Micro-continuity
From Transformers Wiki
Since the dawn of the Transformers brand, a variety of unconnected media has conspired to create multiple continuities, even within individual franchises. The most famous such continuity split is the divergence of the original cartoon and comic, which contributed sometimes similar but ultimately irreconcilable versions of Generation 1. While the most prominent continuities are well known, there exist many "micro-continuities": continuities about which only very limited information is available, yet which manage in that small space to be incompatible with the major continuities.
Although all officially produced fiction is canon for some continuity or another, the significance of these "micro-continuities" is a matter of individual fans' tastes and personal canons.
Limited fictions
Continuities that exist in a very small number of works may share an apparent single continuity, such as the Ladybird or Find Your Fate Junior books. Some continuities may even appear in only a single isolated work, such as the Transformers Beast Wars: Transmetals video game.
Although usually small and insignificant in the wider scheme of things, such tales can contain interesting or unique takes on certain characters or situations—for example, providing actual stories in which Ultra Magnus and Galvatron spent a prolonged period as opposing leaders, a status quo hinted at by much of the lead-in and post-movie product advertising but which was ultimately never realized in the major fictions.
Other examples of limited fictions include any comic mini-series that present a clearly unique and isolated continuity that has only been shown within the pages of that series and has not been revisited, such as the WWII-set Transformers/G.I. Joe.
Prose stories
Probably the most underdeveloped medium in Transformers fiction, prose stories are considered to be offshoots from their parent continuities (as is often the case with the expanded universes of even prolifically novelized franchises like Star Trek). However, the prose stories that were included in the Marvel UK annuals are a notable exception, as most of these are usually treated as part of UK continuity. The same applies to the occasional prose stories included with certain IDW issues or paperback collections, as they are firmly rooted in the 2005 IDW continuity, often providing additional backstory for the comic stories they're included with.
The Find Your Fate Junior books are, by their very nature, micro-continuities (or, if you want to be pedantic, they contain multiple "nano"-continuities within them), since the various outcomes frequently involve the deaths of major characters.
The success of Dreamwave inspired a small, short-lived boom in Transformers prose fiction. The Transformers Trilogy was intended to be set in the Dreamwave Generation One continuity, but as Dreamwave was not really involved in their publication and Dreamwave's subsequent comics made no explicit reference to them, it is a matter of taste whether the trilogy is part of the Dreamwave-verse proper or is a micro-continuity offshoot thereof.
The prose anthology book Transformers Legends is a somewhat complex case. The foreword by editor David Cian asserts his intent that these short stories should not "count" as future facts in their respective continuities and should be considered "what-if?" tales. For some of the stories, such as "Paddles", "Fire in the Dark", and "Lonesome Diesel", it is quite clear from their inconsistency with pre-existing continuities that they have to represent micro-continuities.
However, other stories in the volume (such as "Singularity Ablyss", "Parts", "A Meeting of Minds", and "Redemption Center") fit nicely into their respective continuities and could certainly "count" as canon as much as anything else published in those continuities. Further confusing the issue, the back cover of the same book seems to contradict Cian, asserting that the book's stories were written according to "no hard-and-fast rules." It is thus up to the reader to decide whether these stories should be accepted as representing their apparent continuity of origin or be relegated to micro-continuities.
Animated shorts
The short-lived Transformers: Universe series of Flash-animated clips published on Hasbro's website manages in its short runtime to be incompatible with other existing fiction featuring those same characters: "Action Blast 1" is heavily based on "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1" from the Sunbow cartoon, but it adds concepts that were inspired by later Transformers series: Rather than crash-landing on prehistoric Earth and then lying dormant for four million years, the Transformers arrive on Earth during the modern day. Upon arrival, they scan vehicles on their own which they are then immediately able to transform into, as opposed to using external technology such as Sky Spy and Teletraan-1 and having to be physically rebuilt. Subsequently, "Fight for Energon", which might or might not be part of the same continuity as "Action Blast 1", depicts Megatron and Cyclonus as contemporaries.
