Marvel Comics continuity

Within the overall Generation 1 continuity family, the Marvel Comics continuity encompasses the series of stories set in or extrapolated from the Transformers comic books published by Marvel Comics. The continuity is primarily based around Marvel's original The Transformers comic; although these 80 issues and their spinoffs are not without the occasional internal retcon or alternate future, they form a single long and mostly cohesive story.

The timeline of the universe branches off at multiple different points thanks to various time travel plots and several storylines involving parallel universes; additionally, some minor stories produced under Marvel's aegis do not mesh with the overall storyline. In the years since the end of the original Marvel comic, various authors—including prominent Transformers scribe Simon Furman—have used the original Marvel series as a springboard for various sequels and interquels, often taking the narrative in wildly different and contradictory directions.

Major continuities

Marvel The Transformers comic

Main articles: The Transformers (Marvel comic) and Marvel Comics timeline

• The Transformers (1984-1991)
• "The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas" (1985)
• G.I. Joe and the Transformers (1986)
• The Transformers Universe (1986-1987)
• The Transformers: Headmasters (1987)

Marvel's The Transformers comic told the story of the Autobots and Decepticons, two warring factions of alien robots led by the heroic Optimus Prime and the villainous Megatron. After millennia of civil war on Cybertron, representatives of both factions crash-land on prehistoric Earth and reactivate in the year 1984 following the eruption of Mount St. Hilary. The first four issues follow the Autobots as they befriend Buster Witwicky and his father Sparkplug and, with the assistance of their new human allies, foil Megatron's plan to synthesize a new fuel source from Earth's resources. Bob Budiansky, who'd edited the first four issues, became the full-time writer from issue #5 to issue #55. Compared to the relatively episodic cartoon, the comic was a considerably more serialized affair, with a rotating cast of characters and an ever-changing status quo—it must be said, however, that many plot developments came down to the need to constantly introduce new toys and gimmicks!

Like many other licensed Marvel comics of the time, The Transformers was originally written with the conceit that it could fit somewhere into Marvel's primary ongoing universe; in keeping with this concept, issue #3 features a guest appearance from Spider-Man. However, as the series expanded its scope and crafted its own cosmic mythology, this idea would be quietly dropped; the letters page for issue #64 explicitly stated that Transformers took place in its own separate universe (On Marvel's side of things, this reality is currently classified as "Earth-91274").

The Transformers proved popular enough to garner several tie-in miniseries. The Transformers crossed paths with the heroes and villains of G.I. Joe in G.I. Joe and the Transformers; the next year, Bob Budiansky penned Headmasters, which followed a different group of Transformers on the planet Nebulos and later joined the cast of the main comic in issue #38. Starting with issue #56, British author Simon Furman, who'd previously cut his teeth writing Marvel's UK-exclusive magazine, became the primary author on both books. Notably, Furman established a unique origin story for both the Transformers and their arch-enemy Unicron, quite different from the mythology laid down in the contemporary The Transformers cartoon, and introduced Primus, Unicron's benevolent opposite. The final leg of the series culminates in a pitched battle against Unicron, and ultimately wraps up with issue #80, in which Bludgeon's Decepticons are finally routed on the planet Klo.

Over the course of its publication history, The Transformers featured several alternate realities and divergent timelines. One notable fill-in issue adapted the The Transformers episode "The Big Broadcast of 2006", with no attempt to massage it into the events of the ongoing. Additionally, issue #67 featured an dystopian future where Unicron triumphed and Galvatron ruled a post-apocalyptic Earth, only for Unicron to pluck this "Galvatron II" from his native timeline and bring him back to the time of the Great War.

Marvel UK

Main articles: The Transformers (Marvel comic)#Marvel UK and Marvel Comics timeline

• The Transformers (UK) (1984-1991)

In the United Kingdom, Marvel's UK division began republishing the Marvel comics in a bimonthly format. In addition to these reruns, Marvel UK would also publish many original stories, which weaved in and around pre-existing material to tell new stories set in between instalments of the US comic—these included the adventures of the Autobot resistance on Cybertron, stories set in-between the events of the original four-issue Transformers miniseries, and the famous "Target: 2006" arc, which features the introduction of the fan-favorite Wreckers. Simon Furman wrote many of these stories; eventually, he would rise to become the writer for the original US comics as well.

Some contradictions exist between the UK and US material, and the US crossover with G.I. Joe, though reprinted much later, was ignored in favor of a different set of stories. Once Simon Furman was on both comics, however, several concepts turned up in the UK comic—Darkwing and Dreadwind retrieving Starscream's body, the Demons, Xaaron (before being introduced into Marvel US) and one US issue showed Mecannibals on Cybertron, a set-up for a UK-only strip! The "...Perchance to Dream" story heralded the launch of the "Earthforce" storyline, a new setting which deliberately made no attempt to maintain continuity with the US titles. ^[1]

Unique to the UK material is an ever-evolving future, due to the actions of rampant time traveling characters; that future was eventually negated by events in the present, forming an alternate branch timeline, which incorporated a version of The Transformers: The Movie into its events—it is from this timeframe that the Galvatron of "Target: 2006" jumped backwards in time to the year 1986. Other notable future tales include "Aspects of Evil!", which takes place nearly four hundred years in the future, and "Peace", set after the end of the war in the year 2510.

