I already asked on /m/ but I got directed here, so:

I already asked on /m/ but I got directed here, so:
I want to get into Transformers but there's just so much to sift through. Are there any charts/roadmaps for noobs?
Possibly any books on the real-life history of the toys and franchise?

Other urls found in this thread:

tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page
tfwiki.net/wiki/Tailgate_(G1)#Notes
tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Custom-Made_Now_-_An_Elegant_Chaos_Prologue
tfwiki.net/wiki/Ask_Vector_Prime/Facebook_src
tfwiki.net/wiki/Howlback_(G1)
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

>Possibly any books on the real-life history of the toys and franchise?

Yes, it's called The Transformers Vault. Good stuff.

>I already asked on /m/ but I got directed here
We are truly Sup Forums's toilet.
Anyway, here's for current comics. Can't tell you jackshit about cartoons, though.

tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page

Or use this chart thing, because it has pretty pictures. Kinda outdated, though.

>tfwiki.net/wiki/Main_Page

Don't send someone new to Transformers there. Shit like Universal Streams and Clusters and numerical designations... It's the worst kind of autism.

Buy the toys user

But it's fun!

What about them?

Well OP, do you have the patience for older comics and cartoons, or do you dislike anything "dated"?

If you want to get into the 80s cartoons, watch Transformers the Movie. It's a decent sampling of what the 80s cartoon had. If you like it, then watch the 80s cartoon from the start and see if you have the patience for it.

If you can stomach 90s TV-budget CGI, Beast Wars is a solid show. Self-contained despite being a sequel; you really only need to know the jist of the 80s stuff to follow along.

Beast Machines is optional. God speed with that one.

Oh, you said "buy". Never mind.

If you can acclimate to the objectively bad Derrick Wyatt design aesthetic, Animated is a solid show. Entirely self-contained; only 42 episodes. Not a sequel to anything; no sequels were made of it. You get the whole story in one go.

Animation can be dodgy, though.

>I want to get into Transformers but there's just so much to sift through

You pretty much can't get into Transformers at this point. It's buckling under the weight of so much continuity it's practically impenetrable to newcomers.

Do what kids do: Play with the toys but ignore the fiction.

Kids are only ignoring the fiction because it's on at 6 o clock in the fucking morning.

That's what I was afraid of. I already like the toys from a purely toy perspective, but it seems like I'm lying to myself and everyone by having those on my shelf and basically having no clue what the hell any of these characters mean or do.

IOof. That's a tall order. But if the writing can cover for that, then it must be AMAZING.

>but it seems like I'm lying to myself and everyone by having those on my shelf and basically having no clue what the hell any of these characters mean or do

If it makes you feel any better, only about 20% of Transformers characters created for toylines actually appear in the fiction. So you can easily have a ton of toys of "characters" with no history or personality. Doesn't make you a fraud; that's just Transformers. Product first, storytelling second.

tfwiki.net

For everything Transformers.

As for comcs, a good start is the Death of Optimus Prime that was released only a couple of years back, and the stories that spun out of it, More Than Meets The Eye and Robots In Disguise (now Suffixless). Perfect jumping on point for new readers.

Although Animated as mentioned was really, REALLY good about limiting the toys to the characters who appeared on the show. In fact, some of the toys based on show characters didn't even get a US release.

Animated was nice and small; probably the easiest to get into in both media and merch.

...

The IDW comic is like modern Marvel comics; really political and hellbent on "progressivism". So it introduces analogs to current real world issues that don't make a whole lot of sense in the context of Transformers.

"Transgender Transformers"? WTF? How can a robot be transgender? Doesn't make any sense, but the writers really, really wanted to have trans characters in the book.

At least it's not as bad as when the book was up its own ass with the Occupy Wall Street movement a few years back. Shitty on-the-nose allegories like "Point One Percenters" standing in for "the One Percent".

Ugh. I'd skip the IDW comics if I were you, unless you like that sort of super topical stuff.

Have you... ever actually read any of IDW or are you just taking what TFW2005 tells you to be fact? Genuine question.

O...Kay....

You've never read them, have you?

I stopped reading when they made Arcee a transsexual

>Male Autobot who was turned female via surgery

Whew lad that was awful

That's Simon Furman's "no girls allowed" autism for ya.

