Jim Shooters original treatment for The Transformers Part 1
Fans of The Transformers often cite Bob Budiansky as the founder of Transformers lore. He was the main writer for the US Marvel comic, but more importantly he conceived the names and descriptions for most of the original Transformer’s characters. Bob Budiansky, however, is not the focus for this first foray into understanding how The Transformers concept came about. Instead, the focus is on editor-in-chief of Marvel, Jim Shooter.
Jim Shooter is important. He wrote the original treatment for the Transformers, naming their homeworld as Cybertron and providing a reason for the Autobot-Decepticon war. Simply put, Shooter created the fictional world in which the Transformers franchise would thrive. Now, there is a long story for why the editor-in-chief decided to take it upon himself to write the treatment for free, which I shall recount here, but first a quick bit of background.
Who is Jim Shooter?
In the early 1980s, Shooter was helping to transform Marvel into a pop culture force. He had started his career with DC in the 1960s, but that just hadn’t paid much money. Instead, he began to focus on an alternative career at NYU. Then he met Stan Lee. Lee offered Shooter a full-time post at Marvel. At first that didn’t pay much either, so he left, only to return in the early 70s’…