Implied continuities
While never truly represented by any narrative fiction, some micro-continuities arise as the result of discrepancies between the toy lines and characters' portrayals elsewhere. In Generation 1 this was often limited to individual characters' appearances varying drastically between toy and cartoon (and, by extension, most other media). Prominent examples of this are Jetfire and Ironhide.
Implied continuities can also include discrepancies in on-package bios, such as Galvatron being described as merely "Decepticon City Commander" and possessing a lower rank than his unspecified superiors (not to mention the fact that he is nowhere said to be a reformatted Megatron, probably to avoid spoiling the movie). A more striking example of such differences implying the existence of whole new continuities occurs during the Beast Era.
Bio-only continuities
Some toys exist in a complete continuity vacuum; the only indications as to the nature of the universe they inhabit that can be gleaned are from their on-package bios.
The "G1 Beast Wars"
On-package bios for the first waves of Beast Wars indicated that the Beast Wars took place on present-day Earth, and that Optimus Primal and Megatron were just G1 Optimus Prime and Megatron in the latest of their long series of reformatted bodies. This storyline was showcased in one installment of "limited fiction," a comic which was included with the bat Optimus and alligator Megatron 2-pack.
Although later bios would reflect the universe established by the Beast Wars cartoon, these first-series materials create a micro-continuity that features a bat-mode Optimus Prime(al) leading troops that include the likes of both Rattrap and Razorbeast against an alligator-mode Megatron and his minions, such as Tarantulas and Iguanus, stalking their secret genetic labs and duking it out for the fate of modern, urban Earth. It is then open to debate whether Optimus and Megatron subsequently "upgraded" to their gorilla and T. rex modes (the comic certainly implies that Megatron plans to), or that later waves of show, non-show, and even Transmetal characters are featured in this micro-continuity.
Beast Wars toy line vs. show
Unlike G1, the Beast Era did not feature major divergent continuities, leading (at least for most of its existence) to a fairly unified canon.
However, due to the high cost and time constraints of a fully CG-animated series, both Mainframe Entertainment's Beast shows were limited in the number of characters that could be included. They are remarkable amongst the Transformers franchises in not showcasing nearly every available toy as a character in the show. As a result, the main Beast Wars fiction-depicted continuities feature only a limited portion of the overall number of toys/characters created, and furthermore the tight storytelling and premises of the shows leave little room for their inclusion in an "off camera" capacity (although see below: "When is a micro-continuity not a micro-continuity?"). An additional discrepancy in Beast Wars is that several characters, such as Waspinator and Rhinox, were featured as Transmetal toys, but were not upgraded in the cartoon. (Note that IDW's Beast Wars Sourcebook attempts to provide a rationale for these missing Transmetal bodies, as well as the bat and crocodile forms of Primal and Megatron, at least in terms of their own version of continuity.)
One can either postulate that the toy line itself implies a micro-continuity in which the full number of toy characters coexisted, or one could attempt to reconcile these characters with an already existent micro-continuity: that of the pre-cartoon on-package bios and mini-comic...
Beast Machines: Crawling with Maximals
The Beast Machines toy line contained many toy-only characters—Maximal, Vehicon, and "other"—who were again fairly incompatible with the tightly plotted continuity of the cartoon. A similar "implied continuity" can be postulated that would include these extra characters in an alternate version of events that supported a larger cast.
Machine Wars
The Machine Wars toy line is the best example of bio-only implied continuity as, very unusually, it represents an entire line (albeit a very small one) which possesses no official fiction in any form save for the toy bios, in which story hints are limited mainly to the existence of Megaplex and a few peculiarities about Thundercracker. Given the lack of any other story material, whether the differences/character development with Thundercracker imply a whole new micro-continuity or are viewed as new developments within an existing continuity falls solely to personal preference.
