Kmart

Attention shoppers, we're having a blue light special on Mini-Con box sets, cereal that expired a decade ago, and sweaters stained with rat urine.

Kmart is/was a discount department store chain based in the United States, with branches in several other countries. During the 1980s, it was one of the biggest and most successful store chains in the United States. Currently, it (along with sister chain Sears) are functionally dead, having been surpassed by competitors like Walmart and Target, and repeatedly kneecapped by a CEO who appears to be bats*** crazy, resulting in them having closed almost every one of their stores in the US.

Over the years, they have carried a few exclusive Transformers toys, in addition to the regular mass retail releases.

There is also an Australian Kmart store chain that has officially no connection to the US Kmart company except the name (the American company once held a stake in the company but now merely licenses its name to the company). This branch has also carried their own Transformers exclusives.

Kmart exclusive toys (United States market)

The Transformers

Legends Starscream

Kmart has the distinction of carrying the very first Transformers exclusives, for the original The Transformers toyline. These "Legends" toys are individually-carded versions of the Classic Pretender inner robots, minus their shells and shell-accessories. They're otherwise identical to those releases, save swapped guns for Bumblebee and Jazz. They also come with the same sticker sheets as the larger versions, which is interesting in the cases where there are stickers meant for the shell....

Armada

The only differently-colored toy in a very expensive set, but what a difference.

Kmart's Armada exclusive was an absolutely massive box set of toys, with a single toy in a new deco, which might be the ultimate iteration of "just different enough to make you mad". On top of that, while other toys in the set are labeled as the "powered up" versions of the characters, their decos/molds are the same as the originals. Whoops.

They also got a variety of "bonus pack" multipacks, just normal retail figures in normal retail packaging in a plastic sleeve binding them together... for not much less than the individual items cost.

Energon

Checkpoint, a blue-and-red-light special

The Energon offering added a new two-bot theme team to the Autobot ranks.

Universe (2003)

Oil Slick

For the 2003 Universe line, Kmart got one of several Ultra-Class two-packs of Deluxes, two molds with slight shifts in their color palette from other toys in the line as new characters.

Transformers (2007)

Kmart's offerings for the 2007 movie toyline were... exceptionally light. And exceptionally forgettable, being an unchanged statue packed with a comic that was released in shops. The comic had an exclusive cover, but still, just a comic.

Universe (2008)

Mini-Con Class 12-Pack. Delicious.

For the 2008 Universe line, Kmart went all in on Mini-Cons, releasing two huge multi-packs of the mini bots. Both sets were available from other retailers outside the US, but the 12-pack is particularly noteworthy for its contents getting individually released elsewhere... particularly in the UK, where new toolings based on these toys (with some small deco and detail differences) were packaged with "energon fizzy sweets" candies.

Revenge of the Fallen

Nebular Starscream

Kmart was designated the "official headquarters" for Revenge of the Fallen merchandise in North America, going so far as to denote this on certain of their shopping bags. The end results of this partnership were nowhere near as impressive as the Robo-Vision promotion that Target ran during the launch of the first film, but this could perhaps be chalked up to the sagging economy at the time... or just the fact that it was Kmart.

Transformers (2010)

Based on Megatron's bootlegged version of Revenge of the Fallen.

The 2010 Transformers toyline continued the theming of Revenge of the Fallen, and as such, Kmart's only exclusive at the time played heavily into it.

Dark of the Moon

Perhaps the best exclusive Kmart has gotten in years.

Of all the retailers to have Dark of the Moon exclusives, only Kmart leaned into the "Human Alliance" theming that made up a significant chunk of the regular retail line.

Notes

• All Kmart stores have been removed from Canada, making many Canadian fans sad.