Transformers general thread - Toy Robot men based on giant robots based on previously mentioned toys about said robots

[XYZpdq Jr.]

It's still insane to me how there's entire UK exclusive side stories or sub plots to the marvel comic thanks to the region exclusive issues that exist for some reason. They're more well known NOW as just part of the story or whatever but it's crazy shit something like that even happened in the first place.

iirc Zoids had a fairly cool UK comic, very nice art, and iirc a VERY early paycheck for Grant Morrison (or somebody similarly "wtf" about a toy commercial comic)

 

[MirrorNoir]

Eh... I'm a bit apathetic about getting a new Thunderwing because the Generations Thunderwing was absolute perfection and IMHO one if not THE best mold/figures from the CHUG era. To the point that I bought all three legit uses of the mold (Thunderwing, Black Shadow, and Metalhawk).

It's not actually a reissue! Those are entirely new figures I have been trying to find to no avail because of probably the same shit every other thing the last few years that gets scalped ends up nowhere does with employees and transport guys yoinking em and the ones that end up getting actually on shelves also getting yoinked by scalpers. I stopped trying to find them and settled for the siege/earthrise versions after realizing the revised figures despite having more accurate proportions got rid of the flip out connector pegs and thus had no way of being stored on soundwave's back while he has a different cassette in his chest. That and the fact I found those ones for cheap surprisingly shortly after noticing this.

Honestly i think this soundwave reissue should have included BOTH rumble and frenzy instead of having an unaltered siege ravage a THIRD TIME. They made the colors darker on rumble because it's "toy accurate" but as people have pointed out that would make him frenzy if it's the g1 toy colors. What's gonna end up happening here is the same fucking shit that happened earlier with the other one coming in some box set since single carded legends er i mean core glass figures are apparently going away. Either that or it's just gonna be left incomplete because the impossible to find animation frenzy exists?

I never saw ANY of the mass release Cassettes at retail save for SS 86 Frenzy, which only by chance did I find at my local Gamestop.

I ended up with Wingthing and Doubledealer's Powermaster crew via my local comic shop when he got in a bunch of newer Transformers loose as a part of a huge toy collection he bougth (he didn't have Frenzy) and got Laserbeak/Ravage when I bought a loose/complete Netflix Soundwave from the same comic shop. Paid $15 for WT and the Doubledealer gang while I ended up paying $50 for Netflix Soundwave and his two cassettes (I only saw him once at Walmart and I was broke at the time; I did end up getting Bumblebee when he came out but regret sleeping on Cliffjumper).

The UK Transformers stuff comes from the fact that, with a few exceptions, comics in the UK are weekly release things and at first, Tranformers started out bimonthly (IE every two months it came out) before going to monthly when it got converted from mini-series to monthly ongoing.

Originally the UK stuff from Furman was filler but as Transformers became a huge massive big titted hit, Hasbro's UK office started wanting more synergy (see Furman having to write a dream sequence involving the combiner teams to shill them being released in the UK before their official debut in the Marvel US comic, so he didn't contradict their debut story). Furman moved to doing stories about the movie cast purely for logistic reasons: Budiansky famously refused to follow what the cartoon did and do a twenty year time skip or use the movie cast outside of filler shit to promote the Targetmasters (which created a bit of a huge culture shock if you read the comics at the time, as Furman IMMEDIATELY killed off Ratchet so he could replace him with Kup and Hot Rod as Optimus's main BFF and them suddenly out of the blue becoming super important after being glorified background fodder for a year and a half). This meant that he could write them and not worry about conflicts with the US comic (Big Broadcast debacle aside).

 

[Humble Architect]

So Mr John Warden is back in charge, of the product side of the brand, so hopefully things get back to the glory of TR/Siege, I don’t know much of the current dude other than quality/engineering has slipped under his watch, which with the price you pay, this shit is unacceptable.

Leaks for next year, core class is going away from the retail shelves, they’ll probably still exist in store exclusives and box sets. Which hopefully frees up budget space for the important stuff.

