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). |
 |
| |||||||||||||||
Transformers Legends (トランスフォーマーレジェンズ Toransufōmā Rejenzu) is a series of comedic comic strips helmed by Hayato Sakamoto and published online to promote the titular Transformers Legends toyline, with special Bonus Edition (出張版 Shutchōban) chapters of the comic packed with the toys themselves. Initially showcasing the misadventures of the Beast Wars cast re-imagined as adult Transformers fans themselves, Legends eventually spiraled into one of the most convoluted narratives in the history of the mammoth Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity.
The comic represents something of a second pass at a hard pivot towards Japan's "otaku" market of adult collectors in the face of the brand's dwindling popularity with children after TakaraTomy's disastrous first attempt in the mid-2000s, unfortunately once again trafficking in quite a few of the questionable tropes endemic to the genre. This time TakaraTomy seemingly found their audience, with the comic running for five years from 2014 to 2019.
Legends ultimately concluded when TakaraTomy began a brand unification with Hasbro starting with Power of the Primes, deciding to mainly sell Hasbro toys as is with minimal changes to packaging. It was eventually succeeded by the more action-oriented Generations Selects Special Comic promoting Hasbro and TakaraTomy's joint Generations Selects imprint.
Overview
| Main Transformers Legends comic | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Additional Transformers Legends comics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| |||
Legends begins as a four-panel black-&-white comic strip set in a world known as the "Legends World", 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. Early 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 World 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 full-color toy pack-in strips (Bonus Editions) 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 (often in full color and several pages themselves), 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.
Creative team
The series is written and drawn by Hayato Sakamoto, but many others have collaborated with him.
- Josh Perez (color)
- Yūki Ōshima (original plan cooperation, color, pencil, design)
- Gufu Kandagawa (color, ink, additional art)
- Usakomu (color)
- Ichi zero three (color)
- Tasuku Tajima (color, ink)
- DAI-XT (color)
- Kinotukimi (color)
- Kokoa (color)
- Mieko Furuki (color, ink)
- Kamizono (color, ink)
- Derrick J. Wyatt (cooperation)
- James Roberts (cooperation)
- Marcelo Matere (cooperation)
- Tori O'Regan (cooperation)
- Andrew Hall (cooperation)
- Atsunori Takano (cooperation)
- Kouji Nimura (cooperation)
- Bā San (cooperation)
- Hisashi Yuki (original plan, supervision)
Continuity and 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, Sky-Byte and Jetfire arrive in the Legends World from 2004. This era takes place four years after the events of Car Robots and is roughly parallel to the events of Robotmasters. Jetfire returned to 2004 with Legends natives Whirl and Roadbuster, introducing them to the timeline. Legends Comic: Bonus Edition Vol. 7 Scourge also arrives in the Legends World from roughly the same era, and departs with Sky-Byte. 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 When the Legends World was destroyed, these characters returned to 2021. Targetmaster Finale, Part Two
- 2035 - 2038:
- Next, several characters emerge from the 2030s, the furthest point in the Japanese G1 timeline prior to the Beast Era (as of Legends' publication). 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 When the Legends world was destroyed, these characters also returned to their original era, thereby arriving in the Japanese cartoon continuity roughly 15 years after other characters who left the collapsing world at the same time. The local inhabitants of the Legends World primarily ended up in this time period after departing. Targetmaster Finale, Part Two
- Other:
- Several examples also exist of "one-off" travels from different universal streams or time periods. The Quintessons of 11 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.
- Origin:
- Finally, the Legends World itself emerged from an ontological paradox. The universe was created in the 2030s by the Jumpstarters Topspin and Twin Twist, with the assistance of the Zodiac, proton energy, and the telepathic power of Katsu Don and the Zamojin. The Jumpstarters agreed to help Katsu Don create this world because, in 2004, they had already met and befriended Legends natives Whirl and Roadbuster. Thus, Topspin and Twin Twist knew the Legends World was destined to be created because it had already happened. Trippy, right?
Controversy
The Legends manga was criticized for relying on exclusionary humour, at the expense of women and sexual/gender minorities. A lot of its humor comes from rather cruelly using the gender-nonconformity of Airazor and Nightscream as punchlines. Both of the characters are depicted as otokonoko "office ladies", whose female presentation while being male is the focus of entire strips and leans on transphobic tropes. While this is meant to "poke fun" at the historical discrepancies of Airazor's gender in Japanese Beast Wars media (see here for more on that), Nightscream is depicted this way based on his Beast Wars Returns incarnation being flamboyantly gay, conflating gay men with cross-dressing, being trans, and playing into the queerphobic concept of feminine-presenting LGBTQ people trying to "trick" straight men.
As the comic moved towards representing the Legends toyline, it placed increasing emphasis on fanservicey depictions of its female cast, along with generally shifting them to more passive supporting roles, positioning them as a sort of "standard anime waifu bait". Arcee, for example, was positioned as as gentle homemaker to her nephew Rattrap, complete with apron/maid outfit, in contrast to the warrior most 2010s media depicted her as. Similarly, the usually deadly serious Nightbird was given a "clumsy mode" that causes her to "comedically" fall into compromising positions. This trend would continue into Sakamoto's Legends spin-off, Transformers Unite Warriors, although by Generations Selects Special Comic the "cheesecake" fanservice was largely replaced with the more "deep fandom lore" kind of fanservice.
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 he never appears until near to the very end of the epilogue chapter.
