In 1982, after about 20 years of comic book stories, the Marvel Comics fictional universe had ballooned into this tremendous amount of characters and vehicles and concepts.  Eventually, an encyclopedic guide to the characters was produced.  Each character entry was intended to read like a baseball card, and featuring all the statistics for each character—birthplace, height, weight, first appearance, and so forth.  A twelve-issue series was produced entitled The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, plus three supplemental issues detailing deceased characters as well as weapons and other items.  

After a couple of years' worth of TRANSFORMERS stories, the number of characters (read: toys) featured was becoming nearly unmanageable, both for the writers and artists producing the stories as well as the readers of the comic book itself.  So, inspired by the Marvel Universe compendium, the decision was made to print a four-issue limited series, published concurrently alongside the existing TRANSFORMERS title, called TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE.

A lot of the legwork for the book had already been done.  When creating the characters, Bob Budiansky had written full-page treatments for each character, detailing the basic personality and physical powers of each robot..  These had been heavily shortened and condensed to fit on the limited space of Hasbro toy packaging, becoming a brief snapshot of each character rather than the full write-up that Budiansky had scripted.  Also, after a brief hiccup, Marvel Comics had eventually settled into using the same basic character designs for every Transformer that Floro Dery had initially developed for the animated cartoon series.  So, as long as Marvel had access to these models, all they would have to do was type up the character treatments and embellish the character designs a bit.  

The editors answering the letters page had been plugging the TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE title for a couple of months prior to its initial publication.  Fans were writing in to ask whether all the Transformers characters would be included, and the editors assured them that, yes, they would all be in there.  Unfortunately, this ended up not being the case.  Cartoon models for characters like the Deluxe Autobots (Roadbuster and Whirl) didn't exist, and neither did models for the Deluxe Insecticons (Ransack, Venom, Barrage, and Chop Shop).  This was because those toys were licensed to Hasbro through Bandai, a rival to Takara, and Takara didn't want a competitor's toy line being advertised in a cartoon they were planning to air in Japan.  So, they were left out of the book.  A few other characters were omitted as well—Reflector never got a profile (a character who only technically appeared in Marvel Comics), and neither did Swerve (who had a character design) or Hubcap (whose character design has never surfaced).  Finally, we never got profiles for the mail-order Omnibots (Overdrive, Downshift, and Camshaft) even though Budiansky had written character treatments for them as well.

Regrettably, this series only included the Transformers robots themselves, and, for the most part, only characters who existed as part of the Hasbro toy line.  So, we didn't get profiles for Buster Witwicky, Circuit Breaker, or any other important human characters, and we also never got profiles for robot characters invented for the comic book like Scrounge, Straxus, Spanner, etc.  (We did eventually get profiles for Arcee and Unicron and the Quintessons, who didn't have Hasbro toys at the time, so at least there's that.)

THE TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE #1 was printed on September 9, 1986, with a pull date of December 1986.  Ian Akin and Brian Garvey were credited as the inkers for the artwork, but Floro Dery received no credit for the character designs.  Indeed, the Transformers fandom at large mistakenly attributed Marvel artist John Romita, Sr. to designing the Transformers characters due to an art credit for Romita's Raiders in one of these issues.  For a long time, we just didn't know any better.  Nel Yomtov colored all the profile illustrations, frequently cribbing from the toys for reference.

The format of each profile included the character name, his main allegiance (Autobot or Decepticon), whatever sub-group he was part of, if applicable (Dinobots, Constructicons, etc.), his main function, and the story in which he first appeared.  Some of these profiles were a sneak peek into the future of the comic book, as a few of the profiles featured characters who had not appeared in any stories up to this point (the Predacons, the Triple Changers, etc.)  

This issue included profiles for familiar characters like Air Raid, Beachcomber, Blaster, Blue Streak, Bombshell, Bonecrusher, Brawn, Breakdown, Bumblebee, Buzzsaw, Cliffjumper, Cosmos, Dead End, Devastator, Dirge, Drag Strip, Fireflight, Frenzy, Gears, Grapple, and Grimlock.

The timing of this compendium was bittersweet, in some ways, since many of the characters introduced in 1984 were out of active service, and six of these characters were effectively dead by the time their profiles were published.  This issue also introduced us to Astrotrain, Blades, Blast Off, Blitzwing, Brawl, Broadside, Bruticus, Defensor, Divebomb, Eject, and First Aid, who had not yet appeared in the comic when this was printed.  