Cross-promotional toys
Japanese exclusives are particularly prone to this, especially some of their more bizarre cross-promotion toys such as Pepsi Convoy, the Takara Sports Label Convoy and Megatron figures, who transform into miniature Nike sneakers, or Takara's Music Label Convoy or MP3 player Soundwave, or the various versions of Optimus Prime/Convoy featuring the A Bathing Ape livery, or the toys of Optimus Prime, Megatron and Bumblebee that transform into INFOBAR cell phones licensed by Japanese cell phone maker au. Meanwhile, in 2016, Hasbro partnered with Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi to produce toys of Optimus Prime and Soundwave that transform into a working power bank and an officially licensed Mi Pad 2, respectively. Is one seriously to consider these characters part of a mainstream version of G1 continuity as their bios imply, or does one relegate them to weird little micro-continuities in which Optimus has an insatiable desire for signing endorsement deals? YOU decide.
Cybertron and beyond
Contrary to the cartoon, which depicts Mudflap as an Autobot who ended up on Earth following the evacuation of Cybertron, but didn't like having to hide among the humans and was ultimately tricked by Starscream into joining the Decepticons, his on-packaging bio implies that he is a Decepticon spy who was planted on Earth long before the Autobots' arrival on the planet.
According to the bios for the Cybertron Deluxe Class "Jungle Planet" Optimus Prime and Megatron toys (redecos of Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Deluxe Optimus Primal and Megatron, respectively), the two leaders were temporarily mutated into new bodies by the energies of the Jungle Planet (in a way similar to how Overhaul became Leobreaker). This is hard to reconcile with the cartoon continuity, since it would require the whole scenario to happen off-screen, which is unlikely with these two prominent characters in a tightly plotted serialized story. Unlike most micro-continuities, though, it would get further coverage via Fun Publications, whose TransTech stories gave more detail to "Beast Prime" and "Beast Megatron".
Further complication arises with the bonus content unlocked by entering the Cyber Key Codes on Hasbro's website. Notably, Downshift is revealed to have been "separated from his fembot lifebond partner" during the evacuation of Cybertron, and subsequently "spent every waking hour looking [for her]" on Earth. On the other hand, the on-package bio for Universe Downshift (a KB Toys exclusive redeco of Energon Downshift in packaging sporting numerous Cybertron-derived design elements) states that Downshift stayed behind on Cybertron following the evacuation of the planet and is "perfectly at home on the desolate and damaged planet" since he is "a loner by nature". Since the Cyber Key content was often heavily tongue-in-cheek, it's hard to say if it's really supposed to be "canon"; on the other hand, the entire multiversal nature of the original Universe line makes it perfectly possible that the KB exclusive Downshift hails from a splinter timeline of the Unicron Trilogy where he never had a "fembot lifebond partner".
Furthermore, there are various tail-end-of-the-line redecos, store exclusive multi-packs and even rebranded Universe re-releases of Cybertron toys with bios set at some point after the end of the Cybertron cartoon's last episode. Since there's no other major fiction beyond that point, these bios are the only glimpses into a post-Cybertron universe.
Cybertron even featured conflicting bios within the same toy line: Redecos of the Armada Race Mini-Con Team members Dirt Boss, Downshift and Mirage were available in Walmart exclusive "Tiny Tins" bonus packs with two different Cybertron Deluxe Class toys each (Dirt Boss with Red Alert and Landmine, Downshift with Dirt Boss and Thundercracker, and Mirage with Hot Shot and Override). Each of the two releases of each Mini-Con (which sported identical colors) featured an on-packaging bio that directly conflicted with the other one: The bios from the two-packs with Landmine, Dirt Boss and Override made the Mini-Cons members of the Race Team who were ripped out of their own dimension and transported to the Cybertron universe by the Unicron Singularity, whereas the bios from the two-packs with Red Alert, Thundercracker and Hot Shot made them members of the Road Assault Team, who were at no point implied not to be native to the Cybertron universe. Hasbro copy writer Forest Lee confirmed that the two sets were originally planned with two different decos for the Mini-Cons in mind, explaining the conflicting backstories and the use of the name "Road Assault Team" for one set.
