Action Cards
Action Cards were a series of Transformers trading cards marketed by Milton Bradley during Generation 1. They were sold in packs of 8 (plus a bonus sticker) in 1985.
The US "Series 1" contained 192 cards and was the only series produced. Some cards were full-color still frames from various Season 1 cartoon episodes, with a title and description of the action on the back. The remainder featured package art of the 1984 and 1985 characters against a variety of colored backgrounds on the front, with their tech specs and bio on the back. Rather than the line graph used on toy packaging, the tech specs were shown with simple digits.
- #1 - #41: Autobot tech specs
- #42 - #81: still frames from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1"
- #82 - #92, #94-95: still frames from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2"
- #93: a rather inexplicable lone still frame from "Countdown to Extinction"
- #96: checklist #1
- #97 - #122: Decepticon tech specs
- #123 - #127: stills from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2"
- #128 - #149: stills from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3"
- #150 - #161: stills from "War of the Dinobots"
- #162 - #173: stills from "Heavy Metal War"
- #174 - #191: stills from "A Plague of Insecticons"
- #192: checklist #2
The "descriptions" on the back of the episode scene cards tend to be rather generic, rather than detailing what's going on in the episode. For example, card #156 is a scene from "War of the Dinobots", with Slag and Sludge holding Optimus Prime captive after betraying and attacking him; rather than explaining why they're holding up their battered leader, the "description" simply talks about how powerful the Dinobots are (and how they were "once extinct".)
Australian Action Cards
"Series 1" cards were also released in Australia but limited to a set of 100. They were not ordered in any logical way and not one number matches in each set. For example card #1 in the Australia set is Twin Twist while in the full series he is card #21. No checklist cards were included in this set.
Notes
- Some of the bios were slightly abbreviated and edited. For example, "Optimus Prime... the brain center known as the Commander" became "Optimus, the brain center... has vast strength, laser rifle" for the Action Cards.
- The Action Cards provide proof positive that the three original Seeker jets had their Tech Spec numbers switched up, as the numbers have been corrected for their cards. Starscream has the set of numbers originally given to Skywarp (with intelligence as 9); Thundercracker has the set that originally went out as Starscream's (intelligence as 7).
- The Australian set had no number 68 producded but two numbered 86 - Shockwave and Mixmaster, so it's assumed one of them was meant to be 68.
- Bios for Tap-Out and Glyph were produced in a replica Action Card format for BotCon 2002.
