The Taxonomy of Toy-Based Fiction, or a further look at Continuity Families

[Sabrblade]

Meh, the Singularity stuff was just an unnecessary and confusing on using them, and I feel like it was just there to make them 'more special' without any thoughts put in about how to handle it.

It all came from Simon Furman not wanting Armada Unicron to be a separate guy from the G1 Unicron he wrote back in the Marvel Comics. It was his idea for there to be only one Unicron in all realities, which was then extended to Primus and the Thirteen by both him and Forrest Lee.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

It all came from Simon Furman not wanting Armada Unicron to be a separate guy from the G1 Unicron he wrote back in the Marvel Comics. It was his idea for there to be only one Unicron in all realities, which was then extended to Primus and the Thirteen by both him and Forrest Lee.

And that makes sense for Primus and Unicron, which Furman already established to be small-g gods. "Decide what you want them to do, they do it," to quote the old Mekton Z rulebook.

I know they tried explaining how being a singularity worked regarding the Fallen's personal timeline (which can be finessed, he hadn't appeared in enough fiction to be completely undone by smashing walking-furnace Dreamwave guy with the skinny crypto-Egyptian teleporter voiced by Tony Todd) , but the fact that the Thirteen's roster was incomplete when they conceived of them as a unique group left the story open to further complications (preliminary additions such as Logos Prime and Autonomus Maximus, the wedge that was Shattered Glass Alpha Trion).

Nexus Prime, of course, had his own unique difficulty....

 

[NovaSaber]

It all came from Simon Furman not wanting Armada Unicron to be a separate guy from the G1 Unicron he wrote back in the Marvel Comics. It was his idea for there to be only one Unicron in all realities, which was then extended to Primus and the Thirteen by both him and Forrest Lee.

Which was weird because, prior to that, Furman himself had written a comic where an alternate timeline Unicron didn't know what the regular timeline Unicron was thinking.

 

[Sabrblade]

Which was weird because, prior to that, Furman himself had written a comic where an alternate timeline Unicron didn't know what the regular timeline Unicron was thinking.

I guess it simply boils down to the differences between alternate timelines and alternate universes. "Rhythms of Darkness" was an alternate timeline whose Unicron was still some version of the main Marvel G1 Unicron. The Dreamwave Armada comics, however, were a completely alternate universe altogether separate from Marvel G1, in such a way that a Unicron native to that universe would have been a fully separate entity from Marvel G1 Unicron. Evidently, Furman did not want there to be a Unicron who was not connected to the Marvel G1 Unicron, his Unicron, in any way.

Of course, one could argue that the Unicron from the G1 cartoon was already separate from the Marvel G1 Unicron, but Furman had also already long since written off the G1 cartoon as unimportant and a "false" account of the G1 story events back in the UK letters pages. But with Dreamwave Armada, there was no writing that universe off as unimportant like he did the universe of the G1 cartoon, since Furman was actually writing it. So he just had the Unicron of Dreamwave Armada originate from a G1 universe and simply dimension-hop over to the Dreamwave Armada universe.

 

[Alexcoene]

I still think that's it's dumb to apply to that to Unicron, one of the characters who most famously has two completely different origin stories. Marvel Unicron could have easily been the same as Dreamwave Armada Unicron without the retcon of there being only one of him in the entire multiverse.

 

[Shadewing]

Hm. So TFWiki's initial description of the Earthspark cartoon described it as using "stylized" evergreen designs. At this point, though, I'm thinking that it would be premature to put a cluster name on it until we actually get some full episodes released.

(Although I did kind of like the idea of referencing the guys from Sparks)

Cyberverse also did that, and toyline wise Earthrise Skywarp is a reused Cybverse Starscream. So I don't think design looks are a basis for universal stream.

 

[Shadewing]

I still think that's it's dumb to apply to that to Unicron, one of the characters who most famously has two completely different origin stories. Marvel Unicron could have easily been the same as Dreamwave Armada Unicron without the retcon of there being only one of him in the entire multiverse.