Marvel Generation 2 comic

Main article: Transformers: Generation 2 (Marvel)

• G.I. Joe (1993)
• Transformers: Generation 2 (Marvel) (1993-1994)

Two years after the end of the original The Transformers franchise, Hasbro launched Generation 2 in an attempt to bring the franchise back into vogue. As part of the merchandising blitz, Marvel returned to publishing Transformers comics; before launching a dedicated book of their own, however, Marvel's still-ongoing G.I. Joe comic featured a five-part story arc, in which Megatron cut a deal with the nefarious Cobra Commander in exchange for a new body powered by Cobra technology.

This new status quo continued into Generation 2, a direct sequel to the original The Transformers comic again written by Furman. Following the end of the Great War, the Autobots find themselves up facing the Cybertronian empire, an advanced race of next-generation Transformers led by the malevolent Jhiaxus. Later issues introduced an additional threat in the form of the Swarm, a formless mass that threatened to consume all Cybertronians. The comic delved further into the origins of the Cybertronian race and expounded on the creation myth from issue #61 of the originl Marvel series; as was the style in the 1990s, the comic also featured many of the idiosyncracies endemic to the era, including graphic violence, grittier plotlines, gratuitious deaths, and oversized guns.

Ultimately, the comic didn't last beyond twelve issues; although the final issue sees Jhiaxus's defeat and the pacification of the Swarm, the comic ended with the reveal that the Cybertronian empire had allied itself with the sinister Liege Maximo. Several years later, Furman released "Alignment", an unofficial novella which explained Liege Maximo's origins and provided a final ending for the eternal Autobot-Decepticon war.

Classics

Main article: Transformers: Classics

• *"The New World" (2006)
• "Crossing Over" (2007)
• "Games of Deception" (2007)
• "Cheap Shots" (2008)
• "At Fight's End" 2009)
• "Invasion (issue)" (2012)

In 2006, Hasbro released Transformers: Classics, a short-lived stopgap line created to keep the Transformers brand on shelves after the the first live-action film was pushed back from November 2006 to July 2007. Although the line was never intended to support any kind of tie-in fiction, Fun Publications took the opportunity to flesh out the toyline with a number of convention-exclusive comics and prose stories.

The "Classicsverse" used the original US Marvel comics as a starting point, but disregarded both Marvel UK and the Generation 2 comic in favor of an original storyline. Set roughly twenty years after the battle of Klo and the reunification of Cybertron, the series sees Optimus Prime and a small team of Autobots return to Earth to investigate rumors of Decepticon activity, and come into conflict with a recently-returned Megatron and a resurgent group of hardline Decepticon loyalists. Classics is notable for its prominent role in Fun Publications' complicated multiverse mythology. Its mere existence triggered a dire "Cataclysm" that threatened to wipe out a parallel universe of GoBots, which prompted a small group of GoBots to travel the multiverse in the hopes of saving their home, which culminated in a showdown between the Decepticons and the Renegade GoBot Bug Bite in "Games of Deception". Meanwhile, the "Crossing Over" storyline saw a group of dimension-hopping Autobots and Decepticons visit this universe, where they forged an unlikely alliance with Cliffjumper. The story ended with all four members of the group travelling through an extradimensional space bridge portal—while Skyfall, Landquake, and Breakaway wound up in Axiom Nexus, Cliffjumper instead wound up in the mirror universe of Shattered Glass.

Classics and Shattered Glass crossed over again in the "Invasion" storyline, in which a group of evil Autobots led by Ultra Magnus invaded the "Classicsverse" and ultimately used its supplies of Rarified Energon to completely destroy the fabric of the universe. However, many inhabitants of this reality escaped destruction; several Autobots and Decepticons survived by escaping into the Shattered Glass universe, where they continued to have adventures alongside the natives for some years afterwards. A later storyline also revealed that the human population of Earth had been shunted onto the Earth of another universe.

Regeneration One

• The Transformers: Regeneration One (2012-2014)

In 2012, Simon Furman returned to IDW to write Regeneration One, another sequel series intended to continue the story of the original The Transformers comic; like Classics, Regeneration One also ignored the events of Generation 2 and Marvel's various UK-exclusive stories, but integrated and reimagined many plot beats and characters from these stories to fit the new narrative. Beginning with issue #81, continuing the numbering scheme from the last The Transformers issue, the comic kicks off twenty-one years after the battle of Klo, when the abrupt murder of the Last Autobot and the rise of a new Decepticon faction leads to renewed hostilities between the Autobots and Decepticons.