They’re doing the Primes, across all size classes, Solus, Micronus, Prima and the Fallen look to be in wave one. Which is interesting, that they’re finally caving. I wonder how they’ll sell. Skybound should do a reprint of the Covenant to tie-in.

I mean it’s pretty straightforward, all of them are pretty streamlined (Amalgamous is definitely gonna be a big “izer”) and some lend themselves to repaints/retools for future use and from existing molds. This is just my speculation.

Solus: any bitch, they have the same body type
Quintus: Botanica
Onyx Prime: Predaking, the shitty one from Beast Hunters
Last Autobot: If he’s gonna be big (doubtful) then Siege Jetfire if he’s smol then Vector Prime
Liege: Hasbro is too limp to do the giant G2 eldritch nightmare so he’ll be Vector with Loki horns
Alpha: Either a repack of the box one or a retooled Thundertron or Vector
Prima: I could see them reusing his look from the movie comics where they used the Protoform Optimus design for Prima, with armor to recreate his paladin look, two birds one stone.
Alchemist: double use for Cyberverse Macadam
Micronus is gonna be a Cliffjumper situation with a little man who has a lot of accessories, he thankfully has an RID look for repaint potential

The big one is undoubtedly getting his own mold, with the spit and polish is him, the one that normies know of, The Fallen. No way they do his awful Aligned look, that boy better be Dreamwave.

I like the Thirteen, I’m a mythology nut so they’re kinda up my alley, this could be cool. If they’re diving into the myth arc then I dunno, Unicron Cultists could be a cool army-builder, maybe a re-imagined version of a smaller Unicron avatar (think Cybertron or Prime) for people who didn’t buy that shellforming garbage, Titan-class Primus is a given and it’s fitting that Xaaron is coming to herald all this.

@MirrorNoir
That mold is pure sex appeal, I just want Thunderwing at his proper height with his goblin face and not the jack o lantern. I mean if there’s money for the joke that the Titan class became then there’s money for Thunderwing to get his day. At this point I say shelve Titan class and just do more Commanders, you hear Tidal Wave is hot shit?

 

[Space Police]

Leaks for next year, core class is going away from the retail shelves, they’ll probably still exist in store exclusives and box sets. Which hopefully frees up budget space for the important stuff.

Earthspark is also going away and there's going to be a replacement line, which is super exciting because we'll finally have a new kid-oriented line without any fiction (hopefully it won't be a mass-retail rollout of that dollar store basics line or just more common G1 characters, and the latter is a scary possibility since John Warden is back in charge).

 

[Humble Architect]

Earthspark is also going away and there's going to be a replacement line, which is super exciting because we'll finally have a new kid-oriented line without any fiction (hopefully it won't be a mass-retail rollout of that dollar store basics line or just more common G1 characters, and the latter is a scary possibility since John Warden is back in charge).

I just like that those sodomites behind Earthspark couldn’t take the heat and got the boot.

I’d happily sacrifice all the non-G1 shit if it means quality goes back up, I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they insist on the furfags, TF: Prime shit and doing OCs like the…… rock monsters? Cause that’s less shit to spend money on. Armada gets a pass cause that one pretty much just picks up where G2 left off aesthetically and gimmick-wise.

But you got nothing to worry about, the “Legacy” thing is here to stay and Warden is apparently overseeing multiple brands, I think he’s just there to plug the leaks and to stop things like the rock monsters or the engineering problems.

Apparently Tidal Wave’s legs aren’t just the ratchets like Trypticon where it was fixable, like it’s the structure of the leg that’s the problem..

 

[Starscream's Loyalty]

I just like that those sodomites behind Earthspark couldn’t take the heat and got the boot.

I’d happily sacrifice all the non-G1 shit if it means quality goes back up, I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they insist on the furfags, TF: Prime shit and doing OCs like the…… rock monsters? Cause that’s less shit to spend money on. Armada gets a pass cause that one pretty much just picks up where G2 left off aesthetically and gimmick-wise.

