>>11695314>>11695572>>11695576None of that is quite right. Basically, while it wasn't fully formed until the early-2000s, the idea has existed since Furman's run on the Marvel comic. The Last Autobot and Liege Maximo were both heavily laying clues that they were part of some mysterious long-gone pantheon of "original Transformers", but details were intentionally vague. Prima was also introduced here, but only as "the first Prime/Matrix bearer" and one of the first TFs created (if not the first?) - which makes him a member of these guys by proxy, but I'm not entirely sure if Furman thought about that angle at the time.
Come the Dreamwave comic and Furman'a introduction of The Fallen, he basically said outright "his story is building off ideas I had wanted to explore with The Last Autobot” during Marvel. There was also a guidebook he wrote around this time, and that was the first mention iirc of "the 13 original transformers", but I don't recall if it actually said 13 yet? It did introduce the idea that Macaddam was rumored to be one of them by drunk patrons, tho.
Behind the scenes, Aaron Archer had crafted up his own version of the 13, and this is what'd later evolve into The Aligned 13 - he took Prima, Liege, Fallen, and Alpha Trion, and added a bunch of others meant to represent different TF gimmicks. He was also the one who created Vector Prime, who I'm actually fond of specifically because "TF god of time" isn't exactly "embodying a toy gimmick to be an ancestor" lol.
Around this time, Nexus Prime was also invented separately by a 3rd group of people, for the collector's club comic.
Anyway, Nexus got folded into the group and the full 13 roster got publicly unveiled for the first time when the Aligned continuity was first announced (all with dramatic redesigns, of course). The rest you guys all know.
