LEGO

"You are the most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe. And you are capable of amazing things. Because you are the Special."

The LEGO Group (often simplified as LEGO) is a Danish toy company, famous worldwide for their wildly successful line of plastic construction bricks fittingly called "LEGO", which… ahem… "inspired" Hasbro's Built to Rule! and Kre-O toy brick lines, as well as those of Kawada Co. Ltd's Diablock and some of the releases under the Nezha: Transformers brand in China.

Despite being most famous for their trademark interlocking bricks, LEGO actually started off producing wooden toys in 1932, before their now-famous brick system in 1949 and its subsequent overhauled "stud and tube" design in 1958. After overcoming some financial woes in the late 90s and early 2000s, LEGO has ultimately rebounded and established itself as a major juggernaut in the toy industry, surpassing both Hasbro and Mattel as the most successful toy company in the world since roughly 2017.<ref>"Lego is world's largest toy manufacturer for the first time" on Retail Detail</ref>

Beginning in 2022, they started collaborating with Hasbro and TakaraTomy on producing Transformers sets under the adult collector-oriented Icons theme. Their offerings later expanded into the super deformed BrickHeadz theme in 2025.

Overview

Coincidence, homage, or infringement? You decide!

LEGO produces building sets themed around both their own original brandings—either of "evergreen" themes like City/Town, TECHNIC, Castle, and Creator or more fantasy-oriented ones like Ninjago, BIONICLE, Monkie Kid, the fan-nicknamed "Classic Space" (and the many other Space-derived themes like Blacktron, M-Tron, Life on Mars, etc.)—and, of course, they've also produced sets for nearly every major intellectual property in existence, like Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter (regrettably), Jurassic Park, Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Minecraft, Mickey Mouse & Friends, and even Pokémon. Many of their licensed properties would later get video games developed by Traveller's Tales, through publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. In 2014, LEGO ventured onto the big screen with The LEGO Movie (also released through Warner Bros.), and expanded it out into a small film franchise that featured some of the aforementioned licensed properties they have access to, until the 5-year deal between LEGO and Warner Bros. was up in 2019.

Before LEGO's official foray into Transformers, the Danish brand had already produced more than a few sets with transforming robots in the past: for instance, a lot of mechs in space themes like Life on Mars can convert from their robotic modes into simple spaceships through the disassembly and reassembly of individual modules, other mechs in later themes like Bladvic's Rumble Bear in Legends of Chima and Lance's Mecha Horse in Nexo Knights can convert into wheeled vehicle modes without requiring any disassembly, and perhaps most famously, the Bohrok from the BIONICLE theme can fold up into spheres. Similarly, a lot of Creator sets with multiple builds have also featured robots as primary builds that can be disassembled and reassembled into vehicles as secondary and tertiary builds, perhaps the most classically Transformers-looking one being 31007 Power Mech, a lime green robot that can be rebuilt into either a pick-up truck or a helicopter — a little bit like someone else.

In 2022, LEGO released their first officially licensed Transformers collaboration project, LEGO Icons 10302 Optimus Prime, designed by former Hasbro employee Joe Kyde. This was followed up in 2024 with 10338 Bumblebee, also designed in the initial stages by Joe Kyde and later expanded upon with the help of other LEGO designers like Samuel Liltorp Johnson, Nathan Davis, Ashwin Visser, and Yoel Mazur. A pair of BrickHeadz sets also based on Optimus Prime and Bumblebee were released in 2025, and a Soundwave set — the first Decepticon made by LEGO — would eventually release later in the same year.

Toys

Icons

This ain't your daddy's LEGO!

The Icons toyline is LEGO's premier adult collector-oriented theme, primarily featuring large, complex, and expensive builds (in a sense; the equivalent of what the Masterpiece / MPG toylines are for Transformers collecting). The first LEGO Transformers sets were large-sized releases under this theme, being fully-transforming figures — albeit more oriented towards display over play, given their intricate complexity.

Unlike previous LEGO-inspired Transformers construction block toylines, these sets generally do not require partforming to switch between modes. A few small partforming-esque elements do exist in the first two sets, with Optimus' crotch piece having an optional tile for a more accurate vehicle mode bumper and Bumblebee's car mode windshield needing to be removed and reattached as a jetpack accessory, but compared to past attempts, these are arguably fairly minor bits of jank.

2022 10302 Optimus Prime

2024 10338 Bumblebee

2025 10358 Transformers: Soundwave (with Ravage and Laserbeak)

BrickHeadz

A tiny sample of tyranny.

BrickHeadz is a theme based around small sets of super deformed characters, arising as a competitor of sorts to Funko's Funko Pop!. Instead of transforming toys, the Transformers BrickHeadz releases would feature separate robot and vehicle mode builds bundled together in a single set. Notably, these are exclusive to LEGO stores and LEGO's website.

2025 40803 Optimus Prime Robot & Vehicle 40804 Bumblebee Robot & Vehicle

2026 40924 Megatron

Merchandise

Deceptive marketing. Literally.