But you got nothing to worry about, the “Legacy” thing is here to stay and Warden is apparently overseeing multiple brands, I think he’s just there to plug the leaks and to stop things like the rock monsters or the engineering problems.

Apparently Tidal Wave’s legs aren’t just the ratchets like Trypticon where it was fixable, like it’s the structure of the leg that’s the problem..

I'll sacrifice Hasbro's American HQ if it means we get the fan favorite VAs for every iteration from now on (the non unions suck ass and should get a real job they'd actually be good at; McDonald's cashier)

 

[Viper the rappah]

Alight i watched the first 6 episodes of season 1 gen 1 so quick thoughts on my opinions on the show so far (long text):

Spoiler: Episode sperging

It hasn't gave me some form of hook to make me really into it so far

Episode 1 had great start but i feel like even if i understand where it was going , it just kinda messy it goes in one minute from character to b and introduces the c thing but in the end comes together and sets a solid groundwork

Rest of the episodes are fine to me, nothing too much in particular to say i hate or love other than the megatron and starscream interaction. Usually in other shows that aim at same audience the bad guy and his "right hand man" argue and he kills the minion sometimes over smallest inconvenience but here it's like they're father n son and starscream is some loud mouth autist that megatron punishes. He tries to shoot and kill him and megatron just blasts his arm and lets him live as he got the cybertronian equivalent of belt. Also the unhinged nature of 90's. I didn't expect that kid in
wheelchair to get fucking tossed out of the window it was so unexpected i laughed.

Also i like that they got straight to the point. I though them trying to escape would've been final arc of the season or something but no right from the get go they get their shit and tried to leave. Another thing i like is how good guys get their ass beaten hard and forced to compromise especially prime. Often i'd think in situation "go prime you'll get em " only to get blasted off or beaten unlike many of other heroes where they come and just kick their ass and fuck off.

I understand it has been tight budget and 90s but still feel to point out tehnical errors:
In episode where one of soundwave's pets (the cat thing?) got caged in one of frames the autobot was basically clipping through the cage. In episode where desepticons raid the military one of soldier's lines gets cut off mid way through. Again in ep 6 or 5 i think where they have been trying to transport energon back to cyberton the cat robot was clipping through the human's force field. Nothing too surprising or breaking to the point that show gets unwatchable though

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

you hear Tidal Wave is hot shit?

Only issue with Tidal Wave is the hip joints and that's common with that size of figure. I've had to replace every Titans hips at least once.


So core class maybe going away. I'm okay with that as I never bought them personally and if I wanted a smaller figure I'll get Magic Square or New Age

SiYang Culture Trainbots are looking okay but the plastic looks cheap. I'll probably get them for combine form though and just never touch it.

Studio Series Transformers One Optimus Prime has been pretty bad. Not a fan of the piss grey plastic used and doesn't feel like a Studio Series figure.

Skyflame continues to be a pretty good figure. Doesn't feel good to mess around with when you have X-Load also attached to Naval Commander though.

Those Transformers Blokee figures or whatever they're called have been fun to mess around with. Some need paint though. They feel faded.

 

[Space Police]

Studio Series Transformers One Optimus Prime has been pretty bad. Not a fan of the piss grey plastic used and doesn't feel like a Studio Series figure.

When I first saw it I thought it was going to be in the gimmick subline. The gimmick subline has a better Optimus Prime.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

When I first saw it I thought it was going to be in the gimmick subline. The gimmick subline has a better Optimus Prime.

Yeah, it's like one of the higher ups thought it would be a good idea to switch them. He'd make for a good kitbash/ custom but that's about it.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Apparently Tidal Wave’s legs aren’t just the ratchets like Trypticon where it was fixable, like it’s the structure of the leg that’s the problem..

And yet people have fixed it the same way they fix trypticon's legs, by cutting the springs a bit or doing some other shit to them. Still not gonna cease pissing me off. ESPECIALLY with how the legs are the way they are due to them wanting a base mode over a non-partsforming titan.

I never saw ANY of the mass release Cassettes at retail save for SS 86 Frenzy, which only by chance did I find at my local Gamestop.

