Transformers did not begin as an American empire of heroes, villains, cartoons, comics, movies, and billion-dollar nostalgia. It began with clever Japanese toys, corporate timing, and the strange magic of machines that could hide a robot inside a truck, jet, cassette player, or pistol.Hasbro saw more than plastic and metal. With Marvel’s help, those imported mechanisms became Optimus Prime, Megatron, Autobots, Decepticons, Cybertron, Energon, and a war that somehow made children ca...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should have disappeared as quickly as the late-night doodle that created them. Instead, four absurd words became one of the strangest success stories in pop culture history.Behind the pizza jokes and catchphrases was a gritty black-and-white comic born from parody, borrowed money, and two artists who had no idea they were holding a franchise in their hands. What started as a violent underground oddity soon found itself pulled toward television, toy aisl...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles should have disappeared as quickly as the late-night doodle that created them. Instead, four absurd words became one of the strangest success stories in pop culture history.Behind the pizza jokes and catchphrases was a gritty black-and-white comic born from parody, borrowed money, and two artists who had no idea they were holding a franchise in their hands. What started as a violent underground oddity soon found itself pulled toward television, toy aisl...

In 1984, a freelance comic book editor sat down over a single weekend and invented the mythology behind what would become one of the most valuable entertainment franchises in history. The robots had already been built in Japanese factories. What they lacked were names, souls, and a war worth fighting. The gap between the modesty of those origins and the empire that followed defies easy explanation.Two years later, a corporate boardroom decision to kill the franchise's most iconic c...