Fans Toys FT-10 Phoenix (not-Skyfire, 2017)

One of the great oddities of the original Transformers cartoon of the 1980s was the inclusion of a character named "Skyfire." Skyfire was a fairly central character to a couple of early episodes, yet wasn't (directly) based on a toy. Even Reflector was based on a toy — albeit one that wasn't available in the US for a few years (and, as those who've read that old entry already know, even that only by mail order). To understand how this came to pass, some explanations are in order.

Combiner Wars Shattered Glass Starscream (2017)

And so it ends. A few weeks ago, subscribers to the fifth (and final) Transformers Figure Subscription Service put together by the recently-defunct Transformers Collectors' Club started receiving the final shipment from Fun Publications. This shipment included the already-announced Toxitron and Counterpunch toys, as well as the "mystery figure" for this subscription service, which turned out to be a Combiner Wars version of Shattered Glass Starscream.

"Me, Grimlock" Revisited

Almost a decade ago, the folks at the then-Official Transformers Collectors' Club decided to have a bit of fun. Taking a Classics Grimlock figure, they sent it around to club members inviting them to take pictures of it in their local settings. Once they had done so, the pictures were posted on the then-current club forums, and Grimlock would be sent on to the next club member in the queue. On occasion, members would even toss some little trinket in the box with Grimlock when they sent it on to someone else, so Grimlock gained some traveling companions along the way.

Universe Inferno (2009)

For the 25th Anniversary of the Transformers franchise, Hasbro released toys in their Universe line designed to pay homage to nearly every major iteration of the Transformers franchise released to date. Some iterations got more attention than others. Generation One received the most figures (often, but not exclusively, under the label "Classic Series"), which presumably surprised no one, while other iterations got only a figure or two. To the best of my knowledge, the sole representative of Generation Two was Inferno.

To use Inferno as the anniversary representative of Generation Two is a little odd. While there certainly was an Inferno figure released during Generation Two, it not only was just a reuse of the same mold as the one Inferno had during Generation One, but was all-but identical to it. The only discernible differences between the G1 and G2 Inferno toys were 1) an "Autobot" tampograph placed on the G2 figure, and 2) an extra water-shooting weapon added to the G2 set. Of these differences, Inferno's Universe toy doesn't even attempt to homage the G2 "Autobot" tampograph, and the water-shooting weapon seems to be homaged by an utterly dissimilar-looking missile launcher where the missile has been molded and cast in transparent blue plastic to resemble a bolt of water. There's really no reason not to assume that this toy is a G1 homage like so many other Universe toys, except that Hasbro wrote "Generation 2 Series" on the side of the box.

As odd as all that is, Universe Inferno is a rather nice toy, and in fact has been used several times in the years since to represent other fire truck-mode characters. I like this mold so much that I think I've actually collected every new-character version of the mold ever created (at least five characters), including the previously-featured BotCon 2010 Spark (Pyro) figure, which was much more appropriately a Generation Two homage, complete with the distinctive G2 Autobot symbol, which this Universe figure utterly lacks.

Generation Two purists are quick to point out that a lot of actual G2 toys lacked G2 faction symbols, which is true enough. Even so, I'd think that the powers-that-be would have done better to homage a character that at least had a distinctive G2 color scheme. It wouldn't have taken any difficulty at all, for example, to have repainted the Universe Sideswipe figure in a color-swapped G2 version. Of course, if they did, then it wouldn't have been an option for the BotCon 2010 customizing class exclusive, but I imagine that a lot of Sideswipe fans would have preferred that particular toy to have been available at retail, anyway....

Q-Transformers Snoopy (2015)

While Transformers fans in the United States have seen the franchise crossover with the occasional outside franchise, including some Marvel superheroes, as well as the Star Wars figures of a few years ago, such crossovers are a bit more common in Japan. We've already seen examples of this with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but Japan's crossovers have been by no means limited to Disney characters, as the Q-Transformers line demonstrates.

Glacialord/The Glacialbots (2013)

As more and more collectors of Transformers and other transforming robot toys enter into adulthood, a vibrant third-party market has arisen to provide a wider variety of product than Hasbro and/or TakaraTomy have been able to provide on their own. While it is true that some of these products play fast and loose with international intellectual property laws, there are nonetheless quite a few third-party products out there that, while clearly intended to appeal to fans of Transformers toys, are nonetheless very much their own thing: homages without actually violating anyone's trademarks and/or copyrights. Glacialord, a combiner released by a company called FansProject, was especially ambitious in this regard.

BotCon 2012 Shattered Glass Turbo Tracks

One of the struggles that the minds behind BotCon had to face every year was coming up with new and interesting concepts for their exclusive toys that would encourage fans to come to the convention and buy the toys. Some years were clear winners in this regard, while others didn't do so well. When the "Shattered Glass" concept was introduced at BotCon 2008, pre-convention orders of the box set of exclusive toys were so high that the set sold out. Indeed, that set was the second-fastest set to sell out in BotCon's more than 20-year history, with the record for the fastest set to sell out going to the Animated Stunticon set of BotCon 2011, which sold out in a mere 7 days! Riding the hype of both Shattered Glass and the previous year's record, Fun Publications thus hoped to recapture some of that interest with the "Invasion!" set of BotCon 2012.