Only set I ever saw was Siege Ravage/Laserbeak, back before they started lumping the individual cassettes into singular "core class" releases. Due to this I have a laserbeak and ravage for siege soundwave and earthrise soundwave since he came with those exact figures. Scalpers would figure swap them by ripping out the back of siege soundwave rendering him un-transformable and swapping out the cassettes for the 2 pack versions. and I'm thankful I managed to find a non swapped one.

90s

*80s
The 40th anniversary is this year, 90s are still 30-ish years ago towards the earlier parts and 20 something ish towards the later parts. Still doesn't feel like it's been that long for the 90s though, in that weird kinda temporal warping rot since the 2020s hit even worse than the droning stuff that's been going since 2016.

 

[Humble Architect]

In regards to Tidal Wave’s legs, fix or not it’s unacceptable, he’s a runt, is overpriced as hell, comes with nothing else in the box and his articulation is outdated (skirt) for shame, I love the big lug and this is just sad. They could’ve easily thrown in his minicon and a micromaster for that one Decepticon who had an aircraft carrier base.

I'll sacrifice Hasbro's American HQ if it means we get the fan favorite VAs for every iteration from now on (the non unions suck ass and should get a real job they'd actually be good at; McDonald's cashier)

This, that jewish kid they hired off instagram to be WFC Optimus was awful. It is insane that Hasbro hasn’t done their own “Turtles Forver” and had Cullen Optimus meet Chalk Primal, instead wasting money on the LITTLE DONNY retard.

 

[The Lawgiver]

he’s a runt

He's the same size as the Combiner wars devastator from what I've seen, and that's a pretty good scale for me. HOWEVER mono-hip skirt and removal of shit like the elevator and landing craft seats are inexcusable though when combined with the scale being smaller and him clearly having less materials than other titans. They removed the engineering that made his transformation smooth and easy, something that'd be simple to upscale, and then overcomplicated how everything moves to get to those points because they wanted a "base mode" when you could technically already make a better looking base mode with the original figure's engineering.

Everything with these armada remakes has had some nonsense cost cutting method somewhere be it missing paint details, seemingly intentionally missing iconic features to the characters, or shit like the monoskirts/shoulder flap parts. Tidal Wave has a fake minicon peg on his chest and the hole ports for the siege micromasters all over him are only usable with those and blast effects.Swapping a partner storage elevator for a hollow empty arm with nothing but a port where the elevator is supposed to be is a fucking crime I'm never gonna get over.

We've come a long way from the $50 unicron of armada's initial release's perfection. Speaking of that, I'm gonna gripe briefly again about how every re-release of that figure shot up drastically in price even back in the day. When I was a kid seeing that figure for 100 something dollars a few years after it came out just because they swapped the package to say "universe" fucking pissed me off, and it unfortunately set a precedent for what was to come in the next decades. Titan unicron being a haslab only and having mostly shellforming and TWO MANUALLY OPERATED GEARED GIMMICK FEATURES for over $500 was the real breaking point, you can tell everything they made after that they knew they could just yoink features from and ramp up the prices further. When armada unicron was still new-ish, I remember a lot of people noticed immediately the way it transformed was based on the G1 movie's sequence and was pretty much 1 to 1 minus the kibble being there at the end and the slightly different proportions to the g1 cartoon. The $500 one doesn't do that, the third party ones don't do that, Only the armada mold that later got retooled and repainted into a more g1 styled one once 2010 hit did. Kinda wish I had the money for the Takara version of that one when it came out back then but I didn't, and still don't to a degree not even counting reseller price. I still have my old original armada one somewhere, though.

 

[Viper the rappah]

As a newfag what's general opinion on bayformers especially on designs of the bots?
I liked movies for what it is as an bay movie with good action until 4th one.
I hated how autobots over the time started getting too much resemblance of human features while deceptions started looking like predator ripoffs. I like shockwave's design but it just doesn't fit him. It's like when you see some nice oc only to turn out to be some tumblrtard's redesign
I found some old concept art of prime, i'm not against the one we got though i wish they could reused the designs for game or something

 

[The Lawgiver]

As a newfag what's general opinion on bayformers especially on designs of the bots?

