Transformers Figures: Still Hot After All These Years

Transformers figures are wildly popular toys thanks to their excellent story lines, confusing history, and sheer coolness factor. While newer additions to the toy line are impressive with their gadgetry and intricate transformations, the larger and clunkier figures of the 80's are extremely desirable, partially thanks to their controversial history.

In the 1970's, Takara, a Japanese toy company manufactured the popular Diaclone and Microman toy lines, which featured figures that morphed into robots, electronics devices, and vehicles. Hasbro was already partnering with Takara for the G.I. Joe toy line and carried on this partnership to create the Transformers figures toy line, while also buying the Diaclone toy line outright.

A backstory was developed for the toy line and many new characters were added, while many of the original Diaclone toys were reworked to blend into this new story line. That's the simple piece of their history. Then things get confusing.

Soon afterwards, the Marvel comic was introduced in the United States. It would later be released in Japan and the UK, inspiring new figure variations and bilingual names for characters in the process. In 1984 the cartoon series was developed, but the writers didn't precisely follow the original backstory.

In 1986, the full length animated movie was developed, two more seasons of the animated series were created, and the UK and Japanese story lines were still being released. In the early 90's, the second generation series was released (G2), followed by Beast Wars, followed by a new series of comics and toys developed by Dreamwave in the early 2000's. This all led to wild discrepancies in characters, plots, backgrounds, and many other aspects associated with the backstory and toy line.

Concurrently, Hasbro was releasing more and more Transformers figures and sets, including Constructicons, Sparkobots, Throttlebots, Protectobots, Headmasters, Powermasters, Dinobots, Triggerbots, Trainbots, and many more. Many of these lines were truly engineering wonders. What, you thought there was only one toy line?!

Adding to the confusion are the new Transformers toy lines, inspired by the popular 2007 movie. Some of these new toys even feature tie-ins with the popular Star Wars franchise. While these transforming characters don't carry the same geek appeal as Star Wars vintage toys or the original Transformers figures, they are very popular with younger fans of both the Transformers and Star Wars series.

The bottom line is that Transformer action figures are more than just a fun memory for many collectors; they are also a perfect example of design ingenuity, cooperation, and creativity rarely seen in the current mass market toy releases. Thanks to their past, vintage Transformers figures should remain popular and valuable for many years to come.

Jared is a vintage toys and games enthusiasts, and focuses much of his collections on vintage Pez, Star War vintage toys, and vintage Transformers figures. You can read about the history and backstory of each of these classic product lines on his blogs devoted to the subjects.

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