Minifigure Factory

Alongside the official reveal of Icons Soundwave on July 10, 2025, Transformers-themed options were made available for a limited time at the online Minifigure Factory, where you can customize and order a personalized LEGO Minifigure. These options included 2 torso prints and 3 decorations. The first print had the phrase "YOU HAVE BEEN DECEIVED!" on a black background, with the back side featuring Megatron's face. The second had the "MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE" slogan on the front and Soundwave's cassette player on the back. The three decorations, which could be resized and applied over torso prints, consisted of an Animated AllSpark, an Autobot insignia, and a Decepticon insignia.

Comically, attempting to use the "You have been deceived!"/Megatron print resulted in the minifigure not being approved for printing<ref>"So evidently, if you use the "You have been deceived" torso design, your minifigure will fail approval for violation of community guidelines. When i changed the shirt, it got approved." —acleaver73, TFW2005, 2025/07/12</ref>, and that print option was removed entirely by July 15. The Transformers decoration options were eventually discontinued by September 3, and the remaining Soundwave torso option was discontinued by September 14.

Notes

• If you were wondering how Hasbro and many, many other companies such as [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Mega Brands|{{#if:Mega Brands Inc.|Mega Brands Inc.|Mega Brands}}]] (now owned by Mattel) have been able to get away with making their own similar brick-building toylines for so many years (notably Mega Brands' ongoing, ever-evolving Mega Bloks/Mega Construx/MEGA brand) that utilizes The LEGO Group's brick-building system, it's because the technical patents expired in 1978. That said, this apparently hasn't stopped The LEGO Group from filing at least fourteen different lawsuits against Mega Brands in the past (spanning from the late-90s to the early 2010s), on the grounds that it violates LEGO's trademark; Mega Brands being their chosen target due to the company being LEGO's biggest competitor in the brick-building space since the late '90s. All of these lawsuits have resulted in basically the same court ruling; the system performs a technical function, and is therefore considered more of a violation of patent, not trademark, and as all of LEGO's relevant patents have long since expired, there's nothing they can do to stop other companies from using the brick-building system.
  • While most LEGO-like toylines like Built to Rule! and Kre-O usually alter or create entirely new variants of more specialized existing pieces beyond the more basic bricks and plates, the buildable figures of Nezha: Transformers are almost exclusively made out of parts directly copied from LEGO's System and TECHNIC sets (with the only exceptions seemingly being the character's pre-made heads). And these were released up until 2021, just a year before LEGO's own official Optimus Prime!
• Ever since LEGO Transformers became a thing, there have been persistent rumors that any future sets based on major Decepticon characters like Megatron and the Seekers would be either very unlikely or outright impossible given the LEGO Group's stated prohibition on realistic military toys <ref>"Why Lego won’t ever make ‘realistic’ military-related toys" on ZME Science</ref> (let alone guns!). In reality, however; LEGO has often been flexible - if not downright inconsistent - when it comes to enforcing these rules: over the years they've released quite a few sets with fictionalized sci-fi tanks <ref>Some examples of sci-fi tanks released by LEGO include 7706 Mobile Defense Tank from Exo-Force, 72006 Axl's Rolling Arsenal from Nexo Knights, and 70616 Ice Tank from Ninjago... As well as, of course, many tank-like vehicles from Star Wars.</ref> and 'non-fighter' jets that are quite evidently based on real designs <ref>Some examples of fighter jet-inspired sets released by LEGO include the F-14 Tomcat based 4953 Fast Flyers and the F-35 based 31039 Blue Power Jet, both released under the Creator line.</ref>, and these rules were perhaps most famously thrown out the window with the 2008-2009 Indiana Jones theme (as well as its brief 2023 revival) where a multitude of so-called "[[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Nazi Germany|{{#if:German Soldier|German Soldier|Nazi Germany}}]]" minifigures and their respective military vehicles released alongside Indy and the series' other heroes. Eventually, when BrickHeadz Megatron was first revealed in 2026, his accompanying alternate mode build would be... A chibified tank. It remains to be seen how this might translate into a full-sized Icons set, but regardless, it should now be evident that Lego is very capable of bending their own rules when necessary.
• Unsurprisingly, given it is also a huge toy brand, LEGO and Transformers have often crossed over with the same properties. As well as certain Disney franchises, these include Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Fortnite, Overwatch, Sonic the Hedgehog, Angry Birds, Ghostbusters, Stranger Things, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Interestingly (and somewhat unusually for a western company), LEGO also collaborated with none other than longtime Transformers licensee Kabaya from 1998 to 2004, with many of their smaller sets from series like Castle, Adventurers, BIONICLE, Star Wars, and the many Space-derived themes being released in Japan as pack-ins with Kabaya's brand of occasionally unpalatable candy. Although they were only distributors rather than manufacturers, Kabaya also occasionally released set multipacks with new original combined alternate builds suggested on the back.

References

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External links

• LEGO.com
• LEGO's Twitter page
• Brickset, a LEGO database
• Brickipedia, the LEGO wiki