>recommending sorenshit
Okay, so, basically, the main pieces of fiction are:
>G1 cartoon
Everyone's favourite piece of toy-shilling. Objectively horrible production values, but it's comfy if you can look past that. Includes The Transformers: The Movie, which is pretty good if you turn your brain off and enjoy, and has some great animation.
>Marvel G1 comic
Darker and more serious than the cartoon, and went on for a lot longer. Has a lot of toy shilling and is very 80s Marvel in the worst ways, but also has some GOAT stories. Includes an adaptation of the movie, so you can just watch that as well.
There's two "branches" to it - Marvel US and Marvel UK. The UK one has all of the US stuff except the GI Joe crossover, and has a lot of stories considered GOAT, like Target 2006.
It got multiple continuations - Generation 2, Classics, and ReGeneration 1. Generation 2 is the only one of those even worth considering, and it's pretty damn 90s.
>BEAST WAAAAARS
Fantastic writing, plotting and characterisation. It's generally considered one of the best series. The CGI is really fucking dated, though. Heavily recommended if you can get past that, and TRUKK NOT MUNKY.
>Beast Machines
Beast Wars sequel. Completely alters the characters' personalities and has some really ugly designs, but great animation and set design, and I think it's pretty good otherwise.
>Robots in Disguise 2001
Cute and funny anime dub that goes back to the present day. It's fun and it's got Sky-Byte, but it's kinda forgettable.
>Armada, Energon and Cybertron
Armada is a mediocre anime made worse with a bad dub. Energon is a terrible anime made a LOT worse with a bad dub. Cybertron is a mediocre anime made pretty good with a good dub.
>The movies
Aka "fuck my shit up". You know this already.

You are aware that the transgender thing is completely separate from any attempt at being progressive and was in fact pretty much the opposite? That was the writer not being able to keep his personal issues out of the comic not him trying to appeal to anyone.

Do at least the first 2 seasons of the original to get the basic characters down then move onto the movie the greatest transformers movie ever

>Animated
Another of the best shows. Animation is janky as fuck and the art style is weird but grows on you. It's got great characterisation and humour, though, and arguably does the metaplot better than any of the others.
>Prime
Another show considered great. It's relatively dark and serious, and the animation is beautiful, but there are a lot of budget-driven weird plotting choices. I could never get into it, but a lot of others will swear that it's the greatest ever, so you do you.
>Rescue Bots
ROOOOLL TO THE RESCUE! Preschool show about a quartet of Autobots solving problems in a secluded tech-advanced community. Same universe as Prime. Probably one of the best and funniest shows there is. Had a musical episode, making it GOAT.
>Robots in Disguise
Nominally a sequel to Prime. It's inoffensive and has good character designs. If you're in the mood for an episodic monster-of-the comedy that veers into generic doomsday big bad territory at the end of a season, check it out.

>IDW G1 comics
Saved this one for last, because... hoo boy. There's a lot of it.
Firstly, is obvious bait, disregard it.
There's four "eras" of the modern reboot comics:
>"-ations"
A bunch of miniseries that's basically about "robot cold war on Earth mixed with space opera". Generally pretty good. By Simon Furman, the guy who did the Marvel G1 comics. Makes Arcee into a the only girl and a forcibly gender changed robot because Furman has weird antifeminist leanings and hatred of women.
>All Hail Megatron
Shit. Skip it. There's basically nothing good there, it's the G1 cartoon but people die a lot.
>The Transformers ongoing
Even more shit, arguably, but the GOAT miniseries Last Stand of the Wreckers came out simultaneously. Read that instead.
>More than Meets the Eye/Robots in Disguise
The current run. Robots in Disguise is consistently pretty good; More than Meets the Eye is fantastic up to issue 40 and then drops in quality horribly. Hopefully it'll get better. Most of the miniseries are at least okay; just don't bother with Drift: Empire of Stone or any of the -acies. Basically, Oh, and they retconned Furman's weird gender thing, which is nice.

The IDW comic is all in on the whole LGBTQ thing.

>Homosexual transformers (Chromedome, Rewind)
>Transgender transformers (Tailgate)
>Transsexual transformers (Arcee)

It's annoying and obvious writer insert stuff.

Since you're coming from /m/ and I'm a bit of a j-g1 fag I recommend giving Transformers Masterforce a shot sometime. Definitely wait until you've got some other Transformers stuff under your belt first though. Also there's primarily a human cast which might throw you off, but imo it has some of the best writing out of all of the J-G1 stuff and you should give it a shot if you're into that good ol annie may shite.

