Transformers: The Ultimate Guide

This article is about the American Transformers book. For the Japanese Transformers book, see Transformers Ultimate Guide.

DK Guidebooks »
He's bigger, faster and stronger too, He's the first member of the DK crew!
Transformers: The Ultimate Guide
Publisher	Dorling Kindersley Publishing, INC.
First published	May 5, 2004 (First printing)
Written by	Simon Furman
Continuity	Dreamwave Generation One continuity
ISBN	ISBN 0756603145 ISBN 978-0756603144
Page count	144

Transformers: The Ultimate Guide is an officially licensed guide from DK Publishing, written by Simon Furman in 2004 and published in 2005. In 2007, a second edition was published, increasing the page count from 144 to 152 (visibly different by having a reflective background on the cover instead of white).

Editorial priorities

The Ultimate Guide is one of many similarly titled publications by Dorling Kindersley which cover the histories, characters and worlds of comic characters such as Spider-Man, the X-Men and many others. However, the Transformers tome is distinguished by one major detail—while the other books serve as encyclopedias of the characters' long histories in print, Transformers: The Ultimate Guide gives only the most basic of treatment to the historical aspects of Generation 1. Instead, its articles are focused entirely on the then-current Dreamwave Generation One continuity. However, as Dreamwave's universe was so monumentally underdeveloped at the time of the book's publication, most of the information in the book actually had to be created for the book.

Additionally, the book appears to deliberately favor story material from comic continuities as opposed to the cartoon continuity. This is most conspicuous in dealing with the origin of the Dinobots in the Dreamwave universe, where Furman dismisses the notion that they were built on Earth by Wheeljack (as in the cartoon) on the basis that it is in contradiction with the "historical evidence" that the Dinobots existed on Cybertron—from the War Within comic Furman himself wrote nearly 20 years later. This approach goes so far as to claim that the cartoon's Quintesson-creation origin for the Transformers is entirely conjectural—when talking solely about the cartoon!

Finally, in the sections where the book does deal directly with historical aspects of Generation 1 (in the pages covering the Marvel Comics, the cartoon and the toys), not one page passes without several errors. Several names are spelled incorrectly ("Teletran-1", "Carlee", "Eleta-1", "Sean Burger"), various 'toon and comic summaries have inaccuracies in them, and the toys used for images are old, ratty artifacts with peeling, misapplied stickers and various missing accessories.

The episode guides for the Generation 1 cartoon, Beast Wars, Beast Machines, and Armada are also condensed significantly into "best of" guides showcasing the finest episodes, or ones that push the story forward. A 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon episode guide was deliberately excluded—leaving that series' section of the book brief and incomplete—in order to leave more room for the then-upcoming Energon line.

Contents

• Introduction

Generation 1

• Cybertron
• The City of Iacon
• Civil War
• Optimus Prime
• Megatron
• Autobot Officers
• The Decepticons
• Soundwave and Co.
• The Dinobots
• Combiners
• TV Season 1
• TV Season 2
• The Movie
• US Comics 1
• US Comics 2
• UK Comics 1
• UK Comics 2
• TV Season 3 & 4
• Unicron
• Quintessons
• Primus
• Special teams
• Headmasters and Targetmasters
• Powermaster Optimus Prime
• Pretenders
• Japanese G1 Toys
  • This section deals largely with toys that were later recycled into Transformers.
• Generation 1 Toys
• Other G1 Toys

Generation 2

• Transformers Versus G.I. Joe
• G2 Comics
• Beyond G2
• Generation 2 Toys
  • Megatron, Pyro, and Clench are all photographed holding guns that none of them come with. The guns seem to be Hot Spot's.

Beast Wars

Aside from the introduction page, all artwork in the Beast Wars and Beast Machines sections was provided by Mainframe Entertainment

• The Arrival
• Optimus Primal
• Megatron
• The Maximals
• Predacons
• TV Season 1
• Fuzors and Transmetal
  • In one caption in this section, Rattrap is mislabeled as Cheetor
• TV Season 2 & 3
• Beast Wars Toys

Beast Machines

• The Reformatting
• Maximals
• Vehicons
• TV Seasons 1 & 2
• Beast Machines Toys

Transformers: Robots In Disguise

• A New Wave
  • Hightower is incorrectly labeled as being a pre-TF Diaclone design; apparently Furman got his "Car Robot"-named lines confused.
• Autobots and Decepticons

Transformers Armada & Energon

• Cybertron Revisited
• Autobots
• Decepticons
• Mini-Cons
• The TV Series
• TRANSFORMERS Armada Toys
  • The image of Super Mode Optimus Prime has several different paint applications than his general release.
• TRANSFORMERS Energon
• Autobots
• Decepticons
• TRANSFORMERS Energon Toys
  • The Energon cartoon did not have a section in the original printing because at the time, it hadn't finished airing.

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

• Generation 1
• The War Within
• TRANSFORMERS Armada & Energon

Other

• Index
• Acknowledgements

Updated Version

As stated above, a second, updated version featuring new information was released in conjunction with the (then) upcoming live-action film. New sections added were:

• IDW comics section detailing Infiltration, Stormbringer, Escalation, and the Spotlight series, as well as Beast Wars: The Gathering and Hearts of Steel.
• Alternators/Binaltech section showcasing a few toys from the line.
• Classics toys section showcasing most of the Classics line.

Influence

The Ultimate Guide has no doubt been used as a reference by more than a few individuals working on official Transformers material. Sadly, its influence is always easiest to determine when it causes someone to make a mistake.

The earliest example was the Transformers Legends story, "Lonesome Diesel", in which an author clearly unfamiliar with Transformers parroted several of Cybertron's landmarks singled out by the guide, and when listing off the Decepticons, only named those who received profiles on the guide's Generation 1 Decepticons page... when the story was supposed to be set in the Armada universe.

The guide's incorrect spellings for "Teletran-1" and "Carlee" (as opposed to "Teletraan I" and "Carly") were carried over into the characters' Animated counterparts, although "Carlee" got corrected in issue 4 of the Arrival comic book. The "Teletran" spelling could well have resulted in Devil's Due's "Teletran 3" as well.

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman beat tradition by not repeating any of the guide's mistakes when they regularly consulted the guide while writing Transformers.[1]

Vital statistics

Second ISBN version

ISBN 1405304618
ISBN 978-1405304610
Pagecount: 144
Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd.
Date published: June 24, 2004

Updated paperback edition

ISBN 0756630126
ISBN 978-0756630126
Pagecount: 152
Publisher: DK Publishing
Date published: May 16, 2007

Japanese HC version

ISBN 4861760348
ISBN 978-4861760341
Pagecount: 141
Publisher: JIVE Ltd.
Translators: Hiroto Ishikawa, Kōsetsu Tateno
Date published: February 1, 2005