Transformers (2007) and the expanded early Movieverse
Various inconsistencies between the bios for the 2007 Transformers movie toyline and prequel fiction for the film (notably, IDW Publishing's Movie Prequel limited series) give the impression of a different pre-movie continuity. One main difference is that Hardtop is the one that silenced Bumblebee.
Furthermore, toys from the movie toyline continued to be released after the movie had ended, and a number of their bios placed themselves as happening after the movie. With no narrative backing and the sequel not using these concepts, the bios create an implied continuity where Optimus Prime was infused with the power of the All Spark, Jazz, Brawl, and Bonecrusher were not dead, Ironhide and (temporarily) Bumblebee retired, Bumblebee's existence was revealed to the public via the internet to the point where he had to change his color to avoid being recognized, Starscream carried out a stealthy war, and the Autobots took the fight to the Decepticons on Mars. Also, quite a few characters have toys with Earth-based alternate modes and are implied by their bios to interact with the movie characters post-movie, even though many of them are killed off before they ever make it to Earth (let alone scan a new alternate mode) or gain full sentience in IDW's movie continuity, and otherwise only appear in Titan Magazine's splinter timeline where the movie's events end with Megatron being victorious.
Transformers (2010): G1? Movieverse? Who cares?
The 2010 Transformers toy line, with its Hunt for the Decepticons and Reveal the Shield subline imprints, is a terribly confusing beast, as it contains toys of characters from both Generation 1 and the live-action film series. While toys of existing characters are still comparably easily placed, there are several toys of entirely new characters, or toys that could be an existing character or their never-seen-before counterpart from a different continuity family.
Hunt for the Decepticons Legends Class Tracker Hound was the first toy from the line to pose a problem. A redeco of 2008's Universe Legends Class Autobot Hound, itself a very unambiguous representation of the Generation 1 Hound character, the complete lack of an on-packaging bio made the toy's placement difficult. The only evidence is the use of Tech Spec numbers that differ greatly from the original Universe version of the sculpt, plus the inclusion of the figure as "movie" product in the Japanese Transformers Generations 2011 Volume 1 guidebook.
The ambiguity hit its peak with Reveal the Shield. Both Hasbro and TakaraTomy designer Alex Kubalsky were very adamant that Sea Spray was the same character as Generation 1 Seaspray, but the figure's on-packaging bio pits him against Crankstart, a redeco of the very firmly movie-based Revenge of the Fallen Dune Runner. In addition, Crankstart appeared in an issue of Titan's Transformers comic magazine, and Sea Spray himself later appeared in the Japanese Unite for the Universe comic, which places both characters in the live-action film series universe, or at least a micro-continuity offshoot.
Even more annoyingly, several toys from the line, despite featuring on-packaging bios, simply cannot conclusively be placed in any established continuity due to the completely context-free nature of their bios. While the previous toy line that featured toys with ambiguous placement in existing continuities, the 2003 Universe line, at least had the excuse of a clearly established multiversal nature, Reveal the Shield didn't have an overarching plot outside the toys' individual bios, so one could either try to place every toy in a Generation 1 or movie-based continuity... or simply accept that Hasbro's marketing department clearly didn't put nearly as much thought into it.
Combiner Wars: Sunbow meets IDW
The extended bios printed on the back of the IDW comic book reprints included with the Combiner Wars Deluxes (when purchased in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Asia) present a strange hybrid continuity that merges elements of the classic Sunbow Generation 1 cartoon continuity and the 2005 IDW continuity:
The Aerialbots and Protectobots are explicitly stated to have existed back on Cybertron. For the Aerialbots, this is clearly at odds with their origin in the cartoon's The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2. The Protectobots, meanwhile, are never given an explicit origin in the cartoon, they just suddenly "exist".
