Combiner Wars Megatron (2015)

When IDW Comics finished up their "Dark Cybertron" storyline in 2014, they took the bold move of having Megatron, leader of the Decepticons in most iterations of the Transformers franchise since its beginnings 30 years earlier, renounce his membership with the Decepticons and become an Autobot. Needless to say, this was a controversial decision that fans debate to this day. Speaking only for myself, what I find perhaps even more impressive than IDW's decision to have Megatron become an Autobot is that he remained an Autobot all the way through to the end of that continuity several years later.

Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Transformers with 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime (2008)

I have tended to consider May 8th, 1984 the "birthday" of the Transformers, working from the publication of the first issue of the Marvel comic. However, other dates are possible. Surely the commercial that advertised that very comic aired at least a few days earlier, although I know of no way to document that for certain. "CrazySteve" (aka "Evil King Macrocranios") over at "The Roboplastic Apocalypse" (who I was pleased to chat with briefly at TFCon Los Angeles last month, possibly for the first time in over a decade) found an ad for Transformers at Zayre that he can source to April 29th, 1984 (thanks to Radio Free Cybertron for pointing me in his direction). I honestly don't recall whether or not toys had started showing up in stores by this time (much less an exact date), so this date wins for now. Still, although I'm missing the anniversary of that advertisement by a few days, this seems a good time to say "Happy 35th Birthday, Transformers!"

Power of the Primes Prime Masters (2017-2018)

Completing the "Prime Wars Trilogy" after Combiner Wars and Titans Return, the Power of the Primes line focused on the return of "the Thirteen," the very first Transformers created by Primus (in this version of the mythos, anyway), each given the designation of "Prime." This is a concept that had been batting around in various Transformers continuities for several years by this point, with the actual members of the Thirteen varying slightly from iteration to iteration. While a few members of the Thirteen had received toys previously (here's just one example), Power of the Primes was the first concerted effort to give toys to all thirteen members.

Skyhopper (1989)

Like many who attended TFcon LA a few weeks ago, I picked up a few items to add to my collection. One such item, however, was more of a "return" to my collection, having sold my original specimen many years ago and having later come to regret it. Thus, Skyhopper, one of the Micromaster bases, is once again mine.

From TFcon LA: Some Unused Fun Publications Concepts

I spent this past weekend at TFcon in Burbank. While I took more pictures there than I can reasonably share in a single blog post, I thought a more focused entry sharing some of the images from Bill Forster and Jim Sorenson's panel on production art would be appropriate. Here are some concepts that Fun Publications considered for club and convention exclusives that didn't quite make the cut.

Titans Return Brawn (both versions: 2016 and 2017)

It's not too uncommon to see a character given more than one toy within a Transformers line, but usually this happens with what might be called "first tier" characters such as Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, or Starscream. When a character like Brawn, who's only been given a small handful of toys in the entire 35 years of Transformers history to start with, is given two toys within a single line, it raises eyebrows. Nonetheless, that's exactly what happened within the Titans Return line.

Titans Return Galvatron (2016)

When I discussed the Titans Return line while featuring (perhaps ironically) Legends Blurr, I mentioned that the Headmaster-like gimmick was applied to nearly all of the toys in the Titans Return line. What I didn't spell out was that a very intentional part of that gimmick was that all of the small "Titan Master" heads/robots were sized so as to be interchangeable with all other "Titan Master" figures. That is to say, I could take the head off of Blurr and switch it with the head from Six Shot, giving Blurr Six Shot's head and vice versa, despite the fact that the two main robots are significantly different in size. This commitment to keeping all of the "Titan Master" figures the same size, even for the large robots, was achieved via a series of "cheats," which a review of Titans Return Galvatron will make clear.