The franchise began in 1984 with the Transformers toy line, comprising transforming mecha toys from Takara's Diaclone and Micro Change toylines rebranded for Western markets. The term "Generation 1" (G1) covers the animated television series The Transformers and the comic book series of the same name, further divided into Japanese, British, and Canadian spin-offs. Sequels followed, such as the Generation 2 comic book and Beast Wars TV series, which became its own mini-universe. Generation 1 characters have been rebooted multiple times in the 21st century in comics from Dreamwave Productions (starting 2001), IDW Publishing (starting in 2005 and again in 2019), and Skybound Entertainment (beginning in 2023). There have been other incarnations of the story based on different toy lines during and after the 20th century. The first was the Robots in Disguise series, followed by three shows (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron) constituting a single universe called the "Unicron Trilogy".