliance with the aliens to conquer Europe, and it falls to the men and women of G.I. Joe to stop them with the assistance of th Autobots.

Notable for its usage of period-appropriate alternate modes for every Cybertronian character involved in the story, Transformers/G.I.Joe received a sequel series set fifty years later, but Dreamwave's bankruptcy meant that only one issue of Divided Front saw release.

The Beast Within

• "The Beast Within" (2004)
• "The Beast Within Part 2, Consequences" (2004)

A continuity in which the Dinobots possess the power to combine into a monster called "the Beast".

Hearts of Steel

• Hearts of Steel (2006)
• Infestation 2: The Transformers (2011)
• The X-Files: Conspiracy: The Transformers (2014)

After receiving the Transformers license, IDW Publishing planned a line of Elseworlds-style comics under the title Evolutions. For a variety of reasons, the line didn't pan out, and only one story ever saw release. In Hearts of Steel, the Autobots come to Earth in the Ice Age; when human activity reawakens them in the late 1800s, both sides adopt turn-of-the-century vehicle forms like trains, steamboats, and zeppelins to form alliances with humans before a final showdown sees Starscream's splinter faction routed with the help of John Henry and Mark Twain.

Five years later, IDW returned to the universe during its Infestation 2 crossover, in which the Autobots reactivate the still-dormant Optimus Prime to battle a Cthulhu-type Elder God and his infested Decepticon minions. Another three years later, the X-File Conspiracy crossover brought the universe into the modern day by having the Autobots team up with a human group known as the Lone Gunmen to rescue Ratchet from a sinister secret organization.

Then, in 2017, Revolutionaries revealed that a version of Hearts of Steel and Infestation—but not Conspiracy—had also taken place within IDW's primary ongoing continuity, a series of events masterminded by Shockwave, who had deliberately shot down and brainwashed a group of Maximal explorers into believing that they were the real Autobots and Decepticons. This was not a strict retcon, however, and the original story plus Conspiracy still occupies its own fictional universe.

Henkei! Henkei! Transformers

• Henkei! Henkei! Transformers pack-in manga (2008–2009)
• Henkei! Henkei! Comic Bun Bun manga (2008-9)
• Henkei! Henkei! Transformers -Visualize- (2008-9)

Unusually for a Japanese manga, Henkei! Henkei! did not position itself somewhere within the sprawling Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, instead opting for a kid-friendly, back-to-basics tale to help advertise the concurrent toyline. Artist Naoto Tsushima drew three separate stories under this banner, which share some story beats but are all otherwise mutually incompatible with one another—the pack-in manga and Visualize prose stories advertised the concurrent toyline, while the Comic Bun Bun manga has the Autobots befriend hyperactive schoolkid Wataru Hoshinoumi while searching for the Energon Cube.

Alternity

Main article: Transformers: Alternity

• "From Here to Alternity" (2009)
• "To Mega Therion" (2009)
• "Arch-Nemesis!" (2009)
• "To Die Game!" (2009)
• "The World Is Flat!" (2009)
• "Ace of Swords" (2009)
• "Foreshadows" (2010)
• "Hunt for the Planicrons" (2010)
• "Nissan GT-R / Ultra Magnus (Brilliant Pearl White)" (2010)
• "Alternation" (2010)

Transformers: Alternity is complicated.

From a toyline perspective, the line was simply a successor to Binaltech and its usage of licensed 1:24 vehicle modes but the fiction these toys received is something else entirely. In a nutshell, the characters who constitute the Alternity are not from any single dimension in the Transformers multiverse: the 'bots who constitute the "Alternity" are higher-dimensional creatures, amalgamated beings who encompass many alternate-dimensional counterparts. The stories feature their adventures across multiple pre-existing dimensions and timelines, encountering two-dimensional invaders and battling the reality-devouring beast known as the Hytherion; in 2015 the Facebook Ask Vector Prime feature established them as powerful guardians of the infinite multiverse on-par with the advanced Transcendent Technomorphs and the inhabitants of Cloud World. Owing to these multidimensional shenanigans, which include frequent crossovers with the long-running Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, Alternity is not a strictly self-contained universe; however, we recognize it as a continuity and organize it as such on this wiki whenever possible for sanity's sake.

Transformers: All Spark

• All Spark (2012–2013)

Similar to Henkei! Henkei!, Transformers: All Spark is a vague retelling of the Generation 1 cartoon continuity based loosely on the "More than Meets the Eye" miniseries, but features a number of details and bodies lifted from the Aligned continuity family as part of its mandate to advertise the then-current Japanese Generations toyline,

Transformers GT

Main article: Transformers GT: Mission GT-R (franchise)

• "Test Run Battle! –Prelude–" (2013)
• "First Fast Attack! –Whoever Strikes First Wins–" (2013)
• "One Shot and One Kill!! –Finishing Blow–" (2013)
• "A Biggest Sword! –The Last Resort–" (2013)
• Transformers GT: Mission GT-R (2013)
• Transformers GT story pages (2013)

A continuity set in a universe where the Great War has evolved into the Transformers GT, a series of friendly races held between the Autobots and Decepticons.

Transformers vs. G.I. Joe

• Transformers vs. G.I. Joe (2014–2016)
• Transformers vs. G.I. Joe: The Movie Adaptation (2017)

Transformers vs. G.I. Joe opens on a dystopian Cybertron where Optimus Prime has vanished and Megatron reigns supreme. When Cybertron enters our Solar System, the task of making first contact with the metal invaders falls to the heroes of G.I. Joe—but when the Decepticons refuse to bargain and enter into an unholy alliance with the home-grown villains of Cobra, the Joes go on the offensive by launching their own invasion of Cybertron. As they explore this alien world, they learn some strange truths about Earth, Cybertron, and the cosmic connection that binds them together.

