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scans_dailyIn 2008 IDW's Transformers introduced a new version of the character Arcee. This take was....questionable, but overtime various retcons were applied to it.
So first some backstory to put what follows into context.
Transformers as I imagine you're probably aware of is a "Boys Toys" franchise, and the people in charge of running it for many years been convinced that girls aren't interested in eithier cool robots or cool vehicles. So why bother making toys for them?
With no toys to promote, there was no reason to include them in any media.Now there were two main pieces of Transformers media in the 80's the cartoon and the comic.
Writer Ron Friedman lobbied to include Arcee in Transformers:The Movie, because "I said I had a daughter who loves this stuff. There are other girls that like it. Put in a female Autobot!". This seems to have lead to the inclusion of a group of female Autobots who appeared in the cartoon episode The Search For Alpha Trion. So in the cartoon female Transformers existed, and it wasn't explained, nor did it need to be.
Meanwhile the US version of the Marvel never introduced any female Transformers, with #53 saying that Transformers were genderless beings.
If you've wondering why they refer to each other as "he" and "him" according to the letters page,it was
"a convention the Transformers probably picked up from hanging around Earthlings too long."
The UK version of the comic written by Simon Furman(which reprinted US material and had its own stories),ran into a problem with this, as they had a cast of characters from twenty years in the future, based on the cast of Transformers: The Movie. If they were genderless what was the deal with Arcee?
Well according to #234 of the UK comic, Arcee had been built by Optimus Prime to appease angry feminists who were upset that the Transformers were all men.
yeaaahhh
So since then pretty much all pieces of Transformers media have adopted the cartoons approach, and typically had at least one female Autobot and Decepticon in the cast. With them being presented as something that exists, but doesn't need explaining just like real life.
The main exception is the IDW comics universe. Initially it was primarily written by Furman, and continued the trend of the Marvel comic as viewing Transformers as genderless. Specifically Furman has said that he doesn't see why robots would have women. (Of course these genderless beings were really more of a single-gender race of men, and its an odd thing to focus on when you consider the other outlandish things in this franchise).
So in 2008 came Spotlight: Arcee where he explained this version of Arcee's origin.
In this version Arcee was depicted as a psychotic warrior, who was dedicated to destroying everything the ancient Cybertronian Jhiaxus had created. Arcee was captured by the Autobots after rampaging throughout the universe. For reference sake Jhiaxus disappeared six million years ago, and later stories will establish Arcee as being around 12 million years old.
So to clarify Arcee was forcible turned female and is traumatized by the change. Yeeah.
Under Furman Arcee's story ended with her catching up with Jhiaxus, and continuously killing him, as they were at the borders of the Dead Universe, a parallel dimension which restored Jhiaxus after he had been previously exposed to it.
After Furman stopped writing the main IDW Transformers comics in 2008, this backstory was understandably ignored by a lot of writers, though no further female Trnsformers were introduced during this time. It was also actually a retcon because Megatron Origin (published 2007), set on pre-war Cybertron had featured several minor female Transformers.
Though this comic was originally intended to be published by Dreamwave comics, but was changed to IDW after that company went bankrupt.
Anyway the first big change to the idea of no "naturally female Transformers" came in 2014 during the Dark Cybertron event.
This introduced a version of the cartoon character Chromia, Windblade a character designed via fan-poll with her comic appearance promoting her toy, and Nautica.
They were initially presented as members of the long lost colony world of Cybertron, where female Transformers had evolved to co-exist alongside their male counterparts. (In More Than Meets The Eye #31 Nautica was originally listed as having an "estriol-positive" spark named after a sex hormone, which indicated that a Transformers spark (essentially the soul/ animating life force of a Transformer) was responsible for gender. Writer James Robert realizing the potentially offensive connotations of this, and viewing it as a lazy explanation, had it edited out of the trade version, with later comics by him declaring this spark type as being discredited in universe.)
