For a snippet of the full piece, which you can read in full here, head below. To go over some thoughts on the last 30 years of printed Transformers fiction, head back to two years ago and our editorial here. What is your Transformers story? Do you have inspirational characters or moments from the franchise's history? Feel free to share if you do!
I first encountered Optimus while scanning afternoon cartoons on the four local channels on our television. It was the mid-1980s and cable was a luxury that few in my neighborhood could afford. I easily dismissed My Little Pony, Care Bears, and G.I. Joe—the standard menu for after-school programming then—once I came upon futuristic robots that shapeshifted on will. There was so much about the idea of being someone other than the person everyone saw that appealed to my nascent sense of wonder.
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I imagined Optimus Prime reaching out to me, reminding me that I carried the All Spark inside me as I faced off against older junior-high-school boys who pressured me; when I sat through puzzling standardized tests that asked indecipherable questions; when a high-school guidance counselor told me I wasn’t good enough to attend a prestigious college after I’d been accepted. During those times, and countless more, believing I possessed some of the strength and power of Optimus helped me persevere when the odds seemed insurmountable.
