Transformers G1 Media

Background lore

• 9 Million Years Ago: The Great War begins
• 4 Million Years Ago: the crews of the Ark and the Nemesis flee Cybertron but, getting into a space battle, crash land on Earth, in the spot that will someday become Oregon.
  • 1-2 Million Years Ago: The Axalon, a Maximal ship from the future, also gets stranded on Earth (Beast Wars!)

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1984: the actual story picks up...

Version 1: Marvel Comics Continuity

Let me explain. While they both start off with the Transformers waking up in Oregon in 1984, the Marvel comics told a completely different story than the cartoon did. For the most part, both used the same characters (though not always in the same way) but depicted completely different events.

To make matters more confusing, Marvel released different comics in the US and the UK (to accommodate the UK's weekly rather than monthly release schedule, they had to create additional content, and shuffle the existing stories slightly out of order).

Overall the comics covered events from 1984 to 1991. The 1989 animated movie did receive a comic adaptation, but unlike in the show, the comics didn't follow that movie with a timeskip; they kept telling stories in the present day (though they did do a thing where Galvatron was blasted back in time to the present, so he and Unicron could still be in the plot). Also there was a third continuity called "Earthforce" which brought back some of the characters who'd been kicked out of the comic over the years... but we won't worry about that for now.

Continuations:

• Generation 2: darker and edgier reboot that picks up soon after where the last issue left off. It focused on a "lost tribe" of Decepticons led by Jihaxus, who had discovered a fairly disturbing new way to repopulate his dying species.
• Regeneration One: ignores G2 and picks up 21 years after the last issue left off (published by IDW but has no connection to the other IDW Transformers comics)

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Version 2: Sunbow Cartoon

• 1984-1984: seasons 1 and 2

• 2005 but futuristic: The Transformers: The Movie

  • Kiss Players: supposedly takes place in the five-year-gap between this movie and Season 3... a gap that only existed in the Japanese dub.

• 2006-2007: Season 3 of the cartoon (for whatever reason, the Japanese dub instead decided to set these events in 2010)

• 2011: The Headmasters (Japanese exclusive cartoon and manga)

• 2020: Super God Masterforce (or, the one with Ginrai; Japanese exclusive cartoon and manga)

• 2025: Transformers: Victory (or, the one with Star Saber; Japanese exclusive cartoon and manga)

• ???: Transformers: Zone (or, the one with Dai Atlas; Japanese exclusive cartoon and manga); soon after Victory

• ???: Transformers: The Battlestars (also called "Return of Convoy;" manga)

BEAST WARS ERA

Let's make this real simple.

• Beast Wars cartoon

  • Beast Machines cartoon (in its own continuity)

  • Beast Wars: Uprising comic (in its own continuity)

  • Beast Wars II and Beast Wars Neo (Japanese exclusive and in their own continuity)

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Other notes:

• The Wings of Honor comic by Fun Publications started its own continuity that basically tried to retell events from G1 but with a little less clutter and a little more organization. This usually gets called the Wings universe.
• The Earthspark cartoon keeps the part about Autobots and Decepticons crashing on Earth and awakening in 1984, but is set 40 years after those events (and depicts their war on Earth going a good bit differently), showing how Earth society changed as a result.