Some comments about the specific profiles from this issue:

Astrotrain's profile puts a hard limit on his maximum range, stated as being able to travel from Earth to the Moon but not much farther.  This is at odds with his ability to travel to Cybertron, as we'll see later.  

A few of the toy-based details about the characters tended to creep up in the profiles for the comics characters.  For example, the Blades toy could theoretically form any arm or leg of Defensor, but his nominal position was as Defensor's left arm.  The profile merely states that he combines with the others, and doesn't specify which part of Defensor he becomes.  (Also, all the Protectobot mini-vehicles carry a photon pistol as their primary weapon.  Basically, they're high-powered flashlights.)

Also, the Blaster character had been arbitrarily redesigned for Marvel Comics, with a face drawn more like the Hasbro toy than the cartoon version.  Rather than modifying the art to match his Marvel Comics appearance, the profile for Blaster depicts his cartoon look.  Marvel would make this same mistake in G.I. JOE AND THE TRANSFORMERS, using the incorrect cartoon model for the character rather than the one developed in-house for Marvel. Don Perlin tended to draw Blaster in Marvel Comics mode, but other artists usually did not. (Also, Blaster is missing the horns on his helmet on the menagerie of character faces on the front cover.)

The illustration for Bombshell's robot mode appears to be an early design in which he has tiny eyeballs, rather than the standard design in which his optic lenses are large and touch the edges of his helmet and mask.

Breakdown's personal quote is given as "keep your optical sensor to yourself," when the version that appears on the Hasbro toy packaging is "optical sensors," plural.

Bruticus is interesting in that this was the first time his profile was available to American audiences.  A Combaticons gift set was planned by Hasbro but not produced, and as such, no clip-and-save biography card for Bruticus was ever printed for Hasbro toy packaging.  

An erroneous yellow stripe was added to Dead End's vehicle mode for his profile, since Nel Yomtov was using the Hasbro toys for reference at least some of the time.  Dead End's toy had gold-colored consumer-applied racing stripe stickers, but those stripes weren't part of his character design.

The transformed mode for Divebomb (his eagle mode) is missing from his profile.  

Eject is a character who was never featured in the pages of the comic book in any real capacity.  (He was one of the characters who was omitted when these profiles were collected together in one volume.)

Overall, though, this was an absolutely amazing resource for fans.  It was the first time the official character designs had ever been made available to the public, and I'm sure many thousands of budding fan artists used these illustrations for reference, myself included.  

Evidently, the decision to throw in characters from The Transformers: the Movie was done at the last minute, as the final issue of this mini-series compiled them together for issue #4 instead of working them into the alphabetical listing with other characters (realistically, this issue, featuring characters A-G, should have also included Arcee, Blurr, Cyclonus, etc.)  

This issue was printed at the same time as TRANSFORMERS #23, but it wasn't the only Transformers-themed title to join the regular book this month.  The comic book adaptation of The Transformers: the Movie also hit newsstands this month, so fans were positively swimming in Transformery goodness!  Look for my review of that one as well.  

Zob (has a shelf on my computer desk specifically for my box of comic books, as it should be)

On Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 11:46:21 PM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:

> Regrettably, this series only included the Transformers robots themselves, and, for the most part, only characters who existed as part of the Hasbro toy line. So, we didn't get profiles for Buster Witwicky, Circuit Breaker, or any other important human characters, and we also never got profiles for robot characters invented for the comic book like Scrounge, Straxus, Spanner, etc.

Personally I'm very much ok with the human characters being left out. Marvel always put too much emphasis on the humans as it is, and if they included all of them we might have needed another volume to accommodate them. Some more info on the Marvel OCs would have been nice but the purpose here seems to have been to create a more in-depth version of our toy catalogs. Arcee was the big exception, and she at least had a toy in the planning stage at one point.

> Astrotrain's profile puts a hard limit on his maximum range, stated as being able to travel from Earth to the Moon but not much farther. This is at odds with his ability to travel to Cybertron, as we'll see later.

