Storming the Quicksand

 

Recently Hasbro previewed the upcoming Walmart Exclusive Sandstorm. This is a pretty big deal to me. The original is one of those figures that's always been just out of reach. It was a BotCon exclusive in the older days when they were a bit more hard to get and from a year I couldn't afford to go. This new Sandstorm is made from the Kingdom Scorponok toy that I loved. Frankly, I'll be satisfied with it. Being Exclusive to Walmart, it shouldn't be too hard to get. Though also being exclusive to Walmart means I don't trust their pre-order system and will have to essentially stalk my local stores when the sightings start happening. No problem, I'll practically live there if I have too. This is a must have toy for me and I can't wait to get one. It's so exciting to see something like this happen and honestly I'd love for more to come out.

Shitting Their Prime Pants

It feels like ancient history now, but then again, I suppose it was almost 20 years ago. At the time some major drama in the Transformers fan world went on that seemed larger than life. For outsiders- the Transformers fandom is more of a subculture than other fan bases. It's a little world of it's own that many members stay pretty wrapped up in. These days it's much larger and segmented, but it used to be much smaller and more tight knit. This particular event took place from 2003-2004, when things were starting to get a growth spurt. The internet was becoming more of a common thing and message boards for various interests were popping up all over. These were quickly taking the place of older online gathering spots, much to the dismay of some assholes.

There was one constant, BotCon. Prior to the last years, it was a smaller more personal affair back then. There were occasional attempts at other TF conventions and some TF programming at other shows, but BotCon was pretty much viewed as the only one. It was like our annual family picnic and a must go destination for many. Hasbro supported the show, but it wasn't officially official until around 2002.  I'm not going to go into the complete history of the con, but here it is of you're so inclined. In short, the brothers who founded it had a partnership with their friend Glen a few years into the cons life. This partnership ran the show for about 6 years. In 2003 they had a falling out and split up. Glen who owned the official license would go on to run the official fan club and con now named The Official Transformers Collectors Club/Convention (OTFCC for short). The brothers would run BotCon as an unofficial show in 2004. And within the fan community, a battle line in the sand was drawn. 

Bios: CatSCAN

CatSCAN is in many ways like a lost child in the wilderness -- he knows to some degree where he came from, but is unsure as to where he will eventually end up. Brought to life by a bizarre combination of Apelinq and his digitization powers and the artificial intelligence of a medical diagnostic computer, this curious creature has found a permanent home with the Wreckers team. Armed with two battle blades of ancient Cybertronian design and a tail-mounted plasma torch, CatSCAN could easily be considered a lethal one-robot army. This fact notwithstanding, his fearsome appearance belies an inherently gentle and nonviolent personality -- it is simply not in his programming to cause harm to other beings. Lacking a Spark of his own, CatSCAN has a deep wish to understand the true nature of his self-awareness. He looks up to Apelinq as a mentor and "creator figure" and often acts as a voice of conscience among his teammates.

Bios- Windrazor

Wisdom is the perfect complement to recklessness.

After a tragic betrayal, a young Maximal warrior's life-force was nearly extinguished. A hardened veteran of the Great War voluntarily donated his withering Spark to save the mortally wounded youth. The resulting fusion mutated and merged the two forms to create a new breed of warrior. Now possessing a unique binary-Spark system, Windrazor strives to bring an end to the conflict raging across Cybertron. He possesses twin shoulder-mounted rocket launchers that quickly bring down his enemies. Windrazor also possesses the wit and wisdom of a battle-worn soldier and the youthful energy of a child. This deadly combination makes him a fierce and dangerous fighter in the war that ravages Cybertron and the rest of the universe.

They call him the Streak

Some of the more cool toys that have come around in the history of Transformers are the non show characters. While this kind of character doesn't happen as much these days, there was a time when they were a good portion of a toy line. In Beast Machines there was some really good figures in the off camera character category. Maybe even better than the main cast folks. Spy Streak was one such toy.

