TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2013 (Timelines) Thundercracker

One interesting byproduct of my acquisition of some BotCon boxed sets is that, once in a while, they introduced me to molds I'd not experienced from the main Hasbro toylines. One such example was Revenge of the Fallen Dirge, in the retooled and repainted form of Skywarp in the Machine Wars: Termination set from BotCon 2013.

While the figure from the extended movie universe didn't appeal - its interpretation of the 'Conehead' style looked pretty ugly to me - FunPub's idea of a Machine Wars Skywarp was very well executed, and showed that the mold itself was actually great... and, as a result, I decided to pick up the Thundercracker repaint. He was originally made available with yet another repaint of the Classics Mirage mold which FunPub had already used for the BotCon 2007 hologram figure - this time with a colourscheme taken from the original Machine Wars toy. Having no interest in that, I ended up buying Thundercracker separately, on the secondary market.

So, let's see how this version compares to the toy from the boxed set...

TransFormers: Prime Dreadwing

Arriving later in the TV show than his brother, Dreadwing at least managed to last a little longer into the series, though never quite became a series regular. He'd be absent for ages before suddenly popping up briefly to further his quest for revenge against the Autobots, ultimately discovering they weren't even really responsible for Skyquake's death.

Dreadwing had the screentime to display generally more character than his brother, and turned out to be one of the more ambiguous Decepticons - loyal to his leader, but willing to fight alongside the Autobots if the situation demanded it. For me, though, the most outstanding thing about him was that he was voiced by the awesome and unmistakable Tony Todd, whose gravelly tones lent the character a sense of power and authority.

Skyquake's toy turned out to be the sort of ambitious yet flawed figure that characterised the TFPrime line, so let's have a look at his repaint...

Masterpiece Cassetticons: Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage & Laserbeak

Way back in July 2014, when I decided to write about the Masterpiece Soundwave set in three parts - based on the way he was packaged in G1 and according to the split Takara Tomy releases - I figured I was being terribly clever, and honestly thought I'd get to the remainder of the minions a bit sooner than this. Then again, there's not much to them, so they're fairly easily dismissed considering some of the drafts I've had lying around in Blogger for substantially longer.

Still, I figure it's about time to get on to them but, rather than split them into two further posts, I've decided to lump them all together in one, just for (my) convenience.

And, just so there are no surprises, the characters are named per their G1 toys rather than the G1 TV show, so Rumble is the red/black one. I don't care about the arguments - to me, the toyline (and Bob Budiansky's bios) are correctly assigned (though I concede that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's bios were switched, most likely because their Diaclone colourschemes were switched). Others are free to name them as they see fit...

TransFormers: Prime Beast Hunters Knock Out

One of the biggest frustrations with TransFormers: Prime season three - aka 'Beast Hunters' - is that virtually all the regular characters remain the same bar a few isolated changes to their paint jobs, while the toyline just went bonkers, growing spikes and other protrusions all over the place... And yet, where Hasbro had the perfect opportunity to do a straight repaint of a new character, Smokescreen, they dropped the ball. By and large, the 'tooled up' versions of the regular show characters weren't at all appealing to me, but the remake of Knock Out - affectionately known as 'Croc Out' - certainly has its appeal.

AM32 Arms Micron (TFPrime) Stunt Wildrider

And there was me, thinking I was done with the TFPrime Wheeljack mold after picking up the TFCC's Subscription Service 2.0 Chromedome. Frankly, most of the other reuses - and particularly the Beast Hunters remolds - were of no interest to me, but Takara Tomy's Arms Micron Stunt Wildrider and its amazingly cute Micron, Ozu, were definitely appealing... just harder to obtain.

Thankfully, sooner or later, almost everything ends up on eBay... occasionally even at a reasonable price... and so, I came to order Wildrider, a repaint based on the eponymous G1 Stunticon.

Titans Return Cosmos

Bizarre as he was, G1 Cosmos was one of my favourite figures - as a fan of vintage sci-fi, I really liked that a TransFormer had been based on the UFO from the celebrated hoax photograph by George Adamski, despite being completely incongruous in a line of toys whose terrestrial disguises were still largely based in reality. Trouble is, with such an outlandish - literally - vehicle mode, he became rather difficult to fit into later lines.

Thus, aside from a very basic disc-shaped saucer, very poorly articulated version in the late noughties and an aborted Titaniums version, it had been left up to the Third Parties to produce their usual plethora of versions of the same character, each with their own unique interpretation of the iconic G1 design of both vehicle and robot mode.

