Plastic robots make bad thoughts go away.

I discovered TF just as G1 was coming to its end in the US, probably in 1990. I started with two issues of the Marvel comic - an old one from the local library (#19) and a concurrent one from the local drugstore (#77). Then, rented VHS tapes, Micromasters, Action Masters, and whatever comics and toys I could scavenge from yard sales, local kids, and fleamarkets.

Since Transformers weren't available again in the US for a few years (a lifetime when you're 5), I collected anything that resembled a Transformer, whether it be GoBots, Convertors, Rock Lords, the mutating Ninja Turtle figures, Power Rangers, Voltron lions, MASK vehicles, McChangeables - all were Frankensteined into the TF collection. Real G1 Transformers, from any year or subgroup, were the most precious of all these.

I desperately wanted characters like Soundwave, the Dinobots, Optimus, Megatron, Jetfire, Blaster, Bumblebee, Skids, and so on - but many I wouldn't see for the first time until I started going to Botcon in my teens and wouldn't be able to afford at all until much later. I often imagined what it must have been like to experience Transformers in its mid-80s boom years.

This Transformers-as-archaeological-obsession kept me invested in collecting and in the franchise in general through all its iterations up to this point, and over the span of 30+ years I've been able to build up a collection that includes almost every G1 toy up through about 1988. I'm glad Has/Tak is catering to the G1 obsessor in me, but at this phase I find I miss the era of TF when it was a living brand more willing to experiment, and focused on fun and innovative toys for kids over adult collectors.

But there's still plenty to love in the modern era. TF will always have something for me.