A basic class Vehicon, Spy Streak was a sci fi jet that would look at home in a shoot 'em up video game or a tokusatsu production. Of course being that Vehicons were Cybertronian based vehicles in alt mode, this was a good fit for the theme. In robot mode he had a fun design that fit in with robot designs at the time, while having an alien looking appearance. Simply put, Spy Streak looked like he was from another planet.

The toy mold got used again in Robots in Disguise (the 2001 line) Nightcruz. Nightcruz was a great repaint with the jet parts being mostly black with white robot bits. Blue and yellow accents with dry brushing bringing out the jets tech detail made for a great looking toy. Released in a cool 3 pack with Scavenger and Mirage GT (also Beast Machines toy molds), the toy fit in with the look of the new molds of the line while helping to add more product to shelves.

The toy got used one more time a few years later in the original version of Transformers Universe as Fireflight. Now in an awesome white and blue-gray deco with red highlights, this is my favorite version of the toy. While I normally don't mind when a name gets reused, I do wish Fireflight had a more original name to make the figure more than just another repaint. Fireflight came packed with two Mini-Cons to put the toy in the deluxe price class making for a great little set of toys.

Fictionally non of these great toys got more than a background appearance in BotCon/OTFCC comics. During the 3H fan club, I submitted a bio for Fireflight to the magazine shortly before that clubs demise. At the time I had made him into a version of Randal from Clerks. Looking back now, that was terrible.

Beast Machines Deployers

Beast Machines was a weird Transformers line. It had the misfortune of following Beast Wars and forever living in it's shadow combined with being a hodgepodge of ideas. During it's short life it had a few interesting sub lines. One such was the Deployers, a lower priced set of figures meant to serve as partners for your Maximals in the fight against the Vehicons.

They were a great idea, doubling as a figure and an accessory. Each Deployer had a robot mode based on an animal that would convert into a weapon to be manned by your Transformer. There was three toys that later got alternate recolors, but stayed the same character. Allegedly the recolors were planned to be new characters, but it never came to be for some reason. You had my favorite Rav who turned into a crossbow. There was also Mol who converted into a drill of sorts, being more of a tool than a weapon I guess. Then there was Dillo, whom turned into a catapult of sorts.

They never appeared on the show, but between the packaging and appearances in 3H's BotCon comics, they got a little life. The Deployers were Drones found by Nightscream and were brought into the team. Despite being drones, each has an individual bio and personality. In the 3H BotCon comics they were scene in action along side the Maximals. That's one thing I always liked about those comics, they'd take place along side the show and feature non-show characters. It was a great way to breathe a little life into toys that generally never got a chance to shine.

The Deployers were a small addition to the overall line and for the most part generally forgotten about these days. They were just odd enough to be neat and added just a little extra play value to your toys. They are small and colorful. The mixture of translucent and opaque plastic makes for generally really nice looking toys of little mechanical animals. With the Battlemasters in Siege and other weapon based partner Transformers that have been available recently, I'm surprised a new version of the Deployers hasn't been on the shelves yet.

Beast Machines Dinobots

Earlier this week, I talked about one of my favorite Transformers sub-groups, today I'm going to talk about another. Around the same time as the Mutant Beast Wars toys were released, Hasbro also put out the Beast Machines Dinobots. In fact both were previewed at that years Toy Fair and were something I had eagerly anticipated. The toys were made using dinosaur based molds from Beast Wars recolored and sold as new characters except for Magmatron, who was a straight release as the Japanese character on US shelves.

While the idea of a team made solely of repaints may not excite some, hear me out. This was a time when getting toys from Japan wasn't as easy as it is today and four of the toys used molds from Beast Wars Neo. Magmatron was basically the Japanese toy in US packaging (it even says so on the box) while others used the BW Neo molds to create new characters. At the time you usually either waited for BotCon or hopefully could score Japanese toys online. Getting one of the Japanese molds easily at your local store was pretty welcome for most fans.