Then came the Thrilling 30 line, and a whole new version of Cosmos was released... Or was it? I certainly never saw it in shops, and couldn't easily find it online at a reasonable price. Thankfully, Hasbro deemed it worthy of a more widespread rerelease for Titans Return (since it had already been repainted as Marvel Comics' wheelformer spy, Scrounge, to partner with the Technobots). Needless to say, I snapped him up pretty sharpish... but was he worth the frustrating wait?

TransFormers: Prime Beast Hunters Prowl

Here's what I don't get about Hasbro's strategy: the TF Prime toyline got about a billion versions of Bumblebee, in all different size classes and with several different paint jobs, but Smokescreen - who changed his paint job after only a few episodes from white to blue, and remained blue till the end of the series - never got repainted to match his on-screen counterpart...

...Instead, the mold received a new head, a lightbar, and a new paint job and became Prowl - at once a G1 homage and a reference to the online TransFormers game that was getting a lot of press at the time.

It's baffling to me that Hasbro will miss obvious opportunities, only to bodge together something 'new'... but, hey, Prowl's a cool addition to the TF Prime toyline, even if he never appeared in the show, right?

TransFormers Collectors' Club Botcon 2013 (Timelines) Boxed Set: Machine Wars: Termination

Machine Wars falls into one of the many gaping holes in my knowledge of/interest in TransFormers. I got into Beast Wars long after the event, having bought only Optimus Primal and Megatron while they were in the shops (and then only because I chanced to see them). Beast Machines was - and is - eminently avoidable as a toyline though I'm a massive fan of the TV series, and Machine Wars - if TF Wiki is to be believed - was simply an aborted attempt to bring the TransFormers brand, revitalised by Beast Wars, back to its mechanical origins. Most of the line appears to have been large, overly simplistic crap, though some of its toys were repurposed from G2 molds and into later Universe lines.

So... the question has to be asked: what possessed the TransFormers Collectors' Club to choose Machine Wars as the theme of it's 2013 BotCon set? And how would such a tiny selection of characters be represented? Well, amusingly, it seems that they ignored what little story Hasbro might have crafted (though they probably didn't) and created their own take on the mini-line...

TransFormers: Prime Skyquake

TransFormers Prime started its run killing off one of the Autobots, which pretty much set the tone for the series. None of the other key characters actually died, but the show certainly didn't shy away from killing off a less central character in the service of the story.

...And so, the first Decepticon to properly die was Skyquake... and while his brother, Dreadwing, may have had frequent appearances in the remainder of the series, he was only really interested in getting revenge for Skyquake's death and almost ended up in the G1 Thundercracker role of not being entirely behind Megatron's plans for tyranny. Skyquake only appeared briefly, but was utterly in Megatron's thrall, to the extent that he wouldn't consider Starscream his leader, even with Megatron out of action. Yet, since the series' first casualty, Cliffjumper, presented only a single opportunity for a repaint - as a zombie version - Skyquake and Dreadwing were more sensible chance to reuse a mold from TF Prime's limited character roster.

TransFormers: Prime Rumble

If the first live action movie was notable for its plethora of toys created from either otherwise unused concept art and designs from the associated videogame, it certainly wasn't unique in doing so. Granted, a lot of new 'characters' have been simple repaints of existing toys (with remolded parts in some cases, like TF Prime Hot Shot) but there have been occasions where an entirely new character has been created with no obvious explanation.

Considering how small the character roster in TF Prime actually was (fewer than ten individuals on each side!), it's both surprising and disappointing that Hasbro didn't add more toys into the mix, but one of the few wholly unique characters they did bring in was a complete re-imagining of one of G1 Soundwave's minions, Rumble

Generations (30th Anniversary) Blitzwing

Triple-Changers - specifically Astrotrain and Octane - were reintroduced fairly early on in the Classics line. Sadly for them, the Deluxe class size was basically inadequate to the task. For a while, it seemed that Triple-Changers were put on the backburner as a result, before their sudden and triumphant return in the form of 'Thrilling 30' Springer.

One Triple-Changing reboot deserves another, and so came Blitzwing - more G1-oriented in most respects, but with a curious TF Animated-inspired twist...