The Stunticons, on the other hand, were supposedly created by Megatron "as part of an Earth-based infiltration unit" and "as the Decepticon response to Autobot dominance of the streets and highways of Earth", which mirrors their cartoon origin in The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1, but at the same time, the ambiguous phrasing also implies that they already existed before, and Megatron merely created their alternate modes.
New additions Alpha Bravo and Offroad are explicitly said to replace "fallen" team members, but Quickslinger and Brake-Neck's bios (obviously) don't make mention of this. In the IDW continuity, Slingshot did die, while Wildrider simply walked away off-panel, never to be seen again.
Blast Off's bio singles him out as having been imprisoned on Cybertron away from his fellow Combaticons (a clear IDW reference), but at the same time implies that the Combaticons already possessed the ability to combine into Bruticus by that point (which is at odds with the IDW continuity). Swindle's bio also explicitly mentions events mirroring those of IDW's Spotlight: Ultra Magnus.
The 1984 Autobots are where it gets really confusing: While the "Ark" (or "Autobot Ark") mentioned in several bios could be interpreted to refer to either the ship of the same name from the cartoon, or the Ark-19 from the early IDW stories, and Wheeljack and Sunstreaker were members of both ships' crews, both Hound and Mirage are said to have been part of the initial Autobot crew that arrived on Earth, which is true of their cartoon selves but not their IDW versions. In addition, the Ark is alternately stated to have "landed" (Sunstreaker), "crash-landed" (Hound) or "crashed" (Wheeljack), with the ship from the IDW continuity (presumably) having made a safe landing while the ship from the cartoon crashed. Hound is also said to have scouted the new world under orders from Optimus Prime, like he did in the cartoon, while Sunstreaker, Prowl and Wheeljack's bios are chock-full of IDW references (such as the Lost Light, the Iaconian Police Force's Mechaforensic Division, the Ultirex Technoversity, the "moral grayness" on Earth, "rebuilding" the Aerialbots or even some of the events from All Hail Megatron issue 8 and Spotlight: Hoist).
On top of that, Wildrider/Brake-Neck, Fireflight/Firefly and even Trailbreaker/Trailcutter's name changes are explicitly addressed in-continuity.
Convention exclusives
Similar to the cross-promotional toys mentioned above, Hasbro released several toys and sets that were created as one-off San Diego Comic-Con exclusives and which are based around wacky, just-for-fun concepts that are hard to reconcile with any existing continuity.
The 2014 "Knights of Unicron Reunion Tour Set" was centered around four Transformers characters (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave and "Smooth Jazz") that formed a fictional rock band, with Laserbeak and Ratbat serving as their instruments. While a lot of their backstory draws from the Aligned continuity family and its Binder of Revelation (with Orion Pax the clerk, Megatron commanding Vehicons, and Bumblebee losing his voice), there is an obvious 1980s influence on the whole thing, with the year 1984 and numerous other Generation 1 references found throughout the supporting material, and in general, the very concept of Optimus Prime and Megatron being members of a band, let alone the same band, makes the whole idea completely irreconcilable with any continuity that features an Autobot/Decepticon war.
On a similar note, the 2017 Titans Return collaboration with Primitive Skateboarding featured an Optimus Prime redeco that was partnered with a new character named Shreddicus Maximus. The official bio for the toy revealed that this version of Optimus Prime used to be an avid skateboarder prior to fighting Decepticons, which again doesn't fit into any known continuity.
Furthermore, while the entire Kre-O brand is a difficult beast to begin with when it comes to continuity, the 2014 "Kreon Class of 1984" and 2015 "Kreon Class of '85" sets add another layer by presenting the Kre-O versions of the Generation 1 Autobots and Decepticons as classmates.
Commercial-only continuities
The animated segments featured in television commercials, brief as they are, sometimes manage to create or at least imply scenarios that are incompatible with other fiction featuring the same characters and concepts, or at least feature other unique and sometimes downright bizarre properties.