I could put up with all the trans and queer euphemism stuff in the IDW series. But I wish they'd give Windblade a fucking rest. They really, REALLY want to make her the Next Big Thing.

She's everything people used to accuse Drift of being, but a thousand times worse.

>The CD/RW thing isn't really that overt.
>Tailgate isn't transgender.
>They pretty much have brushed the Arcee thing under the rug at this point.

Kinda outdated and also incorrect for the get-go.

>It's a "he hasn't actually read any IDW" episode.

>>Tailgate isn't transgender.

tfwiki.net/wiki/Tailgate_(G1)#Notes

>Fan speculation about Tailgate's gender—always presented as male—broke out across Tumblr (because of course) when a More than Meets the Eye promo called him "The Ingenue", a term for a female stock character.[2] This was completely unintentional but Roberts was "pleased" to find out what he'd accidentally done.[3] He went on to approve of Susan Blu being cast as Tailgate in "Prevenge" when it was run by him pre-BotCon and say at an Auto Assembly panel that he was convinced Tailgate's holoform was a girl baby.

The writer didn't originally intend Tailgate to be trans, but when fans latched onto the idea he approved it retroactively.

tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Custom-Made_Now_-_An_Elegant_Chaos_Prologue

>And of course, the fact that the protester is a female at all is point of interest, since in the regular timeline, Arcee was the only female 'bot known to exist before the Camiens came onto this scene; unless it's meant to be the functionist universe version of Arcee, her existence raises some interesting questions. Did females "evolve" on Cybertron the way they did on Caminus in this alternate timeline? She may also be transgender, as James Roberts mentioned the possibility on his twitter account. Alternatively, Cybertron could have already made contact with the colonies in this timeline.

tfwiki.net/wiki/Ask_Vector_Prime/Facebook_src

>That said, there are examples where Cybertronians have gender that do not conform to a binary male/female state. Tigerhawk from Primax 496.22 Alpha is one example, as is Overlord from Primax 488.12 Alpha. In some universes where Spittor scans an organic alternate mode, his biological system conforms to female while his Cybertronian gender identity is male. In Primax 1005.19 Gamma, Arcee's gender was altered by experimentation. And, of course, here in Axiom Nexus, Escargon has been known to temporarily alter the genders of contestants on Cybertron's Got Talent.

Though not Cybertronian directly, many of the Second-Born Intellects in the Confederated Terran Colonial Fleet of Primax 209.0 Gamma choose to self-identify as neither male nor female but somewhere in between. As this technology was largely bootstrapped from Cybertronian designs, perhaps this counts to you?

tfwiki.net/wiki/Howlback_(G1)

>Howlback's appearance in Recordicons is actually a fairly momentous situation, from a meta viewpoint. As the Shattered Glass universe in which it is set has crossed over with the Classics universe—which is itself a Marvel-derived continuity—Howlback's assigned sex is "neuter", but as she identifies as a woman (as expressed in her Recordicons appearance), she has the honor of being the first Transformers character in the history of the brand to be depicted in official fiction as transgender—at least according to the author. Years later, the Facebook version of "Ask Vector Prime" would declare this to be true of at least one universe's version of Howlback

And?

Don't mind me, Just proving that the current comics are full of transgender bullshit.

Guess you can't handle it.

Uuuuuggggghhhhhh. Fuuuuuuuuck thiiiiiiiiiis.

What is with this trans gender crusade that's showing up in EVERYTHING now? I don't ever want to read another comic book written after 1990.

You know what OP, it might just be safe to start with the Bay films.

Everything else is filled with too much autism.

And as for the Occupy Movement crap, the only connection is that the protesters were killed by Decepticons. Not for political reasons, mind you; the Cons were looking for humans to slaughter, and they just happened to be there.

I mean you're the one digging through the wiki to find otherwise insignificant characters who happen to be transgender but okie dokie, user.

>What is with this trans gender crusade that's showing up in EVERYTHING now?

It's trendy. Like a fad.

Remember when every cartoon had to have mutant animals in it because the TMNT were popular? Remember when every comic had to try and be like Spawn because that was popular?

Transgenders are the current fad so every comic is going to force them in to stay relevant, even if it doesn't make any sense. It'll go away eventually. We just have to wait.

>At least it's not as bad as when the book was up its own ass with the Occupy Wall Street movement a few years back. Shitty on-the-nose allegories like "Point One Percenters" standing in for "the One Percent".