FansProject Function-X2 Quadruple-U

Function-X is a very different line to FansProject's Causality range. While the latter reimagines and updates Generation 1 figures into something that resembles the original, but has a very modern feel, the former seems (based on the few I've seen so far) to hark back more strongly to G1 in terms its presentation, striving only to improve articulation. The first Function-X model in the line was an update of the G1 HeadMaster Chromedome, a figure which I still own from those days, and something about the way it looked didn't impress me the way their Causality figures did (and continue to).

This second figure, however, intrigued me. Not only was it a stylistic improvement over the first, but FansProject decided to recreate one of the HeadMasters I didn't get back in my youth, for whom I have developed a small fondness due to the BotCon 2007 repaint of Cybertron Snarl/Galaxy Force Fang Wolf.

TransFormers: Prime Beast Hunters Arcee

(Femme-Bot Friday #17)

In the TransFormers: Prime TV show, when it's in the process of becoming 'Beast Hunters', Smokescreen and Bumblebee get new colourschemes. The former goes blue and yellow, almost a nod to Binaltech Smokescreen in his vehicle mode appearance. The latter reverses his paint pattern and becomes black with yellow stripes (aka Shadow Strike Bumblebee). Observing this, Arcee remarks, pithily "If I reversed my colourscheme, I'd be pink...", guaranteed to raise at least a giggle from G1 fans.

Of course, the toy range did things slightly differently... Most of the toys were at least partially remolded with spikes and other protuberances, which struck me as a bizarre waste of money when new colourschemes would have sufficed in almost all cases.

Clearly no stranger to irony, not only did Hasbro remold Arcee, but they (sort of) reversed her colourscheme as well...

TransFormers: Prime Sergeant Kup

Having seen all three seasons of TransFormers: Prime/Beast Hunters and the feature-length finale, Predacons Rising, I'd  have to say my biggest complaint was the lack of characters in the show. Whereas Generation 1 had masses of characters but very little in the way of decent narrative, TF Prime essentially had the opposite problem. I guess there's a balance to be made between number of characters available for story and overall coherence of story, and TF Prime certainly didn't have any filler episodes (that I can recall). The problem with a small roster of characters is that Hasbro has to make its money on toys... and while it seems happy to repaint Bumblebee every five minutes, it's always done better when it creates new characters with unique molds - or even repaints.

Thus, we get a unique toy of a character who never appeared in the TV show and, arguably, isn't even quite the right style, modelled as it was on concept artwork by Ken Christiansen, created before TF Prime was even called "TF Prime". Oddly the Cyberverse model came before this, in its intended colourscheme, as Ironhide, but I don't recall seeing that on the shelves in the UK. Kup seems like a strange choice for the Deluxe class 'repaint' - not least because he's now lumbered with the 'Sergeant' prefix just so they can use the name - but it was left up to Takara Tomy to release a Deluxe class G1-referencing Ironhide. Of course, if it's a good enough model, I might be tempted to pick that up, if I can...

When the character of Kup was first introduced to TransFormers fans, he was a curmudgeonly old-timer, full of tall tales and scorn for anyone younger than himself (but particularly Hot Rod). He was also a futuristic/Cybertronian pickup truck which, so the story goes, is the source of his name: picKUP truck. Tenuous... but I guess they were running out of cool names by that point.

Masterpiece Soundwave (& Buzzsaw)

This is another one I teased ages ago, and meant to write about more fully soon after but, for whatever reason, didn't get round to. Part of that, I guess, was that it was a rather daunting prospect to write not only about Soundwave and his accessories, but all five of the cassettes packaged with him and all their accessories too.

I'm going to make life (slightly) easier on myself and deal here with Soundwave and Buzzsaw only, since they were packaged together in Generation 1. The remaining cassettes will be dealt with according to their G1 pairings as well: Rumble (red) & Ravage, Frenzy (blue) & Laserbeak.

TransFormers: Prime Beast Hunters Smokescreen

All things considered, I feel that Smokescreen - both in name and character - was a strange late addition to the roster of TFPrime Autobots. The main issue was that he seemed to be intended to out-Bumblebee Bumblebee in the reckless brawling and risk-taking departments. Granted, the Yellow One's partnership with Raf Esquivel toned down a lot of his behaviour, turning him into more of a giant alien robot 'older brother', but contemporary Bumblebees have tended to be daredevils... so why on Earth would we need another?

