Bio
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From the very beginning, the Transformers toyline distinguished itself by providing on-package biographies for its characters, typically referred to as bios. Rather than needing to watch the show or read the comic, a customer could read the write-up on the box and know who the toy was supposed to be. In fact, this practice eventually gave "life" to hundreds of characters who would never play a part in any story. It also spread beyond the packages to comics, trading cards, and magazines, continuing to this day.
Bios are often combined with Tech Specs and a small version of the toy's package art to form a single collectible card.
Generation 1
Generation 1 bios generally followed a set format. Up top are the character's allegiance and function, describing their role in the military hierarchy. A characteristic quote (often incorrectly called a "motto"<ref>The bios of both Ironhide and Cliffjumper include phrases that are explicitly called their "motto" as part of their personality description, separate from the quote that precedes their bios. ("Go chew on a microchip" and "Let me at 'em!", respectively.) The Transformers A-Z feature in the UK comic added to the confusion by listing each character's "main" quote as a "motto" regardless.</ref>) follows, typically an abstract summation of the character's viewpoint or philosophy. Next is a description of the character's personality, weapons and abilities, with weaknesses listed at the end. This format would be followed in expanded form for the Transformers Universe profile books. Personalities tended to be less prominent and distinct in the waning days of G1, as the vast number of characters made it increasingly difficult to individualize each one; instead, increasingly enthusiastic descriptions of the character's weapons and capacity for destruction became the norm.
G1's bios formed the basis for most portrayals of the characters in fiction, though there are many exceptions. Bios sometimes described some characters as having complex personalities, which the cartoon often underutilized. Bios on occasion would conflict outright with a character's portrayal on the show. Shockwave is a particularly notable instance of this; his bio states that he seeks leadership of the Decepticons, while the cartoon never gave any overt hints that he had aspirations to leadership. More often, slight hints of a character's bio would shine through on the cartoon via small lines of dialogue which might be considered throwaway on their own, but worked in conjunction with the bio to form a more cohesive portrait of a character.
All this was less of a problem with the G1 comics, which tended either to adhere rigidly to the toy's bio, or else to give virtually no characterization at all due to the limited space of the monthly comic format. Later in the book's run, writer Simon Furman began to ignore outright some of the bios for characters such as Thunderwing.
Generation 2
Turbo-charged bios with dual cam turbine exhaust sizzle readers with searing-hot flaming prose! High buzzword content allows entire paragraphs to be devoid of meaningful content. Prefer stockpiling ultra-tech weaponry over describing personality. Multiple-adjective blaster overwhelms consumers with redundant verbage! Attempts at faux-scientific sophistication often elicit laughter instead of respect.
Beast Wars
In Beast Wars, bios became noticeably less character-driven. Rather than describing personality, history, or character quirks, they frequently amounted to a bit of purple prose describing the animal mode in the wilderness and maybe a brief weapon or power call-out.
Also notable is the disconnect between the first wave of bios and their eventual cartoon portrayals. In both their bios and their pack-in comic, Optimus Primal and Megatron were implied to be their G1 namesakes in new bodies on modern, human-inhabited, post-Generation 2 Earth. When the BW cartoon began, the bios abandoned this micro-continuity in favor of the cartoon's continuity. But even aside from blatant continuity issues, there were still more subtle disparities. Tarantulas was portrayed in his bio as a ninja that preyed on humans, while Rhinox was portrayed as a security officer, yet both characters were later revealed to be scientists of incredible skill. Even so, some hints of the original bios did still make it through. For example, Rhinox was often the one updating and maintaining the Sentinel defence systems on the Axalon, and Tarantulas was often seen preying upon the wild animals and proto-humans on prehistoric Earth.
The bios for the European releases were even worse. While the American releases at least had some sense of story, the trilingual nature of the bios meant that they were confined to little more than the character's name, function, and "secret weapon location".
Energon
As a consequence of the American packaging being trilingual at that time, it omitted bios altogether and directed buyers to Hasbro's official Transformers website, where the bios would be published instead. As a particular kick in the groin to non-English speaking buyers, those bios were available in English only, as was the entire website. And that assumes the bios were actually there by the time the toys came out... more often than not, the website was not updated regularly, and when new bios were uploaded, they were often lacking several already released toys.
And then there were the bios themselves, which were often riddled with errors and discrepancies, especially when compared to the accompanying Tech Spec stats. For example, Grimlock and Swoop were stated to be "primitive in thought and simple in speech" and to "lack in intelligence", yet their stats gave them a "7" in "intelligence". In contrast, Six Shot, a "cunning Decepticon warrior", was given a mere "4" in "intelligence". Furthermore, Galvatron was stated to have "undergone an intense reformatting", even though he looked exactly like he did when he was still calling himself "Megatron" except for the new colors. Storm Jet was described as a "precision marksman", even though the toy came without any sort of weapon, be they built-in or included as accessories. To make matters worse, the website bios contained a lot of name and spelling errors: Shockblast was referred to as "Shockwave" in Six Shot's bio, Scorponok was spelled "Scorpanok", Sharkticon was spelled "Sharticon", Wing Saber was referred to as "Superion Maximus" in his own bio... and capitalization of trademarked names was far from being consistent.
The irregular updates also meant that some toys were never officially given a bio. This mostly affects tail-end-of-the-line releases.
Fortunately, Hasbro learned from their mistakes and improved things with Cybertron.
Live-action film series
Toys in the live-action film series often feature multiple releases of the same character either in different color schemes or in multi-packs with other characters. The bios for these toys often give explanations for the new appearances that are difficult to reconcile with other fiction. This has happened often enough that toy bios in the live-action film continuity are considered by some fans to be micro-continuities by default.
Notable discrepancies
- Anything to do with Jazz! In the toy bios, Jazz fought Bonecrusher in the battle of Mission City.<ref>Autobot Jazz vs. Bonecrusher bio</ref>, was rebuilt by Ratchet after the events of the movie, and also came back by the power of the AllSpark.<ref>All Spark-Enhanced Autobot Jazz bio</ref> In fact he was dead before then, Ratchet specifically states he couldn't save Jazz Transformers, and he's still dead in the sequel. (The AllSpark idea was used in an alternate timeline story though.)
- In the toy bios, Hardtop disabled Bumblebee's ability to speak with a shot from his rifle.<ref>Hardtop bio.</ref> , It is not revealed how Bumblebee was injured in the movie itself, but in the comics, Megatron crushed his voicebox with his bare hands. Prime Directive issue 1
- Sector Seven remained around after the first film in the toy bios, buddying up with Ironhide and helping send Optimus Prime to Mars to fight Decepticons. <ref>Premium Ironhide bio and Fire Blast Optimus Prime bio.</ref>
- A number of dead movie Decepticons, especially Brawl nee Devastator, were both alive and highly active in the toyline.
Battle Bios
Hasbro maintains Battle Bios for select characters in their current toy lineup on their website. The Battle Bios list information in categories such as "Key Weapon", "Personality", "Friends and Enemies", "Bio", and "Stats", which corresponds to the character's Tech Specs. You can also find out how tall they are.
External links
Footnotes
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