TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2016 Combiner Wars Terrorsaur

The fact that the last handful of releases from the Fun Publications era of the TransFormers Collectors' Club and BotCon were branded as Combiner Wars toys, rather than coming under the Club's own brand, Timelines, was an early sign that changes were afoot.

Hasbro had pushed Combiner Wars hard - one might even say beyond its limits - and, while a custom gestalt made the ideal basis for an exclusive boxed set, they had produced so many retools of their own that, by 2016, there just weren't any surprises to be had with the format. Hasbro themselves had already moved on to Titans Return and, while FunPub's use of an older toyline was essentially par for the course, there just wasn't enough mileage left in Combiner Wars, even with a set related to (or perhaps retconning) Dawn of Futures Past - one of their very best BotCon sets.

Their take on Tripredacus was deeply uninspired, utilising some of the least highly-regarded molds, which were nevertheless among the most frequently retooled. The only real highlights of that year's show were a retooling of the RID2001 Megatron mold as TransMetals Megatron, and 2015's TransFormers Legends Slipstream mold (itself a retool of  the very first Windblade toy) as Airazor.

So... why did I also acquire Terrorsaur? Let's see if I can figure that out, shall we?

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2016 Combiner Wars Airazor

(Femme-Bot Friday #36)

While the Club (and BotCon specifically) isn't averse to retreading old ground and presenting alternate continuity versions of the same character, it's rarer for them to present a BotCon version of a character they've previously done as a Club premium exclusive.

And yet, BotCon 2016 seems, to some degree, to have brought us full circle with the Club's/BotCon's output, harking back to the appearance of the Tripredacus Council in the very first BotCon comic, Descent into Evil, updated as a Combiner Wars gestalt. There were other references both to Beast Wars and BotCon 2006's awesome Beast Wars prequel Dawn of Future's Past, too, with attendee exclusives including a version of TransMetals 2 Megatron made from RiD/Car Robots Mega-/Galvatron, Terrorsaur from CW Air Raid, CW versions of  BW Tripredacus Agent Ravage, a second pre-Beast Wars Tigatron and even a CW version of a character who'd previously only been a Happy Meal toy.

The one that caught my eye, though, was BotCon's do-over of the reason I joined the Club back in 2007. Daring, perhaps... but was it foolish for them to take a mulligan on what is still one of my favourites?