Thanks user. I'd forgotten about that garbage

>The majority of America's wealth is hoarded by the One Percent! That's not fair
>The majority of the best powers and upgrades are hoarded by Point One Percent of Cybertron's population! That's not fair!

Are we gonna have a Donald Trump parody sometime soon? You know it's gonna happen. Maybe Starscream will run for Supreme Commander or something.

>Donald Trump parody
See Sentinel Prime

Roberts explained he didnt even know ingenue specifically meant a female character. And when the fans got excited about it he let them run with idea, doesn't make it user and he even explained that.
Youre trying way to hard to dig up shit you want to complain about without even knowing the full story.

*canon

God help me, I'm taking the bait.
Yeah, no.
Fan speculation.
This is all shit that's been established for years, and is hardly some crusade by the evil trannies to take away your robot toys.
>pushing back against Furman's bullshit is a bad thing now for some reason
It's better than trying to make up some stupid "explanation" for where girls come from. "Some of these robots think of themselves as male and some think of themselves as female" makes as much sense as them all being genderless-which-means-male, and a lot more sense than shit like Prime's Rib.

>Machine that identifies as a male that identifies as a female

That's still insanely stupid, user. If they're machines, they can identify directly as what gender they want. They don't need to identify as one that identifies as another.

Your silly human gender politics don't transition into comic book robots. It's just one shitty writer try to force his views into his work.

But she doesn't identify as a transgender, user. She's IDing as female when the default is male.
I don't know what your problem is. It seems pretty self explanatory to me.

So who are some of your favorite transformers artists?

I'm personally pretty fond of Sara Pitre-Durocher.

>THERE ARE NO TRANSGENDER CHARACTERS IN THE IDW COMICS!!

>*Proof that there are transgender characters in the IDW comic*

>WHATEVER IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL GAWD ARE YOU SOME KINDA TRANSPHOBE!?

Keep moving those goal posts.

>they can identify directly as what gender they want
No shit that's what's going on. Robots identifying as whatever the hell they want to. It's not that deep and there's no need to get miffed about it.

>"Transgender Transformers"? WTF? How can a robot be transgender? Doesn't make any sense, but the writers really, really wanted to have trans characters in the book.

First Voltron, now Transformers.

I guess "Token Trans" is a thing, now.

I always like Geoff Senior.

Arcee is technically the only real transgender transformer.

>in the IDW comics
I'm not sure you actually know how to read.

Howlback and the Confederated whatever aren't even in the comics. If Howlback is it wasn't in any meaningful way. The other two characters aren't transgender in the comics. But hey keep proving you don't know what you're talking about and getting mad over something that isn't even happening.

>First Voltron, now Transformers.

V-Voltron is trans, now? Like, the giant robot is transsexual? Is it because sometimes the princess can form the head or something?

>V-Voltron is trans, now? Like, the giant robot is transsexual?

No. It's Pidge that's transgender now. He's sex-female who identifies as gender-male. It's not a big deal, but it REALLY upset Sup Forums for some reason.

I think they're referring to the one girl that crossdresses as a boy to infiltrate [insert spoilers here]. She's not trans but some fans see her that way. Could also be referencing the fact that all the lions that form voltron are girl lions or something but i have no idea.

So, in short
>Various characters with vaguely gender related stuff have existed throughout Transformers history
>Arcee was forcibly gender reassigned because Furman hates women
>Some fans have transgender headcanons that don't affect canon, which is nothing new
>A guy wrote a female character into the nominally all-male Marvel continuity (which isn't IDW), and then said "huh, I guess that makes her transgender or something"
>That later got confirmed explicitly by a minor source, because it's something people care about, I guess
So... which part of this is meant to be the IDW tranny agenda tearing down everything you love?

He probably means that Pidge is a girl pretending to be a guy in the new show.

>So... which part of this is meant to be the IDW tranny agenda tearing down everything you love?
The part that guy is working so hard to force because hes a desperate bored troll.

She's sex-female who identifies as gender-female but dressed up as a male as a means to an end.

Nevermind Roberts his obvious hardon for growing up with Actionmaster toys because his mummy couldn't buy him real transformers

>Characters rarely transform
>Most important ones don't even have alt modes
>having a good vehicle mode is EVIL HERE'S STRAWMAN GOVERNMENT TO SAY SO

>here's the most evil transformer ever. He's so evil, he's ADDICTED to transforming!
>he never transforms either

i cant stand all this trans bullshit and i don't know what it has to be forced in sideways into every single cartoon and comic these days

Pidge is male because he identifies as male. Gender is fluid and is not the same thing as biological sex.

