Toyless Toyline Character / Transformers

Due to being a Long Runner that spans multiple different mediums outside of just toys, it should come as no surprise that Transformers has had quite the share of characters who have not been made into toys.

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Examples:

General

• As the focus of the franchise is primarily on conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons, human characters rarely if ever get figures. The only notable exceptions are G1 (primarily The Headmasters, Masterforce which is a Human-Focused Adaptation, and the Masterpiece line) the live action film series, the Aligned Continuity (primarily Prime and Rescue Bots and its sequel) and Transformers: EarthSpark.
• Due to being the progenitors of the Transformer race, and as such are often Posthumous Characters, the Thirteen Primes barely even get toys. They did get “Prime Masters” as part of the Power of the Primes toyline, but those are merely smaller bots that carry their power rather than actual representations of the characters. The exceptions include:
  • The Fallen is usually the biggest aversion this trope among the Thirteen, having been the Big Bad of the second live action film, the first season of RID 2015, and the Prime Wars Trilogy. His design in the last one (which also appears in Forged to Fight) has never been made into a toy, though. Meanwhile, his IDW iteration, which also has not received a dedicated toy, is patterned after live action Megatron.
  • Alpha Trion, despite being another recurring member of the Thirteen, usually does not get toys, though compared to his brethren he does get a few such as in Titans Return and Cyberverse.
  • Alchemist Prime did get a toy in Cyberverse. Specifically, he turns out to be Maccadam, who was a buildable figure one could make from bonus parts found in the first wave of Deluxe class figures.
  • Like most of his brethren, Onyx Prime does not have any toys. The exception to this is his IDW iteration, who turns out to be a temporally displaced Shockwave.
  • Vector Prime is an interesting inversion, in that his toys appeared far before he was ever confirmed to be a Prime. His primary incarnation that people know him for first appeared in Transformers: Cybertron, but an in-character QnA column later revealed that in the Generation 1 continuities, he also took the form of a previously-unnamed Autobot that turned into a wristwatch. Said column tended to produce many of its own situations like this, with unnamed or otherwise-random toys or background characters later being linked together or distinguished as separate individuals.
  • Depending on one’s interpretation, the Thirteenth Prime might eclipse the Fallen as the biggest aversion of this trope among the Thirteen, and that is if one considers him to be Optimus Prime.
• Due to their Non-Standard Character Design and being Starfish Aliens, the Quintessons rarely get toys, though this is somewhat averted in later toylines.

