The Transformers Universe (Marvel)

YELLOW POWER!

The Transformers Universe is a four-issue limited series published by Marvel Comics in late 1986 and early 1987, featuring expanded profiles for the Transformers that had appeared thus far in the comic and toy lines. The entries were organized alphabetically, with the exception that characters who first appeared in The Transformers: The Movie were held until Issue 4. Each character had inked and colored versions of the character models and lengthy write-up, divided into three sections: Profile, Abilities, and Weaknesses. A header section gave the character's name, allegiance, function, and the issue number of their first Marvel Comics appearance, for those who had appeared in the book (which included the bulk of the entries).

Entries for characters from The Transformers: The Movie differ greatly in style from the rest, sometimes omitting sections entirely. The writing style for these characters suggests that their profiles are actually pre-production notes from very early in the characters' development, before their character models had actually been designed; Cyclonus, for example, is described as a "multi-engine, and perhaps multi-wing" spacecraft, with weapons such as "an incendiary bomb rack" which are clearly not present on his character model.

A few months after the final issue had been published in 1987, the series was collected in a single volume trade paperback, although several characters that had been included in the single issues were left out of this version. A fully comprehensive collected version would be published in 2015 (see below).

Issue #1

"Beginning a 4-issue guide to all the Autobots and Decepticons." Well... except Barrage and Camshaft. And Chop Shop and Downshift. And that's just this issue!"

• Shipping date: August 19, 1986; On-sale date: September 9, 1986; Cover date: December 1986
• Cover: red background; Bumblebee on the front; Bruticus on the back. "1st Collector's Item Issue! Beginning a 4-issue guide to all the Autobots and Decepticons-- their powers and weaknesses -- and more!"

Issue #2

Both leaders are terrible shots.

• Shipping date: September 16, 1986; On-sale date: October 7, 1986; Cover date: January 1987
• Cover: yellow background; Optimus Prime on the front, firing at Megatron on the back cover, who returns fire. "2nd sensational issue! Continuing a 4-issue guide to everything you ever wanted to know about the Autobots and Decepticons!"

Issue #3

The audience must die!

• Shipping date: October 21, 1986; On-sale date: November 11, 1986; Cover date: February 1987
• Cover: blue background; dino mode Sludge, Snarl and Slag on the front; Shockwave on the back (perhaps a nod to their clashes in issue #8.) "3rd tantalizing issue! Continuing a 4-issue guide to the biggest stars of TV, MOVIES, and COMICS!"

Issue #4

"Scale"? What's that?

• Shipping date: November 18, 1986; On-sale date: December 9, 1986; Cover date: March 1987
• Cover: black background; Arcee and Ultra Magnus on the front; Unicron on the back. "4th final issue! Concluding a 4-part guide to all the Autobots and Decepticons! BONUS! All the new Transformers from the hit movie included in this issue!"

Omissions

• Divebomb's eagle mode is not shown at all.
• Metroplex's entry includes no individual art for Scamper, Six Gun and Slammer.
• Optimus Prime's vehicle mode is only shown from behind, as Marvel had misplaced the model sheet for the front-view. Roller and the Combat Deck are likewise missing.
• Perceptor's third "artillery piece" mode is mentioned but not shown.
• Sky Lynx's combined bird-lynx mode is omitted.
• Tracks's flying car mode is omitted.
• Like Metroplex, Trypticon's entry contains no artwork for Brunt and Full-Tilt (or even Wipe-Out).
• The "base" modes for the four Scramble City combiner team leaders are neither mentioned nor portrayed.
• More a swap than an omission - instead of printing Megatron's well-known motto "Peace through tyranny!", his profile has him proclaim "Everything is fodder." The origin of this alternate saying is unclear, and may be a result of working off different Budiansky drafts.
• Characters entirely missing include the Omnibots, the two Deluxe Vehicles (Roadbuster and Whirl), the four Deluxe Insecticons (Barrage, Chop Shop, Ransack, and Venom), Reflector and... Mini Vehicles Hubcap and Swerve. This despite Budiansky actually writing bios for all of these guys with the possible exception of Reflector. One of the reasons for this might be the fact that none of them except for Reflector and Swerve have character models, and Marvel's comic department quite possibly never received Swerve's character model.
  • Budiansky's unused bios went on the Disciples of Boltax blog in two posts in late 2010 and early 2011, with a third post featuring the Omnibots on the Blackrock's Toybox blog (citing an older Allspark post by Disciples of Boltax author Jim Sorenson) in a post in 2012
• Frustratingly, the trade paperback collection that was released a few months after the last single issue omitted even more entries that were included in the single issues, such as Eject, Rewind, Inferno, Steeljaw, Sandstorm, Tailgate, Top Spin, Twin Twist and Pipes, even though Eject, Rewind, Sandstorm and Pipes are still depicted on the cover! The complete profile roster, as well as subsequent profiles included as back-up material in later issues of the main Transformers comic (see below), would not be collected until the 2015 The Transformers Classics, Vol. 8 reprint by IDW Publishing.

Errors

Numerous characters are drawn using outdated character models as reference, which use alternate, incorrect design elements, or omit parts of them entirely.

