Attack of the G2 Decepticons (Extra!)

Four years ago, I entered a contest sponsored by the official Transformers Collectors Club. While I didn't win, I did share that entry on the old blog at the time. Here is that entry.

For today's entry, I had started writing about something completely different, only to find that I didn't really have anything to say about it. As a filler entry, then, I'm sharing some of the other images I took as preparation for that contest.

As the Fourth Doctor said in The Sontaran Experiment: "You never know when these bits and pieces will come in handy. Never throw anything away."

Generation Two Jetfire (1995)

The practice of releasing a toy mold more than once, just using different colors to create a different character, has been a part of the Transformers franchise since the very beginning. However, for the first decade or so of the franchise's existence, such "repaints" or "redecos" always resulted in completely new characters not previously seen in the franchise. With the last year of the Generation Two line, this began to change....

BotCon 2002 CatSCAN

One of the oddities of BotCon 2015, currently in progress, is that so many of the exclusive toys this year are original characters. Back in the early days of BotCon, this was the rule, rather than the exception. Some fans argue that this meant a period of creativity that modern BotCons fail to match. While this is certainly debatable (and, indeed, will no doubt be discussed in relation to BotCon 2015 in the days to come), CatSCAN, from BotCon 2002, is almost undeniably an unusual concept within the Transformers mythos.

BotCon 2014 Primal Prime

BotCon's coming up this week, and although I can't attend this year, it's a good time to catch up on featuring some BotCon toys that haven't yet been featured here. Primal Prime was the customization class toy from BotCon 2014. Unlike Shattered Glass Thunderclash, I did not get this figure from attending the customization class itself. Since BotCon 2013, Fun Publications has allowed attendees to purchase an unpainted-but-assembled version of the custom class toy. This was an especially welcome change because, since BotCon 2010 (the year after SG Thunderclash!), the custom toy itself used unique plastic colors for the figure, making it all but impossible to create the same toy using a base figure otherwise available (not that most folks would want to buy a BotCon 2009 Thunderclash, only to strip the paint off of it and repaint it into the SG version).

Updates to the Unofficial Transformers Club and Convention Exclusive Data Pages

Since relaunching the blog as "Blackrock's Toybox," I've been working to update my web presence elsewhere, as well. Perhaps the most important items I maintain on the web are The Unofficial Transformers Club and Convention Exclusive Data Pages. Transformers: Animated art director Derrick J. Wyatt has likened the data pages to being a "BotCon Advent Calendar" and calls seeing them updated one of his "favorite things about BotCon season."^* With BotCon 2015 just around the corner, I could use some help gathering information for these pages, as I will not be able to attend the convention myself this year.

Power Flight Superman (1995)

Disclaimer: This image is not
my own figure, but given to
represent the figure in its
original package.

There have been so many figures of Superman made over the years, I wonder if anyone has compiled a complete list of all of them. I am definitely not that person. In fact, this is the only Superman figure I own. This is perhaps especially odd, given that this particular figure represents a fairly distinctive time in the character's history: the mullet period.

Clocker (2005)

There is a sense in which the period between the end of the Beast Era and the opening of the first Transformers live-action movie in 2007 has become a "forgotten era" of the franchise. This is a bit of a pity, because it obscures the fact that this era introduced new worlds and concepts to the mythos. Before Cybertron, for example, the only worlds that played a significant part in the Transformers franchise (that is, outside of one-off episodes and stories) were Earth, Nebulos, and Cybertron. The Cybertron storyline started off by introducing three more, one of which was Velocitron, the "Speed Planet," from which we get Clocker.

Carzap with G.B. Blackrock and Gas Pump (2015)

Whenever I write about a toy connected to Fun Publications, the folks behind BotCon and the Transformers Collectors' Club, I feel compelled to acknowledge that they have been the target of more than a little criticism from Transformers fans. Whatever merits those criticisms have, it's hard to deny that they manage to release some pretty special exclusive toys, and it's the toys I prefer to focus on here. This one is particularly special. There is a sense in which I've been waiting for this particular release since the club started, and I'm extremely happy to say that the day has finally arrived that I can say, "an official G.B. Blackrock figure exists!"