At this point I need to explain a concept that rose to prominence in Transformers media from 2010 to 2013, The Thirteen. These were the thirteen original Transformers, who were created by the god Primus,with each one representing a thirteenth of Cybertrons population. This included Solous Prime the first female Transformers, who forged many powerful weapons and artifacts.
The IDW version was different. In this case Cybertron had fallen into a barbaric dark age, and each of the Thirteen was the leader of a separate tribe, who together had united the planet 10 million years ago. This also included Solous Prime, who had founded the colony of Caminus.
So "natural" female Transformers existed on Cybertron? It is at this stage we get the first notable change to Arcee's backstory.
In Robots In Disguise/ The Transformers Volume 2 #37, Arcee is in a fight with fellow ancient Transformer Galvatron.
So by 2015 Jhiaxus' experiment had been retconed to be an attempt to reintroduce gender,after all the female Transformers died out on Cybertron (which is never fully explained). Following this a lot more prominent female Transformers were introduced. This still leaves the unpleasant aspects of Arcee's backstory intact.
2016's Sins of the Wreckers #3, provided the first view of how Acree's backstory would be treated going forwards. As a previous post has already covered this comic I will transcribe the relevant dialogue. Here several characters including Arcee are captured, and hooked up to a device that forced individuals to confess their feelings of guilty.
"My fault I let him do that to me...My fault for following him, for not seeing what he is".
This seemed to indicate that Arcee had actually initially followed Jhiaxus, not realizing that he was actually an amoral, scientist, who ended up using Arcee as a test subject.
Counting this a conversation in RID/Transformer V2 #52 had Galvatron refer to Jhiaxus as an "ally" of Arcee, with Arcee stating that she is as she should be.
The next notable mention of this came in Optimus Prime #5 where Arcee narrates about the nature of change, self-deception and misplaced faith.
So by this stage they writers were pretty heavily implying that Arcee had come to terms with her experience, suggesting either that she hadn't identified herself as male before Jhiaxus had experimented on her, or was now able to properly process and work out her gender identity in hindsight.
At this stage in Lost Light was also exploring transgender Transformers, with the introduction of Autobots Lug and Anode. They when serving offworld had encountered organic species, and reclassifyied themselves to better suit themselves.
So I guess that explains those women in Megatron Origin.
The final and most explicit description of Acree's identity came in Optimus Prime #25 the final installment of IDWs Transformers universe. This scene was written with input by transgendered fan Jenevieve Frank.
So ultimately Arcee had willingly agreed to the procedure, but it was Jhaxius' treatment of her rather than the process itself,which caused the issue.
So ultimately after a bunch of retcons, we end up with something not awful.
So first some backstory to put what follows into context.
Transformers as I imagine you're probably aware of is a "Boys Toys" franchise, and the people in charge of running it for many years been convinced that girls aren't interested in eithier cool robots or cool vehicles. So why bother making toys for them?
With no toys to promote, there was no reason to include them in any media.Now there were two main pieces of Transformers media in the 80's the cartoon and the comic.
Writer Ron Friedman lobbied to include Arcee in Transformers:The Movie, because "I said I had a daughter who loves this stuff. There are other girls that like it. Put in a female Autobot!". This seems to have lead to the inclusion of a group of female Autobots who appeared in the cartoon episode The Search For Alpha Trion. So in the cartoon female Transformers existed, and it wasn't explained, nor did it need to be.
Meanwhile the US version of the Marvel never introduced any female Transformers, with #53 saying that Transformers were genderless beings.
If you've wondering why they refer to each other as "he" and "him" according to the letters page,it was
"a convention the Transformers probably picked up from hanging around Earthlings too long."
The UK version of the comic written by Simon Furman(which reprinted US material and had its own stories),ran into a problem with this, as they had a cast of characters from twenty years in the future, based on the cast of Transformers: The Movie. If they were genderless what was the deal with Arcee?