The descriptions of character abilities are kind of all over the place. Some, like Astrotrain, are strangely nerfed here. It seems like a lot of the characters with Earth-styled alt modes (so most of the cast at this point) are interpreted as having the capabilities close to the real vehicles they're based on (top speeds for the car and jet bots, etc). In other cases their powers are so over the top that it would be hard to really create a good story around them. By the time we get to Scourge being able to track an amoeba in the ocean and such, it's starting to get a bit silly.

> Eject is a character who was never featured in the pages of the comic book in any real capacity. (He was one of the characters who was omitted when these profiles were collected together in one volume.)
Interesting, I didn't know that. Who else was ommitted?

On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 12:19:12 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:

> Personally I'm very much ok with the human characters being left out. Marvel always put too much emphasis on the humans as it is, and if they included all of them we might have needed another volume to accommodate them. Some more info on the Marvel OCs would have been nice but the purpose here seems to have been to create a more in-depth version of our toy catalogs.

Part of me wishes it hadn't been that way. A toycentric approach is understandable, given that Transformers was a toy line when you get right down to it. But, the Marvel stories generated some really great characters, too. I'm not saying I want a detailed biography on Donny Finkleberg, but profiles for a handful of the key human players would have been nice.

> The descriptions of character abilities are kind of all over the place. Some, like Astrotrain, are strangely nerfed here.

A lot of characters are like that. I mean, I get that Budiansky was a civil engineer, so he wanted his characters to be grounded in reality, and have abilities and features that seemed reasonable and authentic. That part I'm fine with. But there are so many characters with either incredibly weak abilities or some kind of major flaw (WEAKNESSES: if Mudflap ever attempts to transform, he will die instantly) and that makes the characters a lot less cool sometimes.

> Interesting, I didn't know that. Who else was ommitted?

Oops, I think I'm a liar. Looks like Eject made the final cut, since he's on the cover. Maybe it was just Pipes and Tailgate who got axed? I can't find a definitive list of which profiles made it into the collected volume. I'll keep researching.

Zob (was looking at the trade paperback on eBay and it's very, VERY expensive)

Great analysis, Zob, as always!

Who else remembers the TF Digest books, that would cover 2 or so regular comic issues, alongside a smattering of TF Universe entries for added context? Always loved finding and collecting these!

JB

On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 5:22:54 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 12:19:12 PM UTC-6, Sky Raider wrote:
>
> > Personally I'm very much ok with the human characters being left out. Marvel always put too much emphasis on the humans as it is, and if they included all of them we might have needed another volume to accommodate them. Some more info on the Marvel OCs would have been nice but the purpose here seems to have been to create a more in-depth version of our toy catalogs.
> Part of me wishes it hadn't been that way. A toycentric approach is understandable, given that Transformers was a toy line when you get right down to it. But, the Marvel stories generated some really great characters, too. I'm not saying I want a detailed biography on Donny Finkleberg, but profiles for a handful of the key human players would have been nice.
> > The descriptions of character abilities are kind of all over the place. Some, like Astrotrain, are strangely nerfed here.
> A lot of characters are like that. I mean, I get that Budiansky was a civil engineer, so he wanted his characters to be grounded in reality, and have abilities and features that seemed reasonable and authentic. That part I'm fine with. But there are so many characters with either incredibly weak abilities or some kind of major flaw (WEAKNESSES: if Mudflap ever attempts to transform, he will die instantly) and that makes the characters a lot less cool sometimes.
> > Interesting, I didn't know that. Who else was ommitted?
> Oops, I think I'm a liar. Looks like Eject made the final cut, since he's on the cover. Maybe it was just Pipes and Tailgate who got axed? I can't find a definitive list of which profiles made it into the collected volume. I'll keep researching.
>
>
> Zob (was looking at the trade paperback on eBay and it's very, VERY expensive)

On Wednesday, May 18, 2022 at 6:22:54 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:

> I'll keep researching.

Okay, a total of nine profiles were actually left out of the trade paperback: Eject, Inferno, Pipes, Rewind, Sandstorm, Steeljaw, Tailgate, Topspin, and Twin Twist. Interstingly, Eject and Pipes and Rewind and Sandstorm are all on the front or back cover, despite their profiles being omitted. Also, Arcee is the only movie character to appear on the cover.

I should own this, but I don't. As with so many things, I wasn't even aware that it existed until after I started Internetting, and prices had shot up considerably by then.

Zob (insert aggressive shrug here)