Written and illustrated by Tom Scioli, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe is a retro-styled comic that emulates the trippy Silver Age sagas of Jack Kirby, featuring radical reinterpretations of classic characters and plenty of intricate callbacks to Transformers and Joe lore. In 2017, the series received a mind-screwing one-shot "movie adaptation" that presented itself as an adaptation of an equally fictitious movie based on what the original comic might look like had it received the screen treatment.

Devastation

• Devastation (2015)

The Transformers: Devastation continuity incorporates story beats from both the Generation 1 cartoon continuity and the 2005 IDW continuity, which features the Autobots battling an Insecticon swarm attempting to cyberform Earth.

Of Masters and Mayhem

• Of Masters and Mayhem (2016)
• "The Truth We Make" (2016)
• "Life Finds a Way" (2016)
• "The Toxic Transformer" (2016)
• "Deadly Aim" (2016)
• "Lively Pursuit" (2016)

In this universe, the Great War came to an unceremonious end when the awesomely powerful Decepticon combiner Thunder Mayhem turned against his creators and razed Cybertron entirely, scattering a handful of survivors to the stars.

Bumblebee graphic novels

• Bumblebee - Win If You Dare (2018)
• Bumblebee - Go For the Gold (2018)

A cartoon-inspired continuity where the Autobots and Decepticons are active in the mid-to-late 1990s. Unlike the cartoon, however, the Cybertronians are not common knowledge except to select members of the United States military.

Star Trek vs. Transformers

• Star Trek vs. Transformers (2018–2019)

A continuity in which the Autobots and Decepticons leave Earth to escape World War III and later encounter Starfleet and the Klingon Empire in the twenty-third century.

Mazinger Z versus Transformers

• Mazinger Z versus Transformers (2019)

This Japanese-exclusive manga sees the Autobots and Decepticons from a very cartoon-like universe teleported to the world of the long-running Japanese mecha franchise Mazinger Z. It cannot, however, fit into the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity, as the story ends with Starscream dying a fairly unambiguous death.

Transformers/Ghostbusters

• Transformers/Ghostbusters (2019)

A continuity in which the Great War ended a thousand years ago, with the Autobots fleeing Cybertron aboard the Ark before the extradimensional deity Gozer destroyed their homeworld. The present day sees Autobot nerd Ectronymous Diamatron join up with the Ghostbusters to investigate paranormal Cybertronian activity on Earth.

While Transformers/Ghostbusters is, from "our" perspective, just one of many possible universes within the Transformers multiverse, the series is written in mind to fit into IDW Publishing's own Ghostbusters comic continuity, which ran from 2009–2020, and features a number of call-backs and references to prior events from those comics.

Transformers vs. The Terminator

• Transformers vs. The Terminator (2020)

The Megatron of this continuity kills a still-deactivated Optimus Prime in 1984, ensuring a complete Decepticon victory and the extinction of mankind by the year 2029. To win the war, the human-built artificial intelligence Skynet sends a T-800 unit back in time to kill all Cybertronians and change history—but its interference leads to some unexpected consequences.

My Little Pony/Transformers

• Friendship in Disguise! (2020)
• The Magic of Cybertron (2021)

The My Little Pony/Transformers continuity begins with a freak spacebridge accident that transports the Autobots and Decepticons to the magical land of Equestria, where they team up with the native ponies to take down Megatron and the evil Queen Chrysalis. The sequel miniseries reverses the premise, with Twilight Sparkle and her friends travelling to Cybertron to battle King Sombra.

Both comics use a number of characters and concepts that originated with or were adapted into in the 2005 and 2019 IDW continuities, but it is set in its own independent continuity that amalgamates concepts from several different universes. On the My Little Pony side, the series is written to be largely compatible with the events of the Friendship is Magic cartoon, set after its primary narrative but before the flash-forward seen in the final episode.

Transformers/Back to the Future

• Transformers/Back to the Future (2020–2021)

A continuity in which the Decepticons abuse Doc Brown's DeLorean time machine to change history and win the war.

Transformers Go! Go!

• Transformers Go! Go! (2020–)

The Transformers Go! Go! comic is a light-hearted series of comic strips aimed at younger readers, chronicling the wacky misadventures of Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and their various friends and enemies. In 2023, the series expanded its focus to feature characters from Beast Wars as part of a Rise of the Beasts tie-in.

Transformers: King Grimlock

• King Grimlock (2021)

A gritty, pulp-fantasy tale inspired by the Generation 1 cartoon episode "Madman's Paradise".

Transformers: Last Bot Standing

• Last Bot Standing (2022)

A post-apocalyptic tale intended to act as a hypothetical "final Transformers story" in the vein of Old Man Logan.

Transformers Roleplaying Game

• Core Rulebook (2022)
• Field Guide to Action and Adventure (2023)
• Decepticon Directive (2023)
• The Enigma of Combination (2024)

The Transformers Roleplaying Game takes place in an open-ended universe designed to facilitate various official and unofficial tabletop campaigns, with the games master free to adapt, reinterpret, or exclude whatever plot beats they see fit. The universe primarily takes inspiration from a mixture of familiar IDW and Sunbow plot beats, although the game books contain a number of surprising deep cuts. Notably, the Field Guide to Action and Adventure expansion reveals that within the official Roleplaying Game canon, the Transformers exist alongside the forces of G.I. Joe and the Power Rangers.