TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2010 (Timelines) Sky-Byte

With BotCon tackling Generation 2 for BotCon 2010, Sky-Byte seemed like a rather odd choice for inclusion in the boxed set. G2 had been the short-lived first reboot of the TransFormers brand in the early 1990s, mixing crappy new molds loaded with simplistic gimmicks with frequently eye-searing repaints applied to almost everything from the earliest, Diaclone-derived waves of G1 onewards. Sky-Byte, meanwhile, was a Predacon introduced in the 2001 Car Robots/Robots in Disguise toylines, who was a repaint of a TransMetals 2 Maximal named Cybershark.

He was also a uniquely odd beastformer, in that his shark mode was effectively in a fixed curve, 'leaping out of the water' pose, and his robot mode was one of the most extraordinarily asymmetrical TransFormers toys I'd ever seen. I'm normally a fan of asymmetry, but something about the original toy never appealed to me, though I did end up buying the Thrilling 30 version, back in 2014.

But, back to BotCon 2010 and the Generation 2: Redux set. The inclusion of Sharkticons certainly fits the G1 reboot vibe, but I'm guessing that one of the writers of the BotCon comic must have been a fan of Sky-Byte, and saw an opportunity for an exclusive version of the character using the same mold, but this time with a more extravagant paint job along with a new and unique head sculpt. The question is, does such a toy that originated in the Energon line have what it takes to represent such a bonkers character? Let's have a look...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2010 (Timelines) Sharkticon: Air Shark

The Sharkticon that turned up in the Energon toyline certainly wasn't a traditional Sharkticon. Rather, it was a Decepticon, named Sharkticon, who happened to transform into a spacecraft that resembled a shark. Anecdotally, the craft was intended to resemble the Nemesis, the Decepticons' ship from G1... though it looks nothing like the recent Titan class toy. Just to add to the confusion, the mold was repainted in Takara Tomy's TransFormers United toyline in 2012, to be the Axalon, the Maximals' ship from Beast Wars.

Before that, however, the Collectors' Club repainted him for BotCon... as a G1 Sharkticon. Or, as it turned out, three Sharkticons, in a three-pack of toys identical but for the text on their respective bio cards: Air Shark, Land Shark and Sea Shark.

I knew I'd bought this figure, along with Sky-Byte, at an event... but couldn't remember for the life of me which event it was, and ended up having to search one of my old blogs to identify that it was AutoAssembly 2010, so this fellow is long overdue for a write-up. Let's get on with it, shall we?

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 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 2012 (Timelines) Gigatron

Despite hailing from the end of Generation 1, Overlord is not a character I'd been particularly aware of until comparatively recently, since I'd 'grown out' of collecting TransFormers by the time he arrived in the UK. My first experience of him in anything like his original form was via the Titans Return version, which was a little too cut-down in terms of functionality versus the G1 original. Improved articulation only gets you so far, after all.

However, I believe that my first experience of the character was via this strange BotCon exclusive repaint of the Revenge of the Fallen/N.E.S.T. Global Alliance Bludgeon, itself a reimagining of a G1 Pretender. While that character wasn't the best fit for a movie offshoot toyline, the figure was great... and I might have been in the market for some of the other repaints if they weren't all so hard to obtain, to one degree or another.

I missed out on this figure around the time of BotCon 2012, but eventually found one reasonably priced on eBay, and took the plunge, even though a tank-only version of the character is already missing half of what made the original so interesting. How does it compare, though..?

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2014 (Timelines) Rewind

Since I was not a follower of the IDW comics, this was a semi-reluctant purchase for me. I'd picked up the Club's Chromedome from the 2014 Subscription Service selection because the head sculpt was cool and it was made using the TF Prime Wheeljack mold, which had been one of my favourites from that toyline.

But, in the back of my mind, I was dimly aware that an IDW-style Chromedome was somehow incomplete without a corresponding Rewind and, since that was one of the other figures from the same year's selection, I tracked one down just to complete the couple.

I can't remember now whether I bought this before or after I picked up the TransFormers United Rumble & Frenzy set at TFNation in 2016, but one would surely have contributed to my purchase of the other. Thing being, on the surface and aside from the obvious physical similarities in their G1 selves, this is a particularly curious choice for one of Blaster's cassettes... Let's find out why.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2008 (Timelines) Shattered Glass Megatron & Divebomb

Prompted by the recent reveal of a 'new' Shattered Glass Megatron, fanmoded out of the uninspiring Siege tank mold with a few added parts, I realised that my write-up of the original BotCon toy was long past overdue... I mean, it's from an event in 2008, for crying out loud, so it's more than ten years late.