Furthermore, other than G1 Autobot diversionary tactician (including repaints in the Cybertron and movie toylines), the the name 'Smokescreen' had only been applied to the G2 Decepticon partner to Dreadwing and the bizarre Armada crane-thing. This character in TFPrime may have been a visual homage but, in every other respect, he was more Hot Rod than Smokescreen, even down to Optimus Prime's suggestion that he had the potential to become a Prime.

But enough about the character and the TV show... I'm sure you all want to know what I think about the toy...

FansProject CA-13 Causality: Diesel & Military Multiplexer Kit

I teased this a good couple of months ago and really can't think why I didn't write it up closer to the time I received it... other than the 100-odd post backlog I have, many of which include photos still hosted on PhotoBucket... But, still, here we are - just over a year after I picked up the first component - with the final component of FansProjects' homage to the Stunticons, and the means by which they become Menasor Intimidator.

While FansProject are no strangers to gestalt components, this Causality set (comprising this model plus CA-09, -10, -11 and -12) was their first attempt at a full team comprised of four interchangeable 'limbs' and a central 'torso'. Considering that the Stunticons were the first G1 gestalt team I managed to complete until only a few years ago, I felt compelled to pick this guy up to complete my Stunticon homage set... and, thankfully, his availability to buy coincided with an improvement in my cashflow...

Generations (30th Anniversary) Springer

I'm pretty sure I remember Hasbro announcing, some years ago, probably at a BotCon, that they weren't planning on making any more Triple Changers after Classics Astrotrain and Octane/Tankor, largely because they were prohibitively expensive to engineer...Of course, based on Classics Astrotrain and Octane/Tankor, that was a good decision, because the passage of time hadn't radically improved their ability to design such things.

Naturally, a certain section of the fanbase was up in arms... How could Hasbro neglect such characters as Springer? Sure, they've released toys called Springer... and so has the TransFormers Collectors' Club... but they've always had a single alternate mode, making them nothing but contentious 'fakes'.

In the meantime, companies like FansProject announced and then produced the likes of Warbots Defender (AKA Springer) and Assaulter (AKA Broadside), proving that, hey, making triple-changin' robot models wasn't so tough after all. Also during this time, the artists behind the comics published by IDW created some wonderful new designs for our old favourite characters... and so, for their 'Thrilling 30' lineup, Hasbro surprised us all with Voyager class updates for Blitzwing and a very Nick Roche-inspired Springer.

Generations (30th Anniversary) Rhinox

While comparatively few of the original Beast Wars figures were especially realistic in terms of molding or colouration, Rhinox was easily one of the worst. The body wasn't awful, but the head looked as though it had been designed by someone working from a written description rather than any visual reference.

Since he's such an important and well-regarded character, Hasbro saw fit (eventually) to completely remake Rhinox, from the ground up, in an attempt to give him both a true-to-life beast mode and a more CGI-accurate robot mode... And then released it in the 'Thrilling 30' toyline which didn't get very far in the UK before being cancelled in favour of the rebranded Generations toyline which will, for a while, at least, focus on the Age of Extinction toys.

Another masterstroke for Hasbro UK's TransFormers brand team, masters of forging disaster from the materials of awesome success.

TransFormers Go! Hunter Shockwave

It's been absolutely ages since I last bought an official TransFormer on import... The last time I did it regularly was the Galaxy Force line or Binaltech, though I have picked up a few Alternity models. For the most part, though, Hasbro has done a reasonably good job of bringing figures into UK toy shops, and in some cases their products have been preferable to those from Takara Tomy, if only because they're cheaper.

For example, in the main, Takara Tomy's take on the TransFormers: Prime figures has been a bit weird. The initial run of toys were partnered with 'Arms Microns' - a fairly cool extension of the Unicron Trilogy's Mini-Cons - but with virtually non-existent paintjobs supplemented only by stickers. When Hasbro introduced Beast Hunters, Takara Tomy repurposed the remolded Prime figures and Predacons, adding them - somewhat incongruously - to their TransFormers Go! line. Had I the slightest interest in the Prime Predacons, I'd certainly prefer to buy the Japanese versions simply because they look classier. Only one new figure held any interest for me, however, and that was Shockwave. But while Hasbro decked him out in a rather dull, flat purple, Takara Tomy adjusted the saturation to maximum, giving a much more satisfying colour to the Decepticons' imposing cyclops. Thus, TransFormers Go! Hunter Shockwave went onto my Christmas list... and I shall be forever grateful to my girlfriend's parents for picking him up on my behalf.