TransFormers Collectors' Club 2005-2009 Members Incentive Gestalt (Timelines) Nexus Prime/Maximus

(Members Incentive Monday #8)

It's impossible to discuss this, the completed gestalt result of Fun Publications' first five years of running the TransFormers Collectors' Club, without briefly touching on the controversy of its name. After much to-ing and fro-ing between Fun Publications and Hasbro, the name 'Nexus Maximus' was agreed upon but, by sheer coincidence, this name was already taken by... a certain other 'adult toy'. When this was revealed to the Club and Hasbro, they hurriedly changed the name to 'Nexus Prime', and told the world they had done a 'safe search' on the original name, by way of an explanation for the slip-up. It's a wholly believable story, but ever so slightly sloppy.
For the first four years, the club gave away the equivalent of a Scout-class figure, each a recolouring of one of the 'limbs' from the Energon/Superlink Bruticus Maximus and Superion Maximus gestalts. 2009 brought the torso part, Heatwave, and the remolded gestalt head (built up from certain aspects of the components' heads). Each part was molded using a good deal of translucent plastic, so the end result is quite striking, moreso when lit up.

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2009 Members Incentive (Timelines) Heatwave

(Members Incentive Monday #7)

I have to confess that, after a rather disappointing first few years of Members Incentive figures, Heatwave actually managed to be an exciting final component for the Club gestalt. Firstly, it would feature a whole new head sculpt to make the combined form - Nexus Prime/Maximus - a truly unique robot... Secondly, the Energon/Superlink Barricade mold was the only Energon/Superlink torso that I didn't already own in some form at that point.

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2008 Members Incentive (Timelines) Topspin

(Members Incentive Monday #6)

And so we come to the penultimate component of the TransFormers Collectors' Club Members Incentive gestalt, Topspin, based on the Stormcloud/Blackout mold from Bruticus... Meaning the component parts of Nexus Prime are basically Aerielbots and Combaticons - neither of the Constructicon Maximus parts were used. It also means that all but Landquake and the Torso component are flyers...

TransFormers Collectors' Club 2007 Members Incentive (Timelines) Breakaway

(Members Incentive Monday #5)

TransFormers has a long history of chubby aeroplanes. I guess it's understandable, because planes tend to be slim and sleek, and that's never ideal for concealing a robot. Breakaway is based on the Firebolt/Air Rider mold from Superion Maximus, and is probably my least favourite Energon gestalt component mold. The Club fiction portrayed him as slightly mystical, with the power to heal... Weird.

Galaxy Force Starscream

One character who's had a bit of a raw deal over the history of the TransFormers toyline is Starscream. The scheming Decepticon Air Commander/Second-in-Command has always been a popular character due to his many and persistent plots to usurp Megatron, and yet the toys tend to lack a certain something. The Unicron Trilogy presented three (mostly) new forms for Starscream but, while Armada's was bulky and unwieldy, and Energon's was little more than a G2 Cyberjet on a slightly larger scale, Galaxy Force brought us a Starscream that was both worth of the name, and a brilliant homage to the G1 character's Cybertronian 'tetra-jet' form.

Universe (Chevrolet Dealership Exclusive Aveo) Swerve

Something interesting happened in the wake of the 2007 live action TransFormers movie - the concept of 'robots in disguise' as real-world cars suddenly became cool. Sure, Takara Tomy and Hasbro had tried a similar thing with the Binaltech/Alternators line, with a fair run of success, but GM's involvement in Michael Bay's movie seemed to be the thing that really whetted their appetite for transforming versions of their cars... And when they had a new version of the Aveo to launch, they teamed up with Hasbro to organise a dealership exclusive toy for a special offer: Test drive the car, get a transforming robot based upon it. Of course, that offer was only open in the States but, since it evidently proved quite popular, the model was later made available in Chevrolet Europe's web shop... which was pretty darned cool of them.