Well according to #234 of the UK comic, Arcee had been built by Optimus Prime to appease angry feminists who were upset that the Transformers were all men.
yeaaahhh
So since then pretty much all pieces of Transformers media have adopted the cartoons approach, and typically had at least one female Autobot and Decepticon in the cast. With them being presented as something that exists, but doesn't need explaining just like real life.
The main exception is the IDW comics universe. Initially it was primarily written by Furman, and continued the trend of the Marvel comic as viewing Transformers as genderless. Specifically Furman has said that he doesn't see why robots would have women. (Of course these genderless beings were really more of a single-gender race of men, and its an odd thing to focus on when you consider the other outlandish things in this franchise).
So in 2008 came Spotlight: Arcee where he explained this version of Arcee's origin.
In this version Arcee was depicted as a psychotic warrior, who was dedicated to destroying everything the ancient Cybertronian Jhiaxus had created. Arcee was captured by the Autobots after rampaging throughout the universe. For reference sake Jhiaxus disappeared six million years ago, and later stories will establish Arcee as being around 12 million years old.
So to clarify Arcee was forcible turned female and is traumatized by the change. Yeeah.
Under Furman Arcee's story ended with her catching up with Jhiaxus, and continuously killing him, as they were at the borders of the Dead Universe, a parallel dimension which restored Jhiaxus after he had been previously exposed to it.
After Furman stopped writing the main IDW Transformers comics in 2008, this backstory was understandably ignored by a lot of writers, though no further female Trnsformers were introduced during this time. It was also actually a retcon because Megatron Origin (published 2007), set on pre-war Cybertron had featured several minor female Transformers.
Though this comic was originally intended to be published by Dreamwave comics, but was changed to IDW after that company went bankrupt.
Anyway the first big change to the idea of no "naturally female Transformers" came in 2014 during the Dark Cybertron event.
This introduced a version of the cartoon character Chromia, Windblade a character designed via fan-poll with her comic appearance promoting her toy, and Nautica.
They were initially presented as members of the long lost colony world of Cybertron, where female Transformers had evolved to co-exist alongside their male counterparts. (In More Than Meets The Eye #31 Nautica was originally listed as having an "estriol-positive" spark named after a sex hormone, which indicated that a Transformers spark (essentially the soul/ animating life force of a Transformer) was responsible for gender. Writer James Robert realizing the potentially offensive connotations of this, and viewing it as a lazy explanation, had it edited out of the trade version, with later comics by him declaring this spark type as being discredited in universe.)
At this point I need to explain a concept that rose to prominence in Transformers media from 2010 to 2013, The Thirteen. These were the thirteen original Transformers, who were created by the god Primus,with each one representing a thirteenth of Cybertrons population. This included Solous Prime the first female Transformers, who forged many powerful weapons and artifacts.
The IDW version was different. In this case Cybertron had fallen into a barbaric dark age, and each of the Thirteen was the leader of a separate tribe, who together had united the planet 10 million years ago. This also included Solous Prime, who had founded the colony of Caminus.
So "natural" female Transformers existed on Cybertron? It is at this stage we get the first notable change to Arcee's backstory.
In Robots In Disguise/ The Transformers Volume 2 #37, Arcee is in a fight with fellow ancient Transformer Galvatron.
So by 2015 Jhiaxus' experiment had been retconed to be an attempt to reintroduce gender,after all the female Transformers died out on Cybertron (which is never fully explained). Following this a lot more prominent female Transformers were introduced. This still leaves the unpleasant aspects of Arcee's backstory intact.
2016's Sins of the Wreckers #3, provided the first view of how Acree's backstory would be treated going forwards. As a previous post has already covered this comic I will transcribe the relevant dialogue. Here several characters including Arcee are captured, and hooked up to a device that forced individuals to confess their feelings of guilty.
"My fault I let him do that to me...My fault for following him, for not seeing what he is".