 Fictionally, they didn't do much. A little here and there in the 3H BotCon fiction and a text blurb on the back of the box. There's not much reason as to why I like them as much as I do, I just do. I like the molds, the colors, and the idea of a next generation of Dinobots. Maybe it was just the right thing at just the right time. The team is pretty obscure these days, obviously overshadowed by the regular Dinobots, and that's ok. Every once and awhile a new Dinosaur based TF will come along and I silently hope for one to be repainted into some sort of homage and of course it never happens. Fortunately there's plenty of Dinobot toys with a surprising amount of variety (movie, Generations, random toys) so I can't complain too much. Just in a world where fans have grown tired of Stepper (who ever would imagine that) one could hope another semi obscure weird batch of homages could see the light.

Mutant Beast Wars

The year was 2000, and even though Beast Wars was technically over and replaced with Beast Machines, there was still plenty of Beast Wars toys on the shelves. Since reruns of Beast Wars were steadily running on Fox Kids on weekday afternoons, it was natural to stock Beast Wars figures with the Beast Machines figures. The Fox Kids versions of Beast Wars toys were neato recolors of BW toys that took advantage of kids who saw those reruns and wanted a Transmetal Cheetor. With this and Animorph Transformers toys stocked with Beast Machines, there was a lot of beast themed Transformers on the shelves.

Animorphs wasn't a successes (I mean, I liked the toys... but that was something I found out after they went on clearance), however a company doesn't start out to fail at something and there was a few Animorph Transformers toys designed that went unused in the line. Somebody had the idea to remold the human bits into robot parts and release them.

So there you had the Mutants of the Beast Wars, The Mutant Beast Wars! What made them mutants exactly? Well, thanks to a virus unleashed by Megatron, these Fuzors were lost in their beast modes. Transforming from beast mode to beast mode with the robot lost inside (but maybe you could find their robot head peeking out). In case that description and the picture above doesn't clue you in, they don't have a robot mode. Icebird, for example, turns from owl to bear.

Like Animorphs, they were great toys, but now they were actual Transformers (not just in name). Though like their Animorph heritage, they were misfits in the Transformers fan world. As one could expect the G1 Purist crowd obviously despised them. A good deal of the beast era fans also wasn't fond. Though a handful of us did, and personally I loved them.

I was all over the figures the moment they arrived at my local Walmart. In fact the first one I grabbed was Icebird (my favorite of the bunch) one Friday night. I had the night off and took a quick stop to check out the toys and grab a bite to eat. An excited jump in the air lead to grabbing Icebird and a pack of chicken wings. That evening was spent with a toy I couldn't put down and messy homemade buffalo wings. Mutant Beast Wars didn't have any fiction outside the text blurb on the packaging. If I was a better writer, I probably would have written tomes of terrible fan fiction. The Mutants DID however appear briefly in 3H's BotCon comics. While they didn't get the biggest starring role, I was glad for something. Later they made some various low key fictional appearances in IDW comics and Fun Publications Fan fiction. Soundwave even made appearances in E-Hobby and Kre-O manga.

The Mutants never got any extra members, though some fans speculated Savage/Noble (Beast Changer) could be a Mutant. The 'Ask Vector Prime' Facebook Page (ran by Fun Publications) said in some realities he was and in some realities all BW characters were Mutants. Which I suppose in some reality is an answer and in some reality the alternate reality trope isn't played out yet (but Thanos still wins). All jokes aside, I've never considered him to be a member, but if you want to go ahead. There's a multiverse shoehorn for that.

Another would be new member is Leatherhide. A planned repaint of the Soundwave mold for the ill-fated Halloween Horrocon sub-line (that's a nifty name, huh), Leatherhide would probably be released as an Autobot, but a Mutant in any fiction. Leatherhide fictionally did appear in The Allspark Almanac volume 2 and in Fun Publications fiction meaning I'm not the only person who really wanted this toy.

Mutant Beast Wars over the course of time has managed to remain obscure in the greater world of Transformers with a little nod here and there. An odd team of misfits loved by some and despised by others. I suppose for the opposing team it's a good thing they didn't take off. Though as someone who came close to buying a test shot at a BotCon, I would have loved for them to take flight. The little nods here and there are great (and appreciated), but in some alternate universe I have a display of Mutant Beast Wars Masterpiece toys.