Words mean things, user. Words mean things.

>No. It's Pidge that's transgender now. He's sex-female who identifies as gender-male.

Welp.

Time to take Voltron: Legendary Defender off my Netflix queue now. Good to know these things ahead of time.

Its already been proven multiple times mtmte has more transforming than any of the other current books. Try again faggot.

Well, this thread went off the rails.
If you're still here, OP, I'm very sorry.

reread the thread you idiot

Don't apologize.

Maybe OP likes comics with LGBTQ progressivism agendas and is now actively interested in the IDW comic.

It's possible.

Just watched the new episode of combiner wars and it wasn't as bad the first one though, Rodimus is basically playing the same role screamer plays in exRiD? He's suggesting they build loyal combiners while the mistress suggests they use the enigma to destroy all combiners in a single action, STARSCREAM of all characters cosniders either action morally wrong. Also,Windblade is basically IDW Arcee only nowhere as charming.

...

Pidge is a girl.

It's easy and simple to follow.

Transformers is not mecha, technically, and anyway I don't think TF is very complicated unless you're talking about the comic books....anyway I'll try to give you a basic summing up till now from a Western TV show perspective (ignoring the japan only shows that are not canon for us murricans and are mostly garbage anyway)

You have G1....this is continued with Beast Wars and Beast Machines which are direct sequels, they have their respective toylines.

Then you have Robots In Disguise, which was the first show that deviated from G1 timeline and existed in it's own universe, this would become a trend from this point on. It was also the first TF show in the west that was an anime, which also would become a trend for a while

Next you have the Unicron Trilogy, these shows are also anime and are all connected to one another, being Armada, Cybertron, and Energon

After this you have Transformers Animated, which brings us back to Western animation, it exists in it's own timeline and is not connected to any others.

After this we have the "alligned universe" which includes the Western animated show Transformers Prime, the video games War For Cybertron and Fall Of Cybertron which serve as a prequel for it as well as the show Transformers Rescue Bots which canonically takes place in the same universe, however they are only loosely connected and truly only related because Hasbro says so, they are all very different and honestly can be enjoyed as their own thing......

This brings us to the current show Robots In Disguise, not to be confused with the first anime titled that, there is no relation other than the same title. This show is also part of the "alligned universe" but once again very loosely so

As for the toys....each of these shows had their own toyline, they are not the only toylines to exist, but once you're familiar with these shows and their respective lines becoming familiar with the other toylines in between should only come natural

Continued...

Now, this is ignoring comic books which I would probably not bother with until you have some basic familiarity with the franchise as a whole and know already that you are indeed interested, as they actually can be pretty complicated and convoluted to get into, similarly I would not bother caring too much about the more obscure Jap only shows until you're familiar with the basic stuff

If you want my personal opinion on what to watch from what I've posted, I would definitely say G1, Beast Wars, and Beast Machines....each has a different style and you might not care for one more than another, but it's worth watching all of them as a starting point IMO if you really want to get into TF as a whole

Watch the four anime shows IF you really want to and if you have a preference for anime, I personally don't care for them and wouldn't say they're even required watching but some people enjoy them, so if it seems interesting to you go ahead

The next stuff I would say to DEFINITELY watch is TF Animated and TF Prime, whether you will like either is only up to you but I think both are worth watching, pretty much everything TF is divisive with fans of some stuff hating others, so watch for yourself

Actually, Pidge is trans. If you identify as a boy, you are a boy. End of story, case closed.

If you aren't equipped to deal with it, that's your problem.

Does that all include the comics that came with the T:Energon show toys? Or was that Armada? Either way I tried really hard to collect them but only ever seemed to get the same one.

if she identifies as a boy and is being referred to as her preferred pronoun then why does she make a point to reveal her sex

Watch Steven universe instead, its the same show but without being misoginist, racist, or cis gender.

...

>Words mean things, user. Words mean things.
Not anymore they don't. Now everyone has their own definition of words because modern society has made everything subjective based on the individual.

What you're saying right now is meaningless. What I'm typing right now is meaningless.

Nothing means anything! Anything can mean everything!

Everything you know is wrong! Black is white, up is down, short is long!

Dogs and cats are living together! Game over man! Game over!

Marvy, fab, far out.