Why are you a Transformers fan?

[Golden Phoenix]

My wife still loves the fact that she can walk into my Transformers room, point randomly at any toy and I can give her a background story on that character. Even though she's in no way a Transformer fan, she appreciates (and is still amazed at) how every figure has a story behind it.

That is one of the things I like about it. Just how comprehensive it can be.
It is like the Star Wars fiction, basically every character seen has some sort of back story.

[Geminii]

The toys, for me. I collected (probably "accumulated" would be more accurate) Machine Men back in the early 80s, and then moved on to Transformers when they came out. The cartoon was cool to watch on Saturday mornings, but the two never really occupied the same headspace.

There must have been some connection, though, as I almost never collected toys whose corresponding characters had a lot of screen time. Maybe I just preferred things that had a couple of surprises left.

These days I follow the cartoons a little more, but I still tend to collect stuff that I can't immediately grok just by seeing pictures of the toy. If the transformation is blindingly obvious, I'm less likely to pick something up.

[SilverDragon]

I've got it!

It's probably the toys and the fiction for me.

The toys are honestly amazing. They're two/three-plus toys in one, meaning that you can do anything with them. You can smash stuff with a tank and then make a giant robot stomp over the ruins without having to run back and get another toy. They're like a Rubik's cube, too, only solvable.

I like seeing what stories they can tell with the characters, and often they're amazing (Beast Wars and Animated spring to mind), and they're imaginative. Plus, how can you not love the fact that your favourite characters are guaranteed to have toy versions?