Autobop in the Key of Chain

Something got me thinking the other day about something completely silly that was a whole lot of fun. Long before these recent days of being able to stroll down the aisles of Walmart and being able to pluck a G1 Minibot off the shelf and long after you could originally stroll down the aisle of Walmart and pluck a G1 Minibot off the shelf, there was another way you could... stroll down the aisle and pluck a G1 Minibot of the shelf...

That seemed a lot more clever in my head.

Around 2002 G1 Minibots were released as key chains by Fun4All. Essentially they were near identical reissues in reproductions of the toys original packaging with a tiny plastic loop molded on and a small key chain attached. At first Bumblebee and Cliffjumper were released, later Windcharger and Brawn followed. These little key chain figures were literally just the thing for somebody like me who was giddy with every step at the time in his love for transforming robots from Hasbro.

I eagerly snatched them up even grabbing multiples as they were pretty cheap and just so damned neat. I loved them. Later at BotCon 2002, there was an incentive exclusive for those who preregistered. Not to mention, as Dreamwave was taking issue with 3H for selling a convention comic, 3H sold a small exclusive who came with the comic included. Those exclusives turned out to be Tap-Out and Glyph, made from the Cliffjumper and Bumblebee key chain figures! I was blown away by the fun exclusives as were others at the show. That was just the ideal thing at the time.

Throughout the con I had a Bumblebee attached to the zipper of my con backpack and noticed others had the key chains on their bags as well. I saw a fan who had all of the key chains (including his new con exclusive ones) attached to his belt loops. It was a fun and everybody just loved these key chain toys. A little later at BotCon Europe 2002 they released Rook as the exclusive, made from Windcharger. Like others, I bought quite a few from 3H. It was hard not to love the key chain toys and exclusive versions were just a little better.

In 2003 the key chain figures found their way to Japan by way of 7-Eleven exclusives with black colored variants as chase figures! I really wish I would have taken the opportunity when I had it to order a set. Those black ones are super cool. Oddly enough Fun4All went bankrupt in 2004 and around 2006 Basic Fun had begun selling the key chains in newer packaging. Yes I bought more, shut up. That was the last of the figures, though plenty of other TF key chains have came since.

Oddly enough the key chain figures have a weird legacy. I've heard several times people misremembering the original G1 Bumbelbee as a key chain. Or I can't count the times I've seen one of the Minibots for sale with the loop cut off with a seller trying to pass them off as originals. I got one for a quarter once. I damn well knew it was a key chain with the parts cut off with some toenail clippers, but dude... a quarter.

I guess with the reissues now hanging from the pegs at Walmart, one doesn't really need a return of the key chains. I hope to see more and more of the little guys at my Walmart. I've always really liked Minibots, it's hard not to. Those key chain versions of the Minibots were silly, but another fun way to enjoy the classic toys. Who doesn't like to have fun with their toys?

Other than assholes.

Robo Masters commercial (2nd version)

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who cared about Robot Masters, which is silly, but I just don't see many folks looking back on it fondly as I do. Not that I'm trying to be hipster about it, just that I feel like it's often overlooked and unfairly judged. Robot Masters was a Transformers series by Takara that is usually described as their answer to Universe (1.0). Which is kinda fair I suppose, though Robot Masters has original molds in the mix while Universe was all repaints. Fictionally it had a similar story, with various Transformers from various timelines coming together. I can't say I got all of them, though I did get a great deal of them. The line came out just shortly before OTFCC 2004 ensuring that there was plenty of them on hand in the dealers room. You can still find cheap bootlegs of some of the figures at your local discount stores, though they don't really convey what made the line so special to me. It was just the right thing at just the right time and I'll always appreciate it for that.

BotCon 1994 video

This is great.