This seemed to indicate that Arcee had actually initially followed Jhiaxus, not realizing that he was actually an amoral, scientist, who ended up using Arcee as a test subject.
Counting this a conversation in RID/Transformer V2 #52 had Galvatron refer to Jhiaxus as an "ally" of Arcee, with Arcee stating that she is as she should be.
The next notable mention of this came in Optimus Prime #5 where Arcee narrates about the nature of change, self-deception and misplaced faith.
So by this stage they writers were pretty heavily implying that Arcee had come to terms with her experience, suggesting either that she hadn't identified herself as male before Jhiaxus had experimented on her, or was now able to properly process and work out her gender identity in hindsight.
At this stage in Lost Light was also exploring transgender Transformers, with the introduction of Autobots Lug and Anode. They when serving offworld had encountered organic species, and reclassifyied themselves to better suit themselves.
So I guess that explains those women in Megatron Origin.
The final and most explicit description of Acree's identity came in Optimus Prime #25 the final installment of IDWs Transformers universe. This scene was written with input by transgendered fan Jenevieve Frank.
So ultimately Arcee had willingly agreed to the procedure, but it was Jhaxius' treatment of her rather than the process itself,which caused the issue.
So ultimately after a bunch of retcons, we end up with something not awful.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 10:21 am (UTC)There's wisdom in that.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 10:39 am (UTC)Too bad we'll never get to see her and Anode interact in the present.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 05:10 pm (UTC)Any bumblebee comics you see are just movie-tie-ins, not the reboot.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 06:07 pm (UTC)http://www.idwpublishing.com/idw-relaunches-transformers-comics/
"In this new Transformers comic, IDW will explore Cybertron in ways never seen by audiences before – delving into an idyllic society, peaceful for thousands of years, as it faces the most momentous event in its history: the mysterious end of a single life. Through the eyes of young Bumblebee and his friends, fans will witness conspiracies forming, harmony giving way to conflict, and the very fabric of Cybertronian civilization tearing itself apart."
(Emphasis mine)
no subject
Date: 2019-01-01 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 10:57 am (UTC)As for what originally happened to gender on Cybertron, I strongly suspect the proto-functionists had something to do it. Gender is the sort of concepts those assholes would put effort into burning away.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-05 09:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-06 12:28 pm (UTC)Eh, to this day I bounce back and forth with the terminology. Usually while trying to figure out how to refer to myself. :)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 12:53 pm (UTC)After a bunch of retcons we almost got something as good as the original 1980s version of the origin story. I think this charts more the way people (men) were uncomfortable with women just existing, than it does the character of Arcee. I mean, yeah the pink and the robot-princess Leia hair/head design was not necessarily that great, but the cartoon just saying there are female transformers and it needs no explanation is still the best. And that is something we all need to sit down and have a long hard think about.
I love Anode and Lug though, with their message of trans-women are women and trans women need no excuse for existing either, and it is a crying shame were not getting a Spotlight or an ongoing spin off with them. Dammit, Hasbro.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 12:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-29 05:13 pm (UTC)I think Arcee is the *only* major transgender lead character of a major comic line, or at least that I can think of.
I also like that she was a barbarian warlord first, that's kinda cool.
Transformers? More like TRANSformers, amirite? Aren't I original
Date: 2018-12-29 01:47 pm (UTC)Re: Transformers? More like TRANSformers, amirite? Aren't I original
Date: 2018-12-29 07:29 pm (UTC)Re: Transformers? More like TRANSformers, amirite? Aren't I original
Date: 2018-12-29 11:16 pm (UTC)Re: Transformers? More like TRANSformers, amirite? Aren't I original
Date: 2021-04-05 09:32 am (UTC)To be SLIGHTLY fair, ROTF was made during the Writer’s Strike (and that really shows)
Date: 2021-04-05 10:19 am (UTC)At least Quintessa was kind of cool.