Reflecting on 'Dark Portents'

A little over three years ago, I wrote an opinion piece - Dark Portents - reflecting of the TransFormers brand during Titans Return, just before the shift into Power of the Primes. It occurred to me to go back to that and consider how things actually transpired versus my dread pronouncements on the matter... and then opine a little further on what the future may bring.

War for Cybertron: Earthrise Cliffjumper

Considering that G1 Cliffjumper was the first ever TransFormers toy I bought, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd be on the lookout for a decent update. The Classics version took the easy way out and reused the Bumblebee mold - even down to the head sculpt - and that pattern of laziness carried on into the perfunctory Cliffjumper repaint of the original Concept Camaro Bumblebee from the first movie toyline. While Windcharger - my second ever Autobot - has had three new Scout/Legends class molds in the last decade, Cliffjumper's only other appearance in anything approaching his traditional form was in Alternity, while he had a complete makeover for his appearance in TF Prime.

Then, in a baffling albeit welcome move, Hasbro announced a new, unique, G1-style Cliffjumper toy in the Earthrise chunk of the War for Cybertron toyline - without even a hint of a Bumblebee, despite him supposedly having a major role in the IDW comics series, according to their plans. What's more, it looked almost like a simplified version of the MP21 Bumblebee figure. It seemed perfect... but then it became apparent that Cliffjumper would be another of Hasbro's recent pricepoint cheaters - effectly a large Legends class toy with accessories included to bump him up to the new, inflated Deluxe class bracket.

What trickery is this? Let's take a look!

(Worth noting here that my photography will be a bit inconsistent between posts for a while, as I've been experimenting again with the white background for my light tent - newly taken photos will have a white(-ish) background, older drafts will feature the more usual 'black' background)

War for Cybertron: Earthrise Optimus Prime

As Earthrise figures start to become available in the UK - online, at least, if not in bricks-and-mortar shops - I find myself having very mixed feelings about it. Siege feels as though it was prematurely terminated, with only a scattering of key characters having been released alongside two different iterations of Optimus Prime, neither of which were particularly inspiring. Meanwhile, a ridiculous number of other key G1 characters - Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Jazz, to name but three who appeared prominently in the pilot for the G1 TV show - were missing in action. No hyper-detailed Cybertronian vehicle modes for quite a number of signficant characters, while those we did get tended to be easily repaintable (Starscream becoming six other Seekers, Ironhide becoming Ratchet and Crosshairs, Prowl becoming Bluestreak, Smokescreen and Barricade, amongst others).

Earthrise launches with yet another new Optimus Prime figure alongside an upscaled re-engineering of a 15+ year old Starscream mold, and another scattering of characters, several of whom strongly imply repaints to come (Grapple will no doubt become Inferno... potentially also 'Hauler' and Artfire, Hoist must surely become Trailbreaker at least).

It's certainly not inspiring, quite apart from the fact that it's yet another damned G1 reboot, after more than 15 years of preceding reboot.

And yet, this new Optimus Prime actually tempted me... On the surface, it seemed to be something approaching what I really wanted out of a contemporary remake of G1 Optimus Prime - the feel and essential look of the original with the contemporary complexity of engineering coupled with a nod to the aesthetic developments from the live action movies. Given the rest of the War for Cybertron line in general, that seemed unlikely, but I felt like giving this figure the benefit of the doubt...

WfC2020 - Early First Impressions

And so, at the New York Comic Con 2019, Hasbro have revealed the first handful of toys from chapter two of the War for Cybertron Trilogy, and my worst fears were confirmed by the name alone: Earthrise.

Hasbro's stated aim with WfC2019 was to show the TransFormers on the eve of the war that eventually led them to Earth - the associated comic from IDW certainly delved into how and why the war started - but the toys they presented didn't fit that brief. With battle damage paintwork, and vehicle modes that were barely different from their terrestrial appearances, it was like Classics all over again, just with a mildly more pronounced sci-fi edge. As more toys were revealed, I felt that the line would have worked better as a continuation of G1, in an alternate timeline to the movie, where the Autobots were fighting to reclaim Cybertron without the fateful battle at Autobot City on Earth and all the subsequent events. What we got was toys that looked like they'd been plucked right from the middle of the war, perhaps a matter of days before a group of Autobots boarded the Ark. There were a few fan favourites and their inevitable repaints (Ironhide/Ratchet, Sideswipe/Red Alert, Prowl/Smokescreen/Bluestreak/Barricade) to bulk up an otherwise remarkably small toyline that didn't come close to covering the first year of Generation 1's vast pantheon, let alone a significant selection of the whole.

The automatic presumption based on what Hasbro originally described was that the War for Cybertron Trilogy would be the now-typical three-act toyline, with the first act representing the start of the war, the second representing the war in full swing and the final act most likely representing either the last batch to leave for Earth or the first to arrive...