The Shattered Glass concept certainly has its detractors but, for me, the idea of Evil Autobots and Heroic Decepticons was a pretty obvious, just not entirely novel take on the franchise. I've often said that the mottos of the two factions' respective leaders are open to wilful misinterpretation: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings" could be offering the opinion that certain beings should not be considered 'sentient' - a parallel to the real world slave trade of old - while "Peace through tyranny" could be a rueful observation that only a world rigidly controlled can be considered truly 'peaceful', which echoes Beast Machines. Ultimately, Megatron wants peace, while Optimus Prime wants to reserve freedom for those who are deemed worthy of it.

And yet 'Shattered Glass', the comic book accompanying the boxed set, was a largely quite pedestrian tale which continued the adventures of Cliffjumper from the Collectors' Club membership magazine's ongoing story. It also did more with the Attendee Souvenir toys - particularly Megatron and Rodimus, sold at the show as a bagged set - than it did with the boxed set characters, and spent two of its mere 24 pages providing an infodump of the alternate history of the Shattered Glass version of Cybertron. Making matters worse, the Club had released a three page 'preview' of the comic ahead of the event - as an April Fool prank - which ended up being better (not least in terms of giving its characters discernible personalities) than the full comic published for the event.

 

All of which is to say that, if Hasbro are being a bit lazy with the Shattered Glass concept, it's not without precedent, to a degree. It wasn't one of BotCon's crowning achievements, but some of the figures - most notably those not part of the boxed set - were pretty good. So let's take a look at their Heroic Decepticon leader, Megatron.

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2009 (Timelines) Skyquake

There are a number of figures in my collection that I can look at and genuinely wonder what ever possessed me to buy them... and there are figures in my collection that are flawed in some small but critical way. Thankfully, either one are rare occurrences particularly since, on the rare occasion I shop in bricks-and-mortar toy shops, I can give any figure I want a quick once over in the box, to see if I can spot any obvious flaws.

I've not always had the best of luck with TransFormers Collectors' Club figures, and particularly BotCon figures bought via the Club shop after the event, but this figure - part of one of the souvenir sets from BotCon 2009 - would certainly fit into both categories were it not for the fact that he was packaged alongside Banzai-Tron, an excellent reimagining of a G1 Action Master using a bonkers Energon mold.

Wings of Honor didn't interest me a great deal, but it was nice to effectively get a bonus figure along with the one souvenir toy I actually wanted. Aside from these, the only figure from 2009's set that's even on my radar is Scourge, made using the Galaxy Force Noisemaze mold.

(And, yes, I know Elita-1 and Razorclaw were available at the 2009 show as well, but they were additions to Games of Deception and Dawn of Futures Past, respectively, not Wings of Honor)

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2006 (Timelines) Buzzsaw & Laserbeak

The pattern with me and TransFormers toys appears at times to be "the weirder, the better". The Beast Wars figures I picked up tended to be rather strange (Lio Convoy, Mach Kick, Longrack, Break, etc.) and I often appreciate a robot mode more the further it is from standard human proportions.

That said, the Superlink/Energon Shadowhawk/Divebomb mold really ticked my fancy because it managed to do both its avian beast mode and its robot mode in a convincing, innovative way, without wasting the bird's wings as the robot's backpack the way so many other avian TransFormers have.

BotCon 2006's Dawn of Futures Past boxed set was one of the things that got me into the idea of joining the Collectors' Club and possibly, eventually venturing across the pond to a BotCon. While the boxed set was awesome in and of itself, I did also covet a couple of the attendee-exclusive souvenir packs. Since I wrote about the boxed set and one of the attendee figures, Tigatron, almost nine years ago and I still haven't found an affordable Megatron/Waspinator (the former appearing every so often for something in excess of a thousand pounds, while the latter has recently turned up on eBay for over £500), I figure it's about time I wrote about the other bagged pair I currently own...

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2008 (Timelines) Shattered Glass Rodimus

I really should have sorted this post out before getting to Power of the Primes Evolution Rodimus Unicronus, not least because Hasbro's homage to this BotCon add-on figure from the 2008 Shattered Glass set appeared a full decade later, and I believe I acquired this not too long after its BotCon debut.

Shattered Glass was FunPub's take on a 'mirror universe' in which the Autobots were the bad guys and the Decepticons were heroic. It's not an original idea (ripped off from Star Trek, if nothing else) and wasn't even especially well-explored in the BotCon comic or the related story in the Collectors' Club comic, just enough to spark the fan community's interest.

