The feminine but undeniably powerful Autobot Arcee, who could transform into a pink sports car.
For the first few years of its existence Transformers was strictly an all-male universe. By universe, I mean the line of toys, comics and cartoons in the US; there may have been some distaff members in the Japanese lines, which are traditionally more accepting of females in action roles. It was not until the mid-1980s that a female character, Nightbird, was featured in the cartoon. ** Appropriately for the gender roles of the time, she was a Decepticon. (Shades of Mata Hari?)
Shortly after this, a heroic female Autobot, Arcee, was introduced who could transform into a cool pink sports car. Unfortunately, she never became a main character in the cartoon or comic and didn’t even get her own action figure until years later. Think of the opportunity the toy manufacturers fumbled marketing a line of kick-ass, but feminine, robot dolls to girls.
It took decades for female Transformers to come to prominence. In recent years, Windblade, Chroma, and Codexa are receiving adventures of their own alongside the botboys.
In some alternate universe, female Transformers were there from the beginning and had their own toy line. Here’s some randomgenned names for them.
Female Transformers
| Ballista
Cosmina Dreamblade Enertrix Galaxica Prim Galveartha Globella Hydrawelda Mechasong Metalily Miss Altitude Motorflame Planetaria Plasmeena Pneumawave Raptura |
Quarkspark
Motortrix Novaspar Novasynth Paraflyer Scorpiana Spinnera Steelpink Synthetrine Thermobow Toasterette Torqua Toxina Transparkle Vectostar Vitalina |
** In the French version of the first Transformers cartoon, several male characters, including Starscream, were changed to females for unknown reasons.
