Bio



The bio, short for "biography", has been a staple of Transformer characterization from the very beginning. The public first saw them on the back of toy packaging: 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
In Generation 1, the on-package bios followed the format seen in the image above: Up top are the character's allegiance and function, describing his or her role in the military hierarchy. A characteristic quote (sometimes called a "motto"; see Notes below) follows, then a block of text describes in sequence the character's personality, weapons & abilities, and weaknesses.



These were actually abbreviated versions of longer bios given to the writers of Transformers fiction; Marvel Comics writer and editor Bob Budiansky crafted a lion's share of these. The expanded versions were eventually published in Marvel's The Transformers Universe comics.

The bios formed the basis for most portrayals of the characters in Generation 1 fiction, though oftentimes the bios' complexities and details were sadly underutilized, especially in the cartoon. Occasionally, portrayals would outright contradict bios, such as the cartoon version of Shockwave's servile loyalty to Megatron, as well as the Marvel version of Blaster's rogue stoicism.

As the years went on, less Generation 1 media was created but more and more new toys were produced. This made the omnipresent on-package bios increasingly valuable as sources of characterization, since many Transformers were being introduced with no media backup at all. Ironically, this came as in-depth personality was squeezed out of some bios in favor of playing up the might and power of new gimmicks like Pretender shells, vehicles, and Micromaster teams. The decline in characterization was by no means universal; interesting new characters were still appearing right up to the end. But the worst offenders had reached a low not seen in the early days.

Happily, those impoverished characters were done some justice almost 15 years later when Dreamwave Productions published a massive profile-comic series featuring a new bio for every Generation 1 Transformer who had gotten a North American toy. Written to jibe with Dreamwave's concurrent Generation 1 comics, these bios were the first and only time many of their subjects were given any kind of real personality.