• Bluestreak is missing his shoulder-mounted missile launchers.
• The Insecticons and several of the Constructicons have individual eyes instead of the visors their final designs have.
• The guns in Frenzy and Rumble's hands are an incorrect design that would be modified to be toy-accurate for their finished models.
• Huffer has a rounded hood behind his head, instead of a large, square truck cab.
• Megatron is drawn with the totally differently earlier design seen in the 1984 commercials and the first two issues of the comic book, most distinguishable by its differently-shaped head and a handle on his fusion cannon. His pistol mode is mostly colored blue-black.
• Scourge's alternate mode has his robot-mode head poking out of its top, its eyes replaced with some kind of scanner reading panel.
• Sideswipe is missing his shoulder missile launcher.
• The rocket boosters on Sunstreaker's shoulders are an entirely different design, angular as opposed to cylindrical.
• Trailbreaker is missing his radar scanner and shoulder cannon, and has two hands instead of a gun barrel in place of his left.
• Wheeljack is missing his shoulder fins.

The Dinobots, the entirety of 1985 (season 2-era) Autobots and Decepticons, and the characters from The Transformers: The Movie are all also drawn to the specifications of outdated models, but (Scourge's vehicle mode aside) these aren't really goofs in context, because this is how they were always drawn in the regular comic book.

Yellowcon.

Other goofs include:

• Bluestreak's name is rendered as two words ("Blue Streak"), which was how he was spelled in Bob Budiansky's original version (presumably based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name). The spelling as one word ("Bluestreak") was presumably Hasbro's own modification, which Budiansky was never properly made aware of, hence the spelling "Blue Streak" persists throughout all of his appearances in the Marvel Comics.
• Cassette mode Buzzsaw is colored almost entirely red instead of gold.
• Cliffjumper's "Weaknesses" section refers to him suffering "literal blow-outs," a turn of phrase that originates from the fact he was originally going to be named "Blow-Out," but which doesn't make sense with his finalized name.
• Instead of issue #10, Devastator's first appearance is given as issue #16, where he didn't appear at all. This error was fixed for the 1987 trade paperback collection, but it made a return in 2015 with IDW's "remastered" Transformers Classics reprint, which was based on scans of the single issue printings.
• Hot Spot's name is rendered as a single word, "Hotspot". Like with "Blue Streak", this appears to be Budiansky's originally intended spelling which got then minimally modified by Hasbro.
• The lower half of Kickback's face is colored the same blue-black as his body, as if he had a faceplate instead of a standard mouth.
• Menasor's subgroup is given as "Construction" rather than "Stunticon", and his first appearance is stated to be issue #10, which is the first appearance of the Constructicons and also Devastator. These errors were never fixed for any trade paperback reprint (Menasor's Marvel UK Transformers AtoZ profile correctly labeled him as a "Stunticon", but due to the UK title's different numbering system, his first appearance was changed to UK issue #63).
• Ramhorn has a (barely noticeable) tiny red Decepticon symbol on his rhino mode's forehead, and a very noticeable, large yellow Decepticon symbol on his cassette mode. For the trade paperback collection, the large yellow Decepticon symbol was replaced by a newly-drawn red Autobot symbol, but the tiny Decepticon symbol on his rhino mode was left unchanged. (For Ramhorn's Marvel UK AtoZ profile, the artwork was reused, with the Decepticon symbol's color changed from yellow to red, while IDW's "remastered" Transformers Classics reprint was based on scans of the single issue printings, and thus the yellow Decepticon insignia made a return.)
• Perceptor's face gets the same colored-lower-half treatment as Kickback.
• The faces of Shrapnel, Sideswipe, Skywarp, Snarl and Slag are colored the same blue-black as their heads. Most should be white or light gray.
• Soundwave is drawn as though he has a mouth. He's colored purple instead of blue, but this is consistent with his appearance in the Marvel comics.
• Steeljaw's entry is placed out of alphabetical order.
• The Movie characters' write-ups are incomplete. Arblus, Arcee, the Quintessons, and the Sharkticon are missing the "Abilities" section; Blurr, Cyclonus, Galvatron, Kup, Springer, Ultra Magnus, Wheelie and Wreck-Gar have no "Weaknesses" section.

Notes

• Although cleaned up by artists Ian Akin and Brian Garvey, all the character artwork was based upon early versions of the character models that were subsequently modified further for the animated series. Many of the characters from 1986's The Transformers: The Movie, which had their original character model completely discarded in favor of a newly-drawn model (with the older model typically still appearing in episodes of the cartoon's third and fourth season that were animated by AKOM), generally use the earlier version.
• Issue 4 includes The Transformers: The Movie characters, including several non-toy characters.
• The profiles were also used as part of the UK comic's Transformers AtoZ feature.
• Scans of the series frequently appear on the Internet.
• Although the title on the cover is Transformers Universe, the title in the indicia is The Transformers Universe.
• Dreamwave modeled their More than Meets the Eye guide books using the Transformers Universe format, which include profiles for every toy-based G1 Transformer, including the Micromasters.

Addenda

A second series was mentioned in the Marvel Comic's letter column but it never appeared. Instead starting with issue #47 of the Marvel Comic, new post-1986 character entries under the Transformers Universe heading began appearing on a semi-regular basis featuring artwork that was based upon the character models used in the US toy commercials. Although this process continued for the rest of the series, ending in issue #79, many 1987 and 1988 characters were ultimately denied a profile of their own.

1987–1988 Omissions

Collections

• The Transformers Universe TPB (ISBN 0-87135-296-6; Shipping date: September 1, 1987; On-sale date: September 22, 1987)
• The Transformers Classics, Vol. 8 TPB (2015)

• 

  The Transformers Universe TPB
  (Marvel Comics, 1987)

• 

  The Transformers Classics, Vol.8 TPB
  (IDW Publishing, 2015)