That would require Furman to be capable of writing something new, and not just rehashing his glory days endlessly. And it's not even THAT new.

 

[Sabrblade]

I still think that's it's dumb to apply to that to Unicron, one of the characters who most famously has two completely different origin stories.

Like I said, Furman had already used the UK comics' letters pages to dismiss the cartoon altogether. Unicron's cartoon origin was therefore "wrong" and "inaccurate" to the "real" account of the Marvel comics.

I'm reminded of all the cartoon vs. comics feuds that were said to have happened in the early years of ATT, which were no doubt fueled by the UK letters pages decrying the cartoon in favor of the comics.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I still think that's it's dumb to apply to that to Unicron, one of the characters who most famously has two completely different origin stories.

Three, now, although IDW Unicron is arguably a reworking/improvement of the Sunbow origin.

Certainly "built and powered by the rage-filled ghost of a scientist mourning his dead daughter killed by early Cybertronian expansion" gives one a bit more to work with than "built by a potato monkey who makes sentient hyperweapons because.... he's good enough, he's smart enough, and HOW DO YOU LIKE HIM NOW??"

Although Call of the Primitives was roundly praised for its animation, I don't recall anyone in my travels in fandom taking the Primacron origin seriously, not even when Takara started running with it and merging it with all the other lore.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

Cyberverse also did that, and toyline wise Earthrise Skywarp is a reused Cybverse Starscream. So I don't think design looks are a basis for universal stream.

Cyberverse's entire point seems to have been building a cartoon and toyline around the evergreen designs (which up until that point had only been used for generic brand promotional merchandise, such as party napkins).

I agree that just because Earthspark may be using similar wouldn't automatically make it a "Verdend" (to use my name for a Cyberverse cluster) stream.

At this point, Earthspark's cluster could be anything, though if it's "Another Primax but the war ended" -- well, I'd appreciate the nod to IDW 2005, but really?

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I'd asked Sabrblade to post the news in question here, but having waited a while I guess I'll do so myself....

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1587510037156700170

So, the promotional video here has, among other things, recreated Toei-style animation to illustrate the previous war. By itself, such means little, as Sunbow footage was directly ported into Transformers: Animated to illustrate the Great War, and plenty of G1 character models were used as crowdfiller in the Armada cartoon.

Still, the likenesses of Sunbow-G1 Optimus, Elita, Bumblebee and Grimlock (though Elita never came to Earth so far as we know in Sunbow-G1 continuity) do leave us wondering as to just what Earthspark is going to be, or where it's going to fit on the map.

Only a few days left until we have more solid info....

 

[Sabrblade]

(though Elita never came to Earth so far as we know in Sunbow-G1 continuity)

She eventually did in the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity, by the year 2050:

 

[Plutoniumboss]

I think Primacron can have a place in the big ball of wibbly wobbly canony wanony stuff. He didn't create Unicron, he created a superweapon that Unicron decided he liked and took over. Or used Unicron's dormant essence in its creation.

 

[Sabrblade]

Funnily enough, all the way back in 1999, Beast Wars Neo went out of its way to explicitly depict Unicron as a completely mortal being who is absolutely not a god. An extremely powerful mortal being, but definitely not a god. His main goal in that show was to become a god, even.

The Generations Selects manga of recent years even doubles down on this by not only leaning hard into the Primacron origin of Unicron despite focusing so much on the backstory of Primus as the Transformers' creator-god, but also by making Primus's greatest enemies be first the Vok and then Primacron himself.

Unicron is Primacron's creation through Primus's Angolmois Energy, but to Primus himself, Unicron is just another one of Primacron's messes to clean up, while the Vok are instead the ultimate evil in the universe.

In other words, Japanese G1 Unicron is incredibly powerful, has ambitions of godhood, and has been called a demon by some, but at the end of the day, he is "just some guy".