Omega Pointing

Sometimes, as a Transformers fan (or I guess a fan of anything) you get asked what your favorite era of fiction is. I always say beast era and when I specify more, my favorite parts is the Beast Wars cartoon and the 3H comics (even after BM ended their setting was post BM Cybertron). Not that I don't love G1 and other eras (that's probably apparent in these posts here), just that's the pinnacle for me. My absolute. I love the story telling and can go back to it time and time again. I'm taking time to talk about the 3H era stuff as the Omega Point story line is just *kisses fingers* magnifique.

I'll just go ahead and recommend you check out 3H and everything on the wiki. Just so I don't spend too much time going all over that for those of you who don't know and considering the growth of the TF fandom over the last decade, it's easy to understand that some of you missed that and may not know.

One thing that made the 3H comics so fun is they not only featured the BotCon exclusives, but also non show characters. While Beast Wars may look dated now, that mid 90's cgi was pretty big for a syndicated cartoon show budget, and owing to the fact that each character transformed created double the CGI models for each character, made for unfortunately a smaller cast. This during a time when toy lines had more than multiple versions of the main characters. So that really cool toy you bought who wasn't on the show, got a life in these comics.

Adding to the fun, the Omega Point story line was a Unicron story in the beast timeline (this was before he was used to death during the mid 2000's) and in a way similar to his use in the Marvel UK comics. Essentially, Shokaract is empowered by Unicron's dark essence. Not to mention, there's no handy dandy matrix of leadership laying around to run him off. So Unicron is wrecking havoc and the time tested way to deal with him isn't there. So these expanded universe characters go on a most excellent adventure over the course of a few years of fiction.

It's a pretty awesome story arc, and I think a good deal of it can be found online if you ever get curious enough to read. IDW did a slight retelling of the events in their Beast Wars comic series, which hits the main beats, but tells the story differently. I remember reading it being very impressed they bothered to retread it, even as differently as they did.

Off Camera

One thing that 3H used to do with their fiction, and Fun Publication did initially was base their fiction on non-show characters and generally had their adventures either off to the side of what was going on or little side stories with their exclusives just inserted into what would be a normal episode of the show. Fun Publications eventually got away from it for their own reasons, which probably was due more to the nature of the current product changing often or focus of the series being different (a Generations figure obviously wouldn't pair well with the Animated crew, for example).

Though I generally preferred the side stories better as it was a great way to give these other toys a chance to have adventures (admittedly, there's not much off screen characters anymore on shelves) and really expand on the greater setting. With Transformers seemingly settling into a more cohesive direction (mainline/movie instead of mainline for kids/mainline for adults/movie) I can hope that if there is any fiction from a future (if ever) new fan club or convention, it can be more side stories or extra adventures in the current at time setting. The upcoming Cyberverse cartoon seems perfect to have little adventures set in.

It's pretty much just a generalized Transformers setting, that'd be perfect.

Since I'm talking Snarl

The name Snarl often gets reused on other pretty cool characters. The Beast Machines Snarl character was never on the show, but was featured in the 3H fiction that took place just after the show ended. Snarl's toy got re-released in the Universe toy line with a new deco and he got some much deserved time to shine. At one point the mold was going to represent Alpha Trion, but a toy was never made. It's a great figure, a neat techno organic lion with a pretty solid robot mode. He's not too different from toys of the time, but that's not a bad thing. I really liked him then and wish he got more love in current times.

I wish this never ended

The 3H version of the TF fan club wasn't without it's problems, but that one lone issue of the magazine was spectacular.

Unpolished Metals

A thread earlier in Talk Transformers combined with my earlier post got me missing those older BotCons. They were basically officially recognized fan conventions. A little rough around the seams, but still pretty great. These days of even small run comics being super slick makes me yearn for these older convention comics even more.

Should get a Big Mac and flip through my old copies.

Ironically

Man, I love Machine Wars packaging.

