HasCon 2017/Titans Return Arcee, Leinad & Ultra Magnus

(Femme-Bot Friday #46)

Hasbro clearly understood that, by ending Fun Publications' license to act as the TransFormers Collectors' Club, they'd have to come up with some sort of replacement for BotCon but, for the inaugural HasCon, at least, TransFormers were only one small facet of the event, given no special consideration.

The absence of BotCon naturally meant the absence of BotCon exclusives, which rubbed a lot of fans up the wrong way (probably those same fans who were regularly rubbed up the wrong way by some aspect - present or lacking - in the BotCon boxed sets, let's face it). That's not to say there weren't any HasCon Exclusives - by the looks of it, there was one for each of Hasbro's major product lines - just that they weren't really 'exclusive' so much as they were 'early access'... And their TransFormers boxed set was contentious for a laundry list of reasons.

But I tend not to let that stop me, particularly when Femme-Bots are involved...

Toys'R'Us - A Farewell Tour

I've said before that I rarely visit bricks-and-mortar toy shops these days - maybe a quick visit to the (usually poorly stocked) TRU and Entertainer branches in Uxbridge if I'm seeing a movie there at the weekend - and my nearest 'warehouse-style' TRU is a tedious journey away - accessible by several different routes, but all almost equally lengthy. I'd pretty much given up on the latter a few years ago, because (a) I can get almost everything I want online, at Forbidden Planet or Orbital Comics, or at shows like the MCM London Comic Con and, of course, TFNation, and (b) it had got to the point where I virtually never saw anything new there anyway.

However, when I saw the announcement that Toys'R'Us were shutting down across the UK, I decided that deserved a trip not only the the Uxbridge branch, but to the long-neglected Brent Cross branch as well, to see what bargains were there to be had as they attempted to divest themselves of stock before closing their doors for the last time...

Titans Return Broadside & Blunderbuss

There's a very good reason Hasbro decided to steer clear of triple-changers for many years. Those in Generation 1 were, let's face it, pretty crappy bricks that turned into other-shaped bricks that turned into brick-like robots. The only one that really convinced in any mode was Astrotrain, and that was largely because both his vehicle modes were supposed to just look like cylinders.

When Titans Return rolled around, they decided to reboot all three of the Decepticon triple-changers, Astrotrain first, then Blitzwing, and finally Octane... but on the Autobots' side, they wisely chose not to attempt a new Springer, because the version we got for the 30th Anniversary of the brand was damned near perfect. Sandstorm was therefore unlikely also, as the existing version was derived from the same mold. Broadside, though, hadn't appeared again in the toyline since the barely-transforming triple-brick from Generation 1, and so seemed fair game.

Of course, a robot that turns into an aircraft and an aircraft carrier was never going to be a simple propostion - for one thing, how do you solve the issue of scale between the three modes? - and, somewhat predictably, the toy started to attract scorn from the very beginning... But is it really that bad?

TransFormers Adventure VS05 Drift Origin Mode & Jazz Battle Mode

There are two main reasons I picked up this two-pack of Takara Tomy's repainted RID2015 toys. Firstly, I bought my niece Jazz as a birthday present a few years ago, in a failed attempt to get her interested in TransFormers and was actually reasonably impressed with the model, just not with the paint job. Secondly, this package also comes with new head sculpts for both characters - Drift's being more like the original Shane McCarthy/Guido Guidi design, the toy featuring a colourscheme to match, Jazz's new head simply features his traditional visor.

I was able to pick these up at a reasonable cost at TFNation 2017, so let's see if a new paint job and a new head sculpt makes all the difference to these two toys...

Combiner Wars Groove (Deluxe class)

For whatever reason, Hasbro's take on remaking the G1 gestalts in Combiner Wars invariably ended up with a new and previously unknown member for each team replacing one of the original characters and stealing their colourscheme. Thus, the Aerialbots got Alpha Bravo in Slingshot's colours, the Stunticons got Offroad in Wildrider's colours... the Combaticons got Blast Off as a jet rather than a shuttle... and the Protectobots got Rook (notable mainly for being the first who wasn't an obvious 'pretooling' of another character) instead of Groove as a limb, with the motorcycle 'bot initially turning up as a Legends class breastplate.

Takara Tomy, meanwhile, released boxed sets with the full and original G1 teams, forcing Hasbro to later release the 'missing' members of each team, leading to the Protectobots having two versions of the same character. It's disappointing - though, with me, utterly unsurprising - that it's taken me about two years to get around to this, because I picked up Deluxe class Groove at the earliest opportunity, and yet didn't immediately complete my write-up of the complete, G1 homage Defensor.

So, without further ado, let's get our Groove on... Again...

Movie Developments

It has been reported on the fan sites that, following the upcoming Bumblebee movie, the Hasbro/Paramount partnership is calling time on the TransFormers series for the forseeable future... and I couldn't be happier. Not least because of the suggestion that Hasbro will be taking greater creative control of any subsequent movies... which is exactly what I wanted from the beginning. I could harp on about how irresponsible it was for them to (seemingly) let the movie studio do as they please with their toy brand (admittedly, the awesome aesthetics of the movies indirectly contributed immensely to advances in the toys themselves) but, really, all I want/need to say at this point is:

Hasbro, thank you. I don't know if you've been paying any attention to my rantings particularly, or if you've just been getting an overall impression of dissatisfaction from enough of the fandom, but I personally appreciate this news, and it gives me some hope for the future of TransFormers in cinema.