Generation 1

• The Transformers (Marvel) had several noticeable examples of characters who did not have any toys, such as Scrounge, Blaster's unfortunate little buddy from issue #17 and Jhiaxus, a major villain from the Transformers: Generation 2 comics^note who received a couple of toys in later lines, but none that quite resembled his G2 appearance until the Legacy line in 2022, again nearly 30 years after his debut. Emirate Xaaron, from the UK comics and the latter parts of the US Marvel issues, wasn't based on a toy, but is pretty easy to make as he is mostly a gold and orange Megatron without the gun bits. That said, he'd make a lousy toy - he hasn't transformed in so long he theorizes the shock from merely attempting it could kill him! (He would've made a perfect Action Master, though.)
  • One such character, Straxus, got a toy in 2010 as part of the Generations line, well over 20 years after his debut (though it's called Darkmount^note the name of Straxus' fortress in the comics due to a case of Writing Around Trademarks.) Scrounge later finally got his own figure as a retool of Cosmos in the Combiner Wars Computron box set, even though the character had not previously been associated with the Technobots.
  • Impactor, the leader of the Autobot Wreckers introduced in the "Target 2006" storyline, wouldn't get a toy until 2013, another 20+ years wait, and that toy was a Con-exclusive recolor of another toy. It wouldn't be until 2019 that he got a figure that was released for general retail and was an original mold. Fellow comic book only Wrecker Rack'n'Ruin also suffered this fate, perhaps due to being a pair of Conjoined Twins whose design made it hard to come up with a transformation. It would not be until 2020 (34 years later) for any iteration of the character(s) to receive a toy at all (as part of Transformers: Cyberverse, but that is technically a separate iteration so the original G1 version still qualifies). Flame, the rogue Autobot scientist who was the main villain of the "City of Fear" arc, was another toyless character: The name has been used for Autobots in the toyline a couple of times (the first one was in 1991, although it was never released in the US) but neither of them bore any resemblance to the Flame from the comics.
  • Basically, any human not named Spike Witwicky (who got a toy as a Headmaster partner to Fortress Maximus and Cerebros) and any Nebulan who was not binary-bonded to a Transformer would qualify. A few would get Kreons^note minifigures from Hasbro's second attempt to compete with LEGO, Kre-O (the first was Built to Rule a decade earlier) over 20 years after the original comic ended. Still no Circuit Breaker, though, since Marvel snuck her into Secret Wars II to establish their ownership of that character.
  • IDW Publishing has given us several new Cybertronians without toys, such as the Decepticon Justice Division or Aileron. Some characters like Drift, Minimus Ambus, and Rung started out like this, but eventually got toys in the Generations line. Others like Roller^note the prewar police Autobot, not the drone and Nautica get toys, but only as Palette Swaps of existing toys that may or may not be completely accurate (Rook and Blurr respectively, and the former fails to capture Roller's massive size since it is a Deluxe class). Meanwhile, Tarn, the leader of the DJD, has gotten toys, but only non-transforming ones^note which is a bit ironic when in the comics he has a T-Cog addiction and frequently burns his out until 2023, when the Legacy: Evolution line finally introduced a transforming figure of him.
    • A good portion of original character designs in the IDW Comics never get made into toys. For instance, of the main cast of More Than Meets The Eye, only Ultra Magnus, Skids, Swerve, Tailgate, Brainstorm, Rewind and Rung have received toys that represent their appearances in the comic^note while Chromedome also has a design based off the comic, it is modeled after his prewar "Shadowplay" body rather than his current design. The rest either have to make do with semi-accurate transforming designs (the aforementioned Roller and Nautica as well as Getaway), official non-transforming (and heavily stylized) figures or model kits from Flame Toys (the aforementioned Tarn, Rodimus, Megatron, and Star Saber, as well as Optimus Prime), or unofficial third-party designs.
  • Transformers: Timelines liked to get around this by "repurposing" old toys as new characters—i.e. if they want to do a Transformers: Shattered Glass version of Brawn, they just make him look exactly like an old Palette Swap of Energon Strongarm released as a wave-filler for the '07 movie line, so if you want an SG Brawn, you can just pick up Strongarm. That's not to say they didn't create many of these for themselves, usually through characters clearly based on existing molds with a few parts changed (such as the Beast Wars: Uprising version of Grimlock, who is very clearly Generations Springer with a new head and different colors). Most of these seem to have been essentially pitches for possible new toys, though Fun Publications losing their license mean most of those pitches will remain as such forever. They do make for fairly easy custom jobs, though.
• The original The Transformers cartoon had a bunch of characters who would fit the bill:
