Transformers: Prime (franchise)

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Transformers: Prime is a Transformers franchise that launched in the year 2010. It spirals out of the novel Transformers: Exodus, based on the War for Cybertron video game. Prime's main manifestation will be the upcoming Transformers: Prime cartoon on the new Hub network.

The Prime franchise featured the following primary components:

• Comic books
• A cartoon series

Transformers: Prime represents a concerted effort on Hasbro's part to imagine a new "aligned continuity" from the ground up that includes all the facets they feel worked best from past universes. Given this, it is not surprising to find that it borrows heavily from G1, the live-action movies and Animated, among others. Their plans are for the Prime universe to last several years, unlike the constant reboots of the 2000s. To this end, they have created an extensive, 350-page continuity bible for writers in the new continuity to follow.

Most excitingly, this continuity family began unraveling the mystery of the thirteen original Transformers in Exodus, as stated in Hasbro's May 2010 Q&A. At BotCon 2010, redesigns of five of the 13 were shown.

Continuity family

• The continuity includes the character bios from the Transformers Hall of Fame (with the possible exception of Dinobot), Transformers: War for Cybertron, Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron, and Prime. Hasbro's official War for Cybertron timeline places the events of the War for Cybertron after the events of the Exodus novel.
• Despite the concerted effort to organize the new continuity, Exodus and War for Cybertron are very incompatible versions of a similar story, creating two separate universes for the continuity right from the start. Regardless, in a preview of the game it was mentioned the game was to serve as a basis for the new continuity, and Exodus can be considered an adaptation expansion.
• It probably doesn't help that poor editing left Exodus self-contradictory on a good number of backstory points.
• In questions from the September 2010 Hasbro Q&A regarding the original 13, Hasbro has stated "Anything you know from past generations of the brand may or may not be factual in the new continuity". Nothing prior to the modern continuity can be counted on as being true for this continuity, which apparently includes previously revealed backstory for members of the original 13. In particular, Alpha Trion will not have Multi-verse jumping powers and there will be only one The Fallen in the modern continuity.

Notes

• Aaron Archer stated at BotCon 2010 that he wasn't particularly happy with "Prime" as the name of the new continuity family, but did not yet have a better option to offer. He had considered recommending "Epochs," only to conclude it wasn't really better after all. In the October 2009 Hasbro Q&A with The Allspark forum, they referred to the 13's story as an "epoch". Answers to Hasbro's September 2010 Q&A refer to it as the "modern continuity".
• In the September 2010 Hasbro investor webcast, it was mentioned the show's products would be hitting the shelf in October 2011. War for Cybertron designs were released in the Generations toyline.