TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Alpha Trion

Galaxy Force Vector Prime was one of those TransFormers toys that, even for its era, had a simplistic transformation, but which transcended this shortcoming through the sheer detail and the extravagant intricacy of its sculpting. The fact that he was an 'ancient Cybertronian' meant that he was effectively an alternate universe Alpha Trion analogue from the outset, so it seemed inevitable that, sooner or later, he would be repainted as G1 Alpha Trion.

What is perhaps a little strange is that BotCon got there first, releasing Alpha Trion as an accompanying figure to their Games of Deception boxed set from BotCon 2007, despite the character not actually featuring in the included comic...

...Because the whole thing was part of the Collectors' Club's own game of deception: the reveal of Alpha Trion was held over for their ongoing multiversal Timelines story in the bimonthly magazine... and was (spoiler warning!) one of the first Shattered Glass characters introduced! Of course, since then, Hasbro has release Alpha Trion toys with almost monotonous regularity, and in a variety of forms.

So, let's take a look at this primary repaint, and see how well it works as this deceptively familiar character...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Hologram Mirage

There are times in every collector's life, I'm sure, where they look at an exclusive figure in their collection, and wonder why they bought it. As I started writing this, I couldn't remember if this figure had been part of a set I'd bought on eBay or something I bought on its own and, after a little research, it seems more likely the latter. Hologram Mirage was one of those figures given away to those who collected their top-tier BotCon 2007 set in person, at the show. I guess that makes it kind of interesting...

But, still, it was another version of the Classics Mirage mold which, at the time, was fantastic - stable and poseable to an extent matched by few other Classics figures then or since. I have to confess that a hologram version is a bit of a novelty - there was a similar Binaltech version, described as the "Electro-Disrupter" version, released by e-HOBBY the same year, and Takara Tomy produced their own take using this very mold in 2009 - so clearly there's a market for this sort of thing... but it does seem more than a little bit niche...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Weirdwolf

The Games of Deception set from BotCon 2007 was a controversial one because of the updated G1 Seeker and Coneheads it so callously included (not to mention the Go-Bot) meaning - for a while, at least - neither Hasbro nor Takara Tomy were making them available as mass retail figures. The extras from that year's show were equally controversial because they included a Springer who wasn't a Triple-Changer, pretty much the first ever official Elita-1 toy (made out of a much-reviled Galaxy Force/Cybertron shellformer), and a completely out-of-context (yet very welcome) repaint of Galaxy Force/Cybertron Vector Prime as Alpha Trion, with an excellent new head.

Bagged along with the latter came a repaint of Galaxy Force Fang Wolf/Cybertron Snarl as another otherwise out-of-context character - Weirdwolf, formerly a HeadMaster, but now Nebulan-free and very much different from his G1 form.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Springer

Back while Hasbro were still insisting that they wouldn't be doing Triple Changers in the foreseeable future (I'm actually a little hazy on whether that was before or after the lukewarm Octane (aka Tankor) and Astrotrain), there were several attempts to repurpose more standard two-form TransFormers into one of the much-beloved characters from the 1986 animated movie, Springer. Hasbro themselves released a version of him repainted from Galaxy Force Live Convoy in a two-pack with Ratbat repainted from GF Noisemaze, then followed that up with Springer as a Legends class Osprey helicopter as part of the extended toyline for Revenge of the Fallen. That took care of Springer-as-Helicopter... but what about Springer-as-Armoured-Car..?

Enter the BotCon 2007 additions to the Games of Deception boxed set, where a ground-based version of the character was repurposed out of a surprisingly appropriate source...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2007 (Timelines) Boxed Set: Games of Deception

For one reason or another all the BotCon sets produced by Fun Publications end up being contentious, but 2007's is easily the most controversial. Hasbro, at the time, had released only three of the Decepticon jets - Starscream, Ramjet and Skywarp, with the latter only being available in a 2-pack with Ultra Magnus. All the indications were that none more would be produced (apart from the occasional rerelease/repaint of Starscream, for no obvious reason), and so FunPub took the opportunity to satisfy their members Seeker and Conehead OCD by creating their own versions of Thundercracker, Dirge and Thrust.

The outcry was stunning, possibly the stuff of fandom legend... But that was nothing to the outcry of some of those who bought the set, only for Takara Tomy, then Hasbro, to release their own version of the missing three Decepticon jets, with entirely new wings for the remaining two Coneheads... but was the Botcon set worth all the fuss?

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2009 (Timelines) Elita-1

As mentioned in the Razorclaw entry, Elita-1 turned up at BotCon 2009 as an Attendees Only souvenir piece. Also like Razorclaw, this is her second appearance at BotCon, the first being in 2007's Games of Deception comic. All told, she was a rather pointless character without a toy, so it was surprising that we've had to wait two years for this to emerge, as a seemingly random addition... I haven't seen the Wings of Honour comic, but I'd like to think there were a few more interesting 'bots to use as 2009 souvenir figures...

The name comes from the fleeting appearance of a female Autobot in the G1 cartoon episode where the Aerialbots go back in time and see the start of the war on Cybertron, meeting an Autobot named Orion Pax - who later becomes Optimus Prime - in the process. Elita-1 was rebuilt from the wreckage of Orion Pax's companion. More recently, of course, Elita-1 has been attributed to one of the biker-bots in Revenge of the Fallen. The biography supplied with this model is a complete waste of time, saying as it does that Elita-1's origins are unknown to all but Grimlock, the leader of her team, and he's not telling. I'm not sure who decided that even constituted a biography but, frankly, I'd rather a poorly-written bio than the waste of card and ink she was given.