The first arc of the series sees the Wreckers return to a post-apocalyptic Earth to put down Megatron and various other Decepticon remnants for good; subsequent storylines include a showdown between Grimlock and Scorponok, the return of Galvatron, and a deep dive into the cosmic mythology surrounding Primus and Unicron. The comic culminates in an all-out battle between the forces of Cybertron and Jhiaxus's Cybertronian Empire, which becomes a final struggle to protect the entire multiverse from the threat of the Dark Matrix.

Transformers '84

• Transformers '84 #0 (2019)
• Transformers '84: Secrets & Lies (2020)

In 2019, Furman again returned to the Marvel continuity with a one-shot prequel comic, tying into both issue #1 and the famous "Man of Iron" storyline that originally debuted in Marvel's UK-exclusive comics. This prequel would then be expanded into a four-issue miniseries which expanded upon the one-shot's "secret history" theme, weaving unexpected new tales set during the four-million year gap between the launch of the Ark and the reactivation of the Transformers on Earth in 1984. Like Classics and Regeneration One before it, Transformers '84 disregards the events of Marvel's UK comics, but incorporates various characters and concepts from those comics into its narrative. More surprisingly, the comic also took the liberty of adapting Star Saber and Deathsaurus into the cast, characters who'd originally appeared in the Japanese cartoon continuity.

While both Regeneration One and Transformers '84 were written by Simon Furman and published by IDW Publishing, no official sources have definitely established one as a prequel to the other. Off-the-record comments by Simon Furman suggests that he sees them as taking place within the same universe—although '84 features the deaths of several characters who'd previously appeared in Regeneration One, the Marvel continuity has historically featured a decidedly laissez-faire approach to death and resurrection.  

Minor continuities

Robo-Capers

• Robo-Capers (1986-1988)

Robo-Capers began as a three-panel comic strip written and drawn by Lew Stringer as backup material in the Marvel UK Transformers comic, beginning with issue 15. Although the series began as an unrelated science-fiction gag strip, issue #59 featured an appearance from Soundwave, which opened the door to a number of Transformers-themed strips. These included strips that tied into the ongoing letters page, and a number of self-contained gag strips that poked fun at the Transformers premise--one notable recurring feature chronicled various "failed" Autobots and Decepticons with impractical, pun-heavy alternate modes.

Transformers Annual 1985

• Transformers Annual 1985 (1985)

The Transformers Annual features "Plague of the Insecticons!", which doesn't line up with developments in the primary Marvel Comics continuity The Insecticons are shown being "awakened" from glass tubes within the Decepticon base, not yet aware of their abilities, and unknown to the Autobots, which contradicts their eventual debut in US issue #17, which showed them to be active on Cybertron. Similarly, Warpath would not come to Earth until after the events of US issue #18, and the whole idea of the Autobots openly making contact with the American government doesn't fit at all with how the characters were comporting themselves in the larger comic storyline.

Transformers Comic-Magazin

Main article: Transformers Comic-Magazin

• Transformers Comic-Magazin (1989-1990)
• Transformers Comic-Taschenbuch (1991)

In 1989, German comics publisher Condor Verlag published a monthly Transformers magazine that bookended translated reprints of various Marvel stories with puzzles, fact pages, and various do-it-yourself activities. The magazines were perhaps most notable for their original text stories--while many of these stories focussed on obscure characters such as the Double Targetmasters and Mega Pretenders, the stories themselves were strange, sometimes surreal adventures written without a clear grasp of the source material. Notably, at least one story was a blatant copy-paste of an unrelated Thundercats story that haphazardly replaced all the relevant proper nouns with Transformers-related places and characters.

"Another Time and Place"

• "Another Time & Place" (1991)

This prose story, released as part of the 1992 annual, offers yet another look at a post-war future Cybertron; while seeking a means to reverse their mutation into non-transforming Action Masters, Optimus Prime and Grimlock stumble upon and foil a plot to revive Megatron on Hydrus Four.

Fleetway Generation 2 comic

• Transformers: Generation 2 (Fleetway) (1994-1995)

By the time that Hasbro had launched its Generation 2 franchise, Marvel UK had gone under and Fleetway took over as the primary distributor of Transformers comics in the country. Their short-lived Generation 2 title reprinted stories from the Marvel Generation 2 comic alongside several original strips that promoted European-exclusive toys. Grandreams published a tie-in annual, which featured a number of stories set in their own unique continuity.

Royal Mail stamp bios

Main article: Royal Mail

In August 2022, England's Royal Mail announced a limited series of Transformers-themed stamps based on various prominent Transformers characters. These stamps came with brief biographies that drew quite heavily from the original Marvel comics.

References