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

She eventually did in the Japanese G1 cartoon continuity, by the year 2050:

Oh well, sure, of course in Japan's G1 cartoon continuity, such would happen, but as we all know Japan's G1 cartoon continuity is the "and the kitchen sink, too" of continuity mashups. As usual, I blame MegaZarak.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I think Primacron can have a place in the big ball of wibbly wobbly canony wanony stuff. He didn't create Unicron, he created a superweapon that Unicron decided he liked and took over. Or used Unicron's dormant essence in its creation.

That had been my assumption as well, even prior to the era of Multiversal Singularities. Instead of falling into and reformatting inert planetesimals (and as an aside, Furman's origin doesn't *quite* gel with Budiansky's original Saturn-size estimate for Cybertron, though that's usually handwaved as Early Installment Weirdness), in the Sunbow-G1 universe Unicron and Primus fell into a hyperweapon under construction and a Quintesson factory planet, and remade them (Primus more subtly) to their liking....

 

[Sabrblade]

People put so much focus on the Marvel backstory for Unicron that it feels like they completely forgot that there was originally no divinity at all in TFTM's depiction of the planet-eater. He was just a very big dude with a very specific weakness.

And with the original first-draft script of the movie uncovered, we now know that even then was the character conceptualized with very mortal origins, having been built by the Junkions to be a protector of some kind before they lost control of, and became enslaved by, their own creation.

The Primacron origin story really isn't that far removed from that original backstory.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

I wouldn't say that fans forget, at least not completely. For more than once someone has asserted that Sunbow-Mindwipe must have been a Unicron cultist, per his line re: "the powers of darkness", only to be reminded that it isn't necessarily so, as a strict reading of Sunbow continuity would make Unicron the Dark God of Precisely Nothing.

But Furman does cast a long shadow on Transformers writing. Rather than complain, though, I view it as his having had the time, in a slower medium than an 86-minute feature film, to craft the story with a little more care that might have been warranted for toy-based storytelling. (Certainly he's marvelled at how much reverence we've had for material he never expected to last....)

In TF:TM, as you say, Unicron just shows up with no explanation, and has a very specific weakness. We never learn why a talisman in Autobot possession is "the one thing -- the only thing" that destroys him, and the movie moves along at too fast a pace for anyone to pose the question.

So, in the early 1990s, along comes Furman with the Matrix Quest. It retcons two things at once -- merging the object we know as the "Matrix of Leadership" with Budiansky's "Creation Matrix" (originally an intangible program), and giving it a reason to harm Unicron (the Matrix filled an Ancient Death God with life -- so he blew up). Along the way it explains why the bearers of the Matrix take the second name "Prime".

It's very Manichean. But it works, and gives the extant prior lore a bit more depth, in terms of "Oh! turns out the Deus ex Machina ending was really a Machina ex Deo, and in the manual* all along!"

*(By "manual", of course, one means the Covenant. But that's another story....)

 

[NovaSaber]

The cartoon episode with Unicron's origin had already explained that by suggesting that the Matrix was associated with Primacron's assistant.

 

[Tuxedo Prime]

A suggestion will hint at an explanation, but if it's not spelled out we can't really say we have an explanation per se.

Still, a quick jaunt to TFWiki tells us that a vague hint about Primacron's unnamed assistant (whom Japanese G1 source texts would years later conflate with Vector Sigma and the Oracle, and even throw in backwards time travel during "Call of the Primitives"....

...okay, okay, I'll stop) was all anyone had to go on for a little over a year. ("Call of the Primitives" aired in November 1986, "The Legacy of Unicron" hit UK newsstands over January and February 1988.)

What's interesting in all this is that Furman appears to have had access to some draft or other of Transformers: The Animated Movie when he penned "Target: 2006!", as that story mentions "Life Spark"...albiet as the former identity of the mech reformatted into Cyclonus. (As no version of the TF:TAM script ever identifies Cyclonus' original self, we have only a very generic silhouette to go by. From the name, perhaps Marvel-UK Cyclonus' antecedent was originally a medic akin to Earth Wars' Flatline?)