Chris Suellentrop writes an article about the history of the Transformers franchise for Wired. It’s got some interesting tidbits I was surprised I hadn’t heard before, as well as an interesting take on how the action figures changed play as we know it. And, for what it’s worth, this article aligns itself somewhat with Geek Monthly in placing the birth of geekdom (here, “the dawn of the modern Nerd Era”) squarely in the rise of sci-fi media merchandising.