Generation 1
The Mini-spy commercial features a Decepticon Mini-spy that manages to pass by Huffer and Cliffjumper and enter Autobot Headquarters, where it starts messing with the computer before being detected. For nearly two decades, this was the only fictional appearance of the Mini-spies, and in fact, the only instance where they are actually named as such (with the toys simply being called "Motorized Transformers").
The Tyco Electric Train and Battle Set features a couple of generic Decepticons and Autobots in addition to the "speeding Transformers train" which never appeared in any other fiction at the time.
A commercial for toys of characters introduced in The Transformers: The Movie features several Autobots led by Optimus Prime fighting Starscream and Skywarp, who are then joined by Cyclonus and Scourge. Another commercial for TF:TM toys has several Autobots led by Ultra Magnus confront a group of Decepticons (which include Skywarp and Starscream) led by Galvatron, with Magnus explicitly pointing out that this is the first time he meets Galvatron.
The commercial for the reflective patches has Spike Witwicky lead two human friends of his who never appeared outside this commercial to a really weird-looking Autobot base hidden inside a mountain cliff.
A commercial for the 1987 Headmaster toys took an early concept for the Decepticons' Nebulan partners as "trainers" for their beastly companions quite literally, as they are shown putting Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf and Mindwipe through their paces, using whips to have them jump through hoops and smash through rock statues of the Autobot Headmasters. Even a commercial that specifically advertises the Marvel Headmasters comic book limited series features a lengthy animated segment that depicts events (with accompanying narration by Victor Caroli) that matches neither the cartoon nor the comic book it promotes: Here, the story of the Headmasters starts off "in the midst of the Cybertronian war", with Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and a Sweep attacking Cybertron, while Rodimus Prime and Blurr fend off either Laserbeak or Buzzsaw, Springer tackles Soundwave, Grimlock fights Razorclaw, Ultra Magnus is attacked by Rumble, Frenzy and a miscolored Ravage, and Rampage and Gnaw face opponents who are offscreen. While all this is going on, so the narration explains, "special mission teams of Autobots and Decepticons blast[...] their way to planet Nebulon". These "special teams" include Chromedome, Highbrow, Brainstorm, Hardhead, Skullcruncher, Weirdwolf and Mindwipe, who all arrive on board the same space ship which they depart peacefully, side by side, and sport different heads than their toy-based standard animation models. After taking off these original heads, the Nebulans transform into the familiar heads for the Cybertronians. But since the Headmasters are "still Autobots and Decepticons", they continue to fight, with Fortress Maximus and Scorponok, both of them about the same size as their cartoon selves, as well as the Targetmasters soon joining the fray.
The commercial for Punch-Counterpunch (and the Clones) implies that he plays both Rodimus Prime and Galvatron by telling each of them they can trust him in his respective robot forms, rather than being an Autobot spy embedded in the Decepticons' ranks. Even the Autobots' espionage director Goldbug (who should be aware of a deep cover Autobot operative) seems none the wiser.
The commercial for the Monsterbots suggests that their bestial alternate modes are the result of an accident that occurred during an attempt to create new Autobots.
One of the commercials for Quickswitch has an Autobot identify him as "Sixshot's son".
The Micromaster commercials generally play fast and loose with scale; notably, some of them feature an entire Micromaster city that's small enough for Powermaster Optimus Prime to hold it in the palm of his hand, which would mean the toys are supposed to be either life-sized or even oversized!
The commercial for the Pretender Monsters has Starscream create their Pretender shells by dunking the robots into colorful vats, only to immediately pull them out again, with their shells having instantly formed around them.
One of the first Action Masters commercials has Optimus Prime explicitly ask a group of Autobots to join him and give up the power to transform to "become stronger, faster, more alive". Jazz and Rad volunteer. Other Action Master commercials feature the characters commandeering their vehicles, which have never appeared in any other fiction.
