Transformers Legends (comic)
| The name or term "Legends" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Legends (disambiguation). |
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Transformers Legends (トランスフォーマーレジェンズ Toransufōmā Rejenzu) is a series of comic strips by Hayato Sakamoto, showcasing the adventures of toy otaku Rattrap. It is published online to promote TakaraTomy's Transformers Legends toyline, with special Bonus Edition (出張版 Shutchōban) chapters of the comic packed with the toys themselves.
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Overview
Legends is a four-panel comic strip set in a world known as the "Legends Universe", where Transformers is a franchise of toys and fiction—essentially the real world, but instead of people it's populated by super deformed Beast Wars characters who don't consider themselves Transformers. The main characters of the comics are the Beast Wars Maximals, reimagined as a group of salarymen working at the "Axalon Trading Company" in Japan. They retain their quirky speech patterns from the jovial Japanese dub of the show. Jokes revolve around the characters being Transformers fans themselves, each representing a different facet of the fandom, the main cast being:
- Rattrap, the company's new recruit who grew up with and unconditionally loves Beast Wars
- Rhinox, a middle-aged man who doesn't care for anything newer than the Generation 1 of his childhood
- Optimus Primal, the serious-minded boss who has no interest in toys himself, but does buy them for his son Minor
- Silverbolt, a young excitable part-timer and fan of the recent live-action film series
- Tigatron, a moe otaku who only likes Transformers franchises with cute girls, like Kiss Players
- Waspinator, an employee of Tera-Kura Co., fan of all things Transformers and expert on minor trivia, he serves to fill the other characters (and readers) in on the more obscure portions of the franchise
Other recurring characters include the lazy, irresponsible Cheetor, hungry Dinobot, and gender-ambiguous office ladies Airazor and Nightscream. Later strips introduce the Axalon Co.'s rivals, the "Tera-Kura Co." led by Megatron. Various other inhabitants of the Legends Universe are versions of Beast Wars II, Beast Wars Neo, and Car Robots characters.
In its earliest days, the comic revolved primarily around the Axalon employees' everyday misadventures at and around their office, with the toy pack-in strips serving as spotlight adventures for the relevant characters. Over time, the online strips were increasingly used to provide "prologue" and "sequel" chapters for the pack-in comics, creating ongoing serialized storylines. When the toyline began releasing Titans Return moulds and dramatically increased its output, the accompanying comics became more story-heavy than ever before, and told a continuing storyline that saw large numbers of characters from the Generation 1 cartoon universe take up residence in Legends World. Online chapters became almost entirely reserved for linking story material, with the original-format four-panel gag strips a very infrequent occurrence.
Continuity & Timeline
The Legends World exists in a complicated place in the Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity. Outside of traditional space and time, the Legends World is an ongoing narrative that is visited by Cybertronians from various eras, often decades apart. For simplicity's sake, the major eras involved are listed below.
- 2004:
- In early Legends comics, Gelshark and Jetfire arrive in the Legends universe from 2004. This era takes place several years after the events of Car Robots and is roughly parallel to the events of Robot Masters. Jetfire returned to 2004 with Legends natives Whirl and Roadbuster, introducing them to the timeline. Legends Comic: Bonus Edition Vol. 7 Black Convoy also arrives in the Legends World from roughly the same era, and departs with Gelshark. Legends Comic: Bonus Edition Vol. EX (Scourge) However, the two of them resurface circa 2021. Ruination Chapter, Part Two
- 2021:
- The majority of dimension-hopping characters from the Headmasters/Targetmasters chapters of Legends come from this era. Headmaster Chapter Prologue This is the period of time between the Super-God Masterforce and Victory animes. The Unite Warriors comics take place in the same era, and several characters cross back and forth between Unite Warriors and Legends at this time. Ruination Chapter, Part Two
- 2035 - 2038:
- Finally, several characters emerge from the 2030's, the furthest point in the Japanese G1 timeline prior to the Beast Era. This is the post-G2 era, briefly chronicled in several eHobby pack-in comics. The resurrection of Ultra Magnus LG14 Ultra Magnus Prologue and Megatron being overthrown by Galvatron II date to this era. Legends Vol. 23
- Other:
- Several examples also exist of "one-off" travels from different universal streams or time periods. The Quintessons of 9 million years ago invaded the Legends World in the present stories with their Military Hardware drones, including a young Blitzwing. Slipstream and an alternate universe Megatron & Starscream also arrived from the Animated and Armada continuities, respectively. The cast of Beast Machines also briefly touched upon the Legends World after their series ended.
Notes
- As is to be expected, the characterizations for the cast are derived from the Japanese version of Beast Wars and Beast Machines. In most instances, these characterizations were extremely different from their Western counterparts. As such, some of the "gags" might fly over the heads of those unacquainted with the radically different Japanese version of the show.
- In the above promotional image, a version of Depth Charge accompanied by an Armada Megatron toy (suggesting that he may have been a fan of the Unicron Trilogy) can be glimpsed, but to this date he has never appeared in any capacity.
