Transformers figures are incredibly collectible toys due to their excellent back stories, wild history, and utter coolness factor. While today's toys are impressive with their intricate transformations and engineering excellence, the clunkier and larger toys of the 80's are extremely desirable, partially due to their controversial past.
In the seventies, Takara, a Japanese toy company created the popular Diaclone and Microman toy lines, which featured figures that transformed into vehicles, robots, and electronics devices. Hasbro was already licensing Takara's technology for the G.I. Joe toy line and carried on this partnership to develop the Transformers figures toy line, while also buying the Diaclone toy line outright.
A backstory was developed for the toy line and a plethora new figures were added, while many of the original Diaclone toys were reworked to fit in with this new backstory. That's the simple part of their history. Then things get confusing.
Soon after, the Marvel comic was released in the United States. It would later be released in Japan and the UK, inspiring new toy variations and multiple names for figures in the process. In 1984 the animated series was launched, but the writers didn't precisely follow the original backstory.
In 1986, the Transformers animated movie was created, two more seasons of the animated series were developed, and the UK and Japanese story lines were still being launched. In the early 90's, the second generation series was produced (G2), followed by Beast Wars, followed by a new series of toys and comics released by Dreamwave in the early 2000's. All of this led to wild discrepancies in characters, plots, backgrounds, and many other aspects associated with the toy line and the backstory.
At the same time, Hasbro was developing more and more Transformers figures and sets, including Constructicons, Sparkobots, Throttlebots, Protectobots, Headmasters, Powermasters, Dinobots, Triggerbots, Trainbots, and many more. Many of these toys were truly engineering marvels. Wait, you thought there was only one toy line?!
Adding to the confusion are the current Transformers releases, inspired by the feature film. 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 Star Wars and Transformers series.
The bottom line is that Transformer action figures are more than just a disntant memory for many collectors; they are also a prime example of cooperation, design ingenuity, and creativity not often seen in the current mass market toy releases. Thanks to their past, vintage Transformers figures should remain popular and collectible for many years to come.
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