Beast Wars
An early 1996 commercial features CG-animated renditions of the bat version of Optimus Primal and the alligator version of Megatron that never appeared in the cartoon. Various other commercials feature animated versions of non-show characters, though the depiction of a show character deserves particular mention: A 1997 commercial for the Fuzors features a brief CG-animated sequence that depicts an eagle and a wolf screaming in agony as they're fusing while being sucked into a lava pit, only for Silverbolt to come flying out of the lava in beast mode. Suffice to say, this was not how the character was introduced in the cartoon.
BotBots
In the Goldrush Games digital commercial, the mall the BotBots occupy is scaled different than it is presented in other fiction. It is either much smaller or the BotBots themselves are much larger, as it appears they are roughly human size. This also seems to be the case for the checklist inserts for series 1 to 3 and possibly the Get Ready, Get Set... stop motion video as well.
International oddities
In some instances, certain markets take a weird alternate approach to an existing continuity, which results in massive headscratching.
Autobot Leader Jetfire
As a consequence, Jetfire was declared Autobot Leader in Prime's place. A mini-comic included with the first wave of figures actually depicted him in that role, in a story heavily inspired by Marvel's The Transformers comic. The origin of the Dinobots is lifted almost note-for-note from "Repeat Performance!", although Shockwave's role is replaced by Soundwave. Oddly, Optimus Prime can be still glimpsed in the splash panel on the first page, acting as what appears to be a random background extra.
Supposedly, the mini-comic was intended to be followed by an ongoing comic featuring the same setting that would have been produced specifically for Europe. Even though all four original versions of the mini-comic advertise such an ongoing comic, it was never actually produced.
Optimus vs. Malignus
In Brazil, Estrela released redecos of several Mini Vehicles that were declared members of two entirely new, warring factions, named "Optimus" and "Malignus". What relation, if any, these have to the classic Autobot/Decepticon conflict is unknown.
German text stories
The text stories published in Condor Verlag's Transformers Comic-Magazin present a bizarre alternate version of the Generation 1 Marvel Comics continuity, combining the power dynamic of earlier Marvel comic stories (translated versions of which were reprinted in these issues), with the Decepticons being led jointly by Megatron and Shockwave, and elements and characters of later years (based on the toys available at the time of publication), with the Autobots being led by Powermaster Optimus Prime, the Autobot Double Targetmasters appearing in nearly every story, and the Autobot Powermasters, Sparkler Minibots and Cloudburst, Landmine and Waverider also being regulars.
Bumblebee appears until he is turned into Goldbug in the comic, at which point he also becomes Goldbug in the text stories. Rodimus Prime also appears sporadically, though depending on which writer uses him, he is either the Autobot leader on Cybertron who is a contemporary of Optimus Prime and easily contactable, or the Autobot leader on Cybertron of the near-future.
That, and a lot of obvious persistent spelling and naming errors (such as "Horsehead", "Funback", "Bombursi" or "Submaroder"), as well as several new characters being introduced, most prominently Stealth, an Autobot Ultra Pretender named Ground Shaker, and a Throttlebot helicopter simply named "Throttlebot".
To make matters even more confusing, numerous stories from earlier issues are recycled for later issues. For example, the story from Comic-Magazin issue 5 is repeated mostly with the same plot and story beats in issue 22, with one of the major changes being the fact that Bumblebee is called "Goldbug" in the later version. Who is still stated to have a Pretender shell.
Furthermore, the story from issue 23 is reycled from a text story originally published in a ThunderCats comic by the same publisher, with the names of characters and places hastily swapped out. This results in an utterly bizarre setting where Optimus, Ultra Magnus, Rodimus and Goldbug exist on Cybertron fifteen million years ago, Goldbug is explicitly identified as a female (!) friend of Ultra Magnus (or possibly even his girlfriend), Megatron leads a faction named "Mutants" whose ranks include Soundwave and a character named Skybolt, and who use a war machine named Skywrecker, and properties of Cybertron include a forest made of metal, a castle named "Tara-Angh", Energon mines underneath said castle, and a village populated by "Berbil bears".
Overlord vs. Motorvators
In 1991, Hasbro released Overlord and the Motorvators, toys that had previously only been available as part of Takara's Japanese Transformers range, in several European markets. In addition to their on-packaging bios and a story blurb on the toys' packaging, a toy catalog released in the same year contains a text-only story page that presents some very strange unique properties:
The Transformers' story is stated to begin four billion (rather than million) years ago on Cybertron, and the Autobots explicitly leave their home planet in order to flee from Megatron's tyranny. The vessel they depart with is stated to be a rocket rather than a spaceship, and the cause of it crashing on Earth is stated to be a mere "malfunction", rather than a struggle between its Autobot crew and Decepticons who have boarded the ship like in the original cartoon (or even Optimus Prime intentionally crashing it, like he did in the Marvel comic). The volcano which the "rocket" crashes into is stated to be Mount St. Helens (instead of Mount St. Hilary), which in the real world is presumed to have existed for only about 40,000 years... but then again, the story page also claims the Autobots merely remained within the volcano for "centuries" before it erupted, warranting the question of just how damn long they have been travelling through space.
The story furthermore explicitly presents the Action Masters, with their familiar setting involving Nucleon, as contemporaries of Overlord, the Motorvators and various characters with toys under the "Classics" range (which was also available in Europe at the time), none of whom were affected by Nucleon. On top of that, Overlord is never referred to as a Powermaster (as would be expected given his toy origins), and his engines aren't Nebulans but "Energon figures".
Alien virus Fuzors and Transmetals
European Beast Wars packaging came in two different variants, each sporting three different languages. Some minor oddities (such as the alternate Italian names for characters, or the Predacons being named "Predators" on French/Dutch/German Beast Wars/Ani Mutants packaging) can be considered instances of localization, while others (such as Spittor's original toy being marketed as a Maximal rather than a Predacon in both packaging versions, or Jawbreaker retaining his early working name "Cackle") can be written off as errors.
However, the various translated texts for the Fuzors and the first few waves of Transmetals came up with oddly different explanations for the creation of those two breeds of Beast Warriors. While the English version still attributes the creation of both to an "alien quantum surge" (though not elaborating on what caused it), the Spanish version simply mentions an unspecified "alien force", the Italian version blames an equally undefined "alien energy", the French version interprets it as an "alien invasion", the Dutch version remains relatively faithful to the original version with an "enormous alien shockwave", and the German version gets particularly creative by attributing the creation of Fuzors and Transmetals to the "incursion of alien viruses" (plural).
Furthermore, all six versions use vague and ambiguous wording that doesn't make it clear that the "genetic malfunctions" triggered by those aforementioned language-specific causes affected existing Cybertronians—rather, they seem to imply that actual animals were alternatively merged (Fuzors) or turned into mechanical lifeforms (Transmetals). The German wording for the Transmetals, in particular, points out that those "alien viruses" turned "harmless animals" into "ferocious mechanical beasts".
When is a micro-continuity not a micro-continuity?
There are some continuities which have attempted to explain retroactively the presence (or rather absence) of the non-show characters in both Beast Wars and Beast Machines. 3H's Wreckers comics and associated projects attempted to fill out much of the Beast Machines gaps in a workable fashion, while IDW tackled virtually every toy-only Beast Wars character in The Gathering. However, these two approaches contradict each other, and neither have provided expansive storylines. Whether one deems these stories to be part of the larger show-based canon (despite contradictions) as splinter timelines, individual "complementary" continuities, or indeed just larger-than-usual micro-continuities themselves is, like most things, up to the individual fan's taste and personal canon.
By the same token, the comic book fictions for Generation 2 and Classics present timelines that diverge from the U.S./U.K. Marvel comic, each representing full toylines. This may be compared with Machine Wars which is apparently a continuation of G1 but may or may not exist (later) in the same timeline as G2. Whether such examples of divergent offshoots of larger continuities should be classed as micro-continuities (in spite of toylines and many issues of fiction) or be included with their "parent" continuities as branched extensions is, again, a matter of taste and personal canon.
