>>11473348Yeah, people forget tranaformers existed inside a toy ecosystem.
The first wave or say came out to cash in on other metal robots from japan. Shogun Warriors started in 1977 and had a marvel comic.
Mini autobots were inspired by chronoQ / penny racers
Stunticons and Airealbots were meant to be used with hot wheels and other similar sized toy cars. They could be purchased with a few dollars and fit in your pocket.
Transformers would switch to more animal and monster alt forms in response to all the weird animal tmnt figures.battle beasts was also a response to tmnt.
Pretenders were a partial response to tmnt that fell kind of flat. Microbots were a response to micromachines.
Toy companies used to riff on each other and up the anti.
God, it's funny to look back on just how many forgotten toys riffed on tmnt. Barnyard commandos and food fighters come to mind. There was a moment there where they tried to mutate everything into a fighter of some sort. Oh a d army ants.