Wasted potential overall, but I always found it kinda cool how they took inspiration from various insects and shit for the character designs. Something genuinely neat about them being weird buglike spacemen. Really liked how megatron looked in the first three and how as the movies progressed he got more and more mangled and visibly cobbled back together. Memes aside, the twins weren't as bad as every fucking internet personality makes them out to be. They talk like actual foul mouthed loser siblings trying to seem cool which is their whole fucking character. Don't think we're ever gonna see a relationship like that in any transformers thing after that movie happened, adult focused or otherwise. The fallen (and the 13 primes) being visibly themed off egyptian pharaohs was cool though I wish we got something that looked a little more like the original comic version of him somewhere. REALLY WEIRD that Devastator is called Brawl in all of the merch because they hyped up Devastator being a tank and not construction vehicles before the first movie, but then they made the gargantuan homonculus looking one in revenge of the fallen that was only called devastator on merch from what i remember and not in the actual movie? My point is there's 2 devastators and it's never going to stop mildly bothering me lmao.

In terms of my opinions on the individual movies? First one was incredible to see when it first hit theaters, kinda ok on rewatches but the cgi integration was pretty much as good as it got for movies from around that timeframe. Second movie was enjoyable but quality wise worse aside from visual effects, most people had a much stronger negative reaction but mine was weirdly kinda positive. Third movie was Ok, mixed bag of 1 and 2 and served as a wrap up for the "story" more or less. Every movie that came out afterwards was one that was trying to respond to the perceived "mistakes" of the last movies by movie reviewers so you had shit like shia lebouf dying offscreen. Cgi integration and visual effects it gets progressively worse in the last 2 movies compared to the first 3, despite the budget ballooning.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

looking sorta Tetsujin 28-go FX

 

[Electromagnetic Radiation]

As a newfag what's general opinion on bayformers especially on designs of the bots?

My personal opinion would be it's decent at best, uninspired and sleep inducing at worst. As others have cited Bayverse was at its best during the first few movies and i don't entirely disagree. But i will say the 1986 movie quite frankly supersedes every single Bayverse production despite its age (Same goes to the Beast Wars 2 movie, but barely anyone has seen it) and i behold this notion to the soundtracks as well. Overall, Bayverse is pretty much the designated outcast of the Transformers franchise, much like the western 1998 Godzilla movie, except this time its a entire series of films. At least the designs are decent for collectibles, even if there's vast abundance of figures i'd sooner purchase than those.

I found some old concept art of prime, i'm not against the one we got though i wish they could reused the designs for game or something

This is what the design of Optimus should have been in Transformers Rise of the Dark Spark. Although that game sucked ass, so i doubt it would've altered the game's reception

 

[Travoltron]

With the Marvel comics, I never really liked Bob Budiansky's run. I thought his writing was corny and too human-focused. I'd actually advise skipping most of his run. Maybe read that two-parter on Cybertron with Blaster and Straxus, that was pretty good.

Just read the first four issues and then skip to Furman's stuff. I haven't read much of Furman's Marvel UK issues, but what I've seen of it is good.

 

[Viper the rappah]

While we are still on bayfromers i also want to add that i believe that bumblebee becoming more of sports car than old beetle is welcome change that i prefer over original.


I don't think changing it to sports car is the best solution and more so depends on what the show is about. I'd like to be like how sonic from 2000s and one from 90s i think idk shit about sonic co exist together.
Also really interesting how both shockwave, megatron and starscream have been more closer to the og before getting scrapped.
Either ways if i could i'd only bring the scrapped shockwave, the starcsream one looks like he could've been in some 90s alien invasion movie and megatron wouldn't fit with bayverse asthetic

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

I will say in defense of bayformers-es
The part where "Starscream" was killing those guys by transforming in front of their planes and tanking the collisions was cool, also the gattai when Optimus got the backpack