Rodimus, if I remember correctly, was presented as a sort of low-level gangster type - very stereotypical Italian-American mob-like - with a black, purple and silver paint job that was one of the oddities of the Shattered Glass concept, in that it wasn't taken from an equivalent traditional Decepticon, it was simply an adaptation of the long-standard 'Nemesis' palette. But let's get into the analysis properly...

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 2014 (Timelines) Flareup

(Femme-Bot Friday #49)

BotCon 2014's theme - 'Pirates vs Knights' - was one that didn't resonate with me in the least. The boxed set had little of interest, and the vast majority of the attendee extras seemed pretty bland. There were two exceptions, both attendee exclusives. The first, because I can't resist a Femme-Bot Fatale, was Flamewar, a repaint of Beast Hunters Arcee, the second was another Arcee repaint, Flareup... and, coincidentally, both characters appeared in BotCon 2005's 'Descent into Evil' set using the Energon Arcee mold.

I have a general fondness for motorcycle femme-bots, but didn't pick up 2005's Flareup as I already have several variations on the Energon Arcee mold and thought the new head sculpt was terrible. I hadn't planned to get this one either, but it turned up on eBay at a very reasonable cost, which tipped the balance in its favour. Let's see how she shapes up...

Superpants - Really This Time!

Well, it's only taken me a little over five years since I first posted my write-up of Timelines Astrotrain, but I've managed finally to get a handful of photos of his combined mode with Armada Optimus Prime. The new images have been added to that original post.

As I mention there, I'm now fairly keen to get my hands on an Armada Jetfire and either Armada Overload or Energon Ultra Magnus, so I can put together the 'complete', 3-part upgraded Optimus Prime... Though that would leave his trailer unused, and I don't really have space to display it in base mode...

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 2016 Members Incentive (Timelines) Ramjet

(Members Incentive Monday #12)

This is very likely to be the last ever Members Incentive Monday on this blog, unless Hasbro license a new Collectors' Club or, y'know, set up one of their own. These 'free' figures, given away since the very first year of Fun Publications' tenure at the helm of the Club, have been a welcome benefit of international membership to a club which is, awkwardly, based in the States and primarily geared toward the domestic market there. They haven't always been awesome figures, but they frequently exceeded my expectations.

Ramjet arrived a few days before Roll Out Roll Call, and was one of those Membership Incentive figures I had very low expectations of - I quite like the Armada Seeker mold, despite the massive protrusion from the back of its shoulders, but the Generations remake seemed pretty pointless. Based on a 2003 Toys'R'Us exclusive Universe repaint of Armada Skywarp, this is probably one of the more obscure homages the Club have released. Is it as dull as I was expecting?

TransFormers Collectors' Club Botcon 2005 (Timelines) Flamewar

(Femme-Bot Friday #39)

In a lot of ways, this somewhat hard-to-find BotCon exclusive is the origin of my femme-bot fixation, moreso than the original Energon/Superlink Arcee/Ariel or the Paradron repaint. This is partially because I just really like the mold, and a lot more because it was so hard to find at a reasonable price. She turns up once in a while on eBay, with her price ranging between £120/$175 and £185/$270 but, though exclusive she may be, she's still only a Scout class figure, and even the low end of the secondary market price scale is a little more than I'm comfortable paying.

Cut to April of this year, when one turned up on eBay at less than £60/$80, with the only caveat being that while the figure and weapon parts were in their sealed bag, she was without her bio card and instructions. Call me crazy if you will, but a 50% saving at the expense of a mediocre bio featuring hideous artwork and a sheet of instructions I already have for other iterations of the mold represents, to me, a saving well worth taking advantage of.

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2014 (Timelines) Chromedome & Stylor

While I was very keen on the TF Prime Wheeljack mold, I wasn't sufficiently keen on any of the remolds released by Hasbro to pick any of them up - the Dark Energon version seemed pretty pointless (except as a homage to Slicer) and their repurposing as Dead End was garish and ugly. Takara Tomy's use of the mold as Arms Micron Wildrider is slightly more tempting, but what really took my fancy was the Collectors' Club's use of the mold as a very IDW-inspired Chromedome, released as part of their second Subscription Service group, from which I also picked up Barricade and Rewind.

But how does this former HeadMaster fare, now that his partner is a TargetMaster/Arms Micron?

TransFormers Collectors' Club BotCon 2015 (Timelines): 'The Boss' Megatron

BotCon 2015's boxed set - Cybertron's Most Wanted - was an interesting concept, but only really had a couple of actual figures I was interested in. One in particular was the inspired - in my opinion - repurposing of the TF Prime/Arms Micron Breakdown mold (specifically the zombie/'Silas/CyLAS' version Takara Tomy put out) as a cross-continuity Dark of the Moon Megatron.

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...