I was thinking earlier today. The exact reasoning that I started this blog/site/whatever (I feel weird calling it a blog) comes directly from me wanting to create a series of zines focusing on more forgotten/looked over series of Transformers. It was going to start with Machine Wars, then McDonald's Beast Wars, onto the Walmart Dinobots, the Mutants, and so on. I literally had been sitting on this idea for over a decade. I've mentioned before there was a pre-cursor to Zone Base in the form of a short lived Tumblr. I did it at an odd point and it didn't really last long. Not long enough to work that forgotten series into it. So at some point I decided to make Zone Base. Which I made and promptly sat on forever. In between self doubt if anyone would actually read it and general life keeping me busy, Zone Base sat empty for awhile and at some point I made a "I promise there will be something here at some point" post. Then more time passed and I finally decided to get off my butt and do something with it, I mean what's the actual worse that could come from it?

So I decided the most appropriate time to launch Zone Base officially (even though I didn't buy an actual url until a few days later, so it was blogger.com/zonebase) was during BotCon 2016. It was the last BotCon, and say what you will about Fun Publications years on the convention, it was around long before them and meant a whole lot to us Transformers fans. I really wish I could have gone, but at that point I was just priced out. Though, they seemingly had an exclusive just for me. I mean, I know they didn't make it with me in mind, but let's just say they accidentally did. They had an Under 3 homage toy (I got Kilby to grab me one at the con).

McDonald's Beast Wars is a big deal to me and that toy was just that last special BotCon thing, just for me. Earlier in the evening, I said goodbye to BotCon (though I had done that originally before the Fun Pub version, it was a different con with the same name really) and did a soft launch of Zone Base on Instagram. It was a picture of a Big Mac and a Combiner Wars Shockwave. I had grabbed a Big Mac meal just for the occasion as I always ate a Big Mac at least once at BotCon (pre Fun Pub, though I did eat one at Charticon, because that was a return to those old BotCons to me). I've said before and I'll say it again: I've always associated McDonald's with Transformers and occasionally I guess it'll make sense to people.

But that Instagram post had a little blurb about Big Macs and BotCon and that was that. It was generally well received on social media (man, I share everything) as most folks who saw it got it. The next thing I posted was a little later that night, and that was the introductory Zone Base post. Fortunately Zone Base has been really well received and I've really enjoyed making it. Though, I gave that little insight to why I created this site/blog/thing to explain what's ironic.

I was thinking today that I still haven't made anything with that zine idea. *shrug* I guess I'll get to it eventually.

Weekly Spotlight: OTFCC 2004 Megazarak

Functioning is a privilege, not a right.

The sudden appearance of Megazarak on Cybertron's political and military landscape shifted the planet's balance of power forever. This new warlord had a thirst for destruction and chaos unlike any other Decepticon leader before him. With no tolerance for weaker species, Megazarak went on a genocidal rampage throughout Cybertron, beginning with the Destruction of his reality's Matrix-bearer. The remains of the Autobot army were soon dispatched with ruthless efficiency and in a short period of time, Megazarak became the most feared despot throughout the galaxy. In both modes, Megazarak fires a wide variety of lethal electromagnetic attacks from his side-mounted cannon. His Micromaster partner, Caliburn, doubles as a lightning blaster - discharging 60 kilovolt bursts at his opponents, Although immensely powerful, Megazarak does have a weakness - his preoccupation for hunting down the remaining Autobot who had eluded his wrath - Defensor.

Weekly Spotlight: OTFCC 2003 Sunstreaker

They can't beat the best.

The complete egotist, Sunstreaker thinks he is the most beautiful masterpiece of Cybertronian design ever built. Loves his sleek styling, slightly contemptuous of his fellow Autobot race cars (particularly his twin Sideswipe). His vanity is matched by a fiercely competitive nature and relentless drive to prove himself the best in the battlefield. In robot mode, the double barreled multi-purpose launcher mounted on his right arm fire dual laser-guided missiles. Launcher also doubles as a melee weapon which can create twin fiery sabers. Shoulder mounted electron-pulse weapons ports are capable of emitting sustained bursts of high-energy electron pulses at 300 bursts/sec.

Spooky Spotlight: Tripredacus Agent

Deception is the nemesis of detection.

His outer appearance resembles