  • "The Search For Alpha Trion" was a second season episode that introduced Optimus Prime's mentor, Alpha Trion, and girlfriend, Elita One, both recurring characters without toys. Also worth mention from this episode are Firestar, Moonracer and Chromia, all three named fembots that take the spotlight for at least part of the episode.
    • Alpha Trion, Elita One, Chromia, Moonracer and Firestar actually ended up getting exclusive BotCon toys eventually (though Moonracer and Chromia have to share). Chromia later received a mass-released toy in the Thrilling 30 toyline in 2014, Alpha Trion in the Titans Return line in 2016, and Elita One, Moonracer and Firestar (the latter a retool of Moonracer and renamed "Novastar" for trademark reasons) got all figures in the Power of the Primes toyline in 2018. None of Elita One's toys were accurate to her original appearance however, until in 2022 the Legacy toyline released a figure based on her original appearance.
  • Fan favorite Nightbird, a female ninja robot introduced in "Enter the Nightbird." Though she's never seen again after this episode she's not likely to be forgotten any time soon. She was finally given a toy in 2015, which was a redeco and retool of the Arcee action figure that had been released the year before, and got later figures in 2019 (a retool of Siege Chromia) and in 2022 (a Masterpiece figure, an Arcee retool inspired to her original 2015 release).
  • Devcon, from "The Gambler" is also pretty popular, and got a BotCon exclusive figure in 2014. He would eventually receive a mainline release in the Legacy: Evolution toyline in 2023, as a retool of Studio Series Blurr.
  • Deceptitran, the primary antagonist in "Sea Change".
  • Transformers: The Movie:
    • Arcee, the Affirmative Action Girl, who would stay for the rest of the cartoon's run and remained one of the primary main characters despite not having an equivalent toy. Though both Animated and Prime had characters of the same name who did have their own toys.^note There were in fact several times they started to make one but it never got past the drawing board. Also, a Beast Wars Arcee was made as a BotCon exclusive and said to be the same character as G1 Arcee. 2014's Generations line did, however, produce an Arcee toy more faithful to her pink car G1 self, with other ones coming out in the successive years.
    • Wreck-Gar, the Junkion leader, was the only Junkion to have a toy in the original toyline. This was fixed in later toylines, where other Junkions (such as Scrapheap or Junkheap) were released as Wreck-Gar retools.
    • The Quintessons did not have a toy for a long time until War for Cybertron: Earthrise. Technologies like the exo-suit and Megatron's laser sword were not represented in toys for years, until the Masterpiece line gave Megatron the laser sword as an accessory and also had Bumblebee coming with a figure of either Spike or Daniel^note The figure's small human head is clearly molded to be Daniel, but both the Japanese and American releases mark the character as Spike on their respective box blurbs in his exo-suit.
    • The Big Bad of the film, Unicron, a giant robot that transforms into a planet-eating planet, had his toy trapped in Development Hell. And perhaps luckily so, considering how little the prototype resembled the character. Despite this, he remained a recurring villain in the next season, and his head still orbited Cybertron as a Continuity Nod. Multiple toys of the big guy were attempted over the years, with the first successful one being the big-ticket item for Transformers: Armada. However, a G1-accurate Unicron toy would not be made until 2021 as an exclusive HasLab item for the War for Cybertron Trilogy.
  • "Forever Is a Long Time Coming" gave us Beta.
  • Carly, Daniel, and Sparkplug, of course, as well as Spike's younger self.
    • Spike's eventual toy was the head of Cerebros, the head of Fortress Maximus. Younger Spike eventually was released with the redesigned MP-10 version of Masterpiece Optimus Prime, while the MP-22 Ultra Magnus figure came with figures of adult Spike and Daniel, MP-20 Bumblebee came with an Exosuit figure that can be either Spike or Daniel, MP-39 Sunstreaker came with a figure of the wheelchair-bound genius Chip Chase and MP-44 Optimus Prime came with a new version of Spike with better articulation than the one included with the last version (which was also released alongside MP-45 Bumblebee) plus Sparkplug and Carly.
  • Third-party companies have attempted to fill in some of the gaps, though as they aren't licensed by Hasbro or Takara, they're not "official" releases. They also tend to have limited production runs and are sold for premium prices.
• Devil Z, the Big Bad of Masterforce, never received a toy due to his Non-Standard Character Design, though his possession of Black Zarak and his usage of a hidden "Third mode" to give himself a body was a major stopgap solution for those that had a version of him. A good portion of the Japanese G1 characters post Victory, especially villain characters, were hit hard with this trope (as declining sales at the time led Takara to believe that villain characters did not sell well). At the very least, Super Megatron from The Return of Convoy was eventually made into a Generation Selects toy in 2020.

Beast Era

• Beast Wars:
  • Transmutate didn't get a toy until the 10th Anniversary line, when you had to combine bonus parts packaged with other toys. She also got another toy for War for Cybertron: Kingdom, but that one is merely a headswap of Paleotrex and is not as show-accurate. (And yet another one also exists as a subscription-service exclusive, which was a redeco of Prime Arcee and actually represented an alternate universe version of her as a normal-looking Cybertronian)
  • Tigerhawk was forced to be Killed Off for Real after two episodes because they weren't sure they were making the toy (as in, weren't sure they weren't, either... and eventually they did make the toy.)
  • Blackarachnia was one of the first exceptions to the 'no girls' rule, but her toy was Tarantulas's but painted purple. Blackarachnia is yellow and black, and has no purple parts. At all. (Transformers: Animated Blackarachnia is purple, but of course has her own toy.) She got a proper cartoon-accurate rendition in 2015, retooled from the Animated character of the same name.
    • It was a long road for Transformers for the first female toy character to come along. First, again, in 1986 there was Arcee, who was a main character in Transformers: The Movie and season three, and would have been in season four. No toy of her was ever made, though a prototype was. The first actual female Transformer, Freezon (from the Tyco slot car set), wasn't established as female until 2014, and the first Transformer who was explicitly female, Minerva, was a Japanese-exclusive (though her toy was a redeco of Nightbeat, the latter deco made available in Japan via mail order). In 1996 there's Beast Wars, and we get Airazor - whose toy was made first. The decision to make her a "her" came later. She gets an upgraded, obviously-female toy, the first Transformers toy intended as female from the start, but the character never takes on that form in the show. And again, Blackarachnia's original form effectively doesn't get one at all. Finally, in 1999, Blackarachnia gets an upgrade, and that form has a toy. That's 13 years between the first female main character and the first instance of a female character having a toy in her likeness intentionally.
  • The Vok, the mysterious aliens that were the focus of one of the main story arcs. Of course, as floating glowing skull thingies, there's not much about them that demands one.
  • The Beast Wars version of Ravage had a toy, based on Cheetor's second Transmetal form, but it was never released in America. What we got instead were two black repaints of Cheetor's basic form that don't bear even a passing resemblance to Ravage. (Worse, part of Ravage's new design is actually based on one of Cheetor's three forms. The American Ravage toys are based only on the other two forms.) Hasbro was planning on bringing the Japanese Ravage toy to the States as part of the 10th anniversary line for the series, but it fell through because they lost the mold. As a final kick to the balls, this was after they used the mold to make a BotCon-exclusive Transmetals Tigatron figure. It wasn't until 2021 that Hasbro finally released a show-accurate Transmetal Ravage as a Pulse Con exclusive for the War for Cybertron Trilogy.
  • In general, though, Beast Wars inverted this; the vast majority of the toys lacked any representation on the show. Besides Ravage and Transmutate, the only non-main characters with toys to appear on the show are the Tripredacus Council, who looked nothing like their toys in their sole appearance. This is because they couldn't get the models finished before the episodes they appeared in were released; as a result, they were allowed to keep the characters' collective names, but were barred from using their individual names when referring to them.
  • In a bit of What Could Have Been, the toy-only character Wolfang could've been represented in the cartoon in Tigatron's place, but CGI models ain't cheap (which is why BW had such a small cast and high body count). As a result, Tigatron, who is largely based on Cheetor, was given the role originally written for Wolfang.
• Artemis, Navi, and Star Upper from Beast Wars II and Strada, D-Navi, Rage, and Kuma Kinkin from Beast Wars Neo. BWII and Neo actually invert this, being principally made up of characters adapted from toys that had no representation in Beast Wars previously.
  • Artemis almost got her figure as an accessory for the Masterpiece version of Lio Convoy, but was removed due to budget constraints from the final release.
• Beast Machines:
  • Megatron's form at the end of the series. Like Ravage, Slipstream, and Emirate Xaaron, it would have been very easy to make one - it was based on Optimal Optimus, meaning that toy would only have needed a recolor and a new head. There is a smaller Optimal Optimus toy without a beast mode - even better for a Megatron makeover, as Megatron had gone anti-organic in Beast Machines and would have left out the beast mode.
  • Botanica is one of very few main cast members in a Transformers series who was created without the intention for a toy to be made.
  • The Diagnostic Drone also qualifies.

Unicron Trilogy

• From Transformers: Energon there's Padlock. Of course, he exists just long enough to get shot in the back by Shockwave, thus spurring Wing Saber to seek revenge. Debatably, there's also Wing Dagger, but he is quickly reformatted into Wing Saber, who did get a toy.
  • Though for once the human companion Kicker did get a toy, as did non-Transformer villain Alpha Q. (Who was for that mater the first figure depicting a Quintesson of any kind)
• Transformers: Cybertron has an incredibly infamous one in Signal Lancer, an Autobot whose altmode is a traffic light who appears in, is named in, and even has a Transformation Sequence in the final episode. Even though the aforementioned sequence clearly shows that he was actually designed as a retool of Mudflap, a different character in the toyline, he never got a toy.

Live-Action Film Series

• Alice from Revenge of The Fallen.
• In Dark of the Moon, Mirage only has a die-cast, non-transforming car toy (because Mattel held the rights to Ferrari - said robot's alternate mode - toys at the time of the film's release, which was also the reason why he's called Dino in the film) and a miniature Cyberverse figure; sadly, the latter's only a repaint of Sideways from Revenge of The Fallen and looks nothing like Mirage in either mode. He later got an actual Deluxe class toy in the Age of Extinction toyline, but he was released only in Japan and is a retool of Sideways (similar to the Cyberverse figure mentioned above). This time, though, he sort of looks like Mirage in robot mode. It would take until 2021, a full decade after the film's release, for him to finally get a proper, non-retool Deluxe class figure as part of the Studio Series line. His TFWiki.net page lampshades this with each of the image captions for his toys starting with the phrase "Be thankful (that he got x)".
• It's strange to think how often this happens with the movie characters, seeing as when the first film came out, almost every vehicle that had appeared in it received an actual, transforming robot figure. And there were plenty of toys that weren't even based on anything that appeared in fiction at all. Yet many unimportant or background characters, such as the ancient Primes, the garbage truck Decepticon, and numerous other Decepticon soldiers never got any toys even in the expanded toy-lines.
• The tie-in comics by IDW Publishing introduce a few original characters (or versions of characters from other continuities) that did not get made into toys, such as Prowl, Cosmos, Flatline, and Astrotrain. There are even instances of characters that appeared in the comic who were supposed to get toys but ultimately had theirs cancelled, such as Gunbarrel and Reverb.
• Several Decepticons in The Last Knight were omitted from the toyline, such as Mohawk and Onslaught (though the latter reuses Long Haul's body). On the good side, there’s Canopy and Daytrader. Mohawk would eventually get a figure in 2024 as part of the Studio Series.

Animated

• In general, due to the show being an example of Running the Asylum and thus being Reference Overdosed with nods to all different corners of the franchise, the show is laden with cameos from many different characters. This became a lot more pronounced in the third season, which had more scenes that took place outside of Earth. The AllSpark Almanacs not only flesh out these characters, but also introduce new designs. Of course, being background characters, many of them didn't get toys at general retail (barring a few exceptions, such as Rodimus, Oil Slick, and Blackout^note and the last one wasn't even released in the US). A few characters who appear in BotCon comics, such as the Stunticons, Minerva, and Fisitron, did get exclusive toys, but others, such as the Headmaster Juniors, did not.
• Omega Supreme — very badass, very important, with plenty of screentime — never got a toy despite much fan begging. Especially astonishing given the Tigerhawk situation: The toy company has infinitely more control than the writers with every incarnation of TF, and saying "Screw the arc you had planned, vaporize your important character because we're only pretty sure we're making a toy" is in fact not the worst thing they've inflicted on a series or comic. A toyless character being allowed as much screen time as Omega got is perhaps unprecedented.
• The Constructicons (Mixmaster, Scrapper, and later Dirt Boss). The episodes Rise of the Constructicons and Sari, No One's Home were even Japanese DVD release exclusives simply due to this fact. That said, the episode Three's a Crowd was properly aired on Japanese TV (probably because the other episodes with the Constructicons were aired in Japan) and Mixmaster made two cameos in The Cool manga. It's believed that they were intended to be released during Season 4, since they were planned to form Devastator for the first time there, but no prototypes have ever resurfaced.
• While most of the Starscream clones received toys eventually (see below concerning Slipstream), Thrust did not, as he was only appears in The AllSpark Almanac II, in a scene made so his partner Dirge would no longer be a Toyline-Exclusive Character.
• Slipstream is a complicated subversion. She would have required a slightly different mold than the other Starscream clones, so she wasn't part of the Animated toyline. However, the Transformers Legends toyline includes a Slipstream and the related comics portray her as the same individual displaced into another dimension.
• There are also a few characters who were meant to get toys but ultimately had their toys unreleased (Thundercracker - specifically his Voyager Class figure) or not make it past the prototype stage (Hot Shot).
  • This trope is also indirectly lampshaded by Thrust, the Starscream clone who according to The AllSpark Almanac II personifies his envy. His envy makes much more sense when one considers out of all of the Seekers and Coneheads he was the only one to never receive any toy in any size class at all in the Animated toyline.
• Sari, despite being a Transformer, never received a toy.

Aligned Universe

• Transformers: Prime managed to dodge this for the most part, releasing figures for most of the robots and even a few of the human characters. The only named Transformers who never got a toy are Makeshift and Alpha Trion (the former spent most of his time disguised as Wheeljack (who did get released as a toy) and the latter is a frequent example of this trope in most iterations of the franchise). However, some, most infamously Breakdown and Hardshell, only saw release as smaller "Cyberverse" figures.
  • A Voyager-sized Breakdown does exist... in Japan. The mold couldn't be brought over to the states for cost reasons, leaving the only option for those who want a "proper" Breakdown to import the figure. In 2020 (to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Prime), Hasbro finally released the Voyager Breakdown (alongside his fellow exclusive the Jet Vehicon) on Hasbro Pulse. No such luck for Hardshell either way.
  • Ditto for Unicron, who only received a toy in the Japanese Toyline (presumably not brought over for cost reasons as with Breakdown), which also included a interesting feature where the toy can Transform into "Gaia Armor" to be used by the toys of Optimus and Megatron.
  • That being said, the reverse case was prominent for many characters, mainly Flamewar, Fallback, Ironhide, Hot Shot, Kup, Dead End, Rumble, Bluestreak, Huffer, Trailcutter, Prowl, new character Thundertron, and every Predacon that isn't Predaking, Sky Lynx, or Darksteel.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015) gets hit with this very hard: out of all the Monster of the Week Decepticons seen in the show, only a third of them got figures, with tons of characters getting either no toy or being represented only as non-transforming blindbag minifigures. One of the most important characters with no toy was Glowstrike. It's also the same in the reverse situation, as full-sized characters such as Bludgeon, Stormshot and Twinferno, and a large portion of the toyline's minicons, never made on-screen appearances.

Other

• Transformers Kre-O includes several background characters based on Transformers who weren't released as Kreons. Two cases frequent enough to qualify for this trope are Sideways and Thrustinator^note though there is a Waspinator Kreon that was released as a blind bag figure.
• Other Japanese web and pack-in manga from later years indulged a lot into showing certain characters designed as hypothetical redecoes and retools of existing molds from the then current toylines. Examples include a redeco of Titans Return Fortress Maximus as his namesake from Transformers: Robots in Disguise, the Autobot Targetmasters as retools of Titans Return Hot Rod (Pointblank), Kup (Crosshairs) and Trypticon's partner Full-Tilt (Sureshot) or a Bludgeon made from Titans Return Hardhead with Titans Return Breakaway's Titan Master and Robots in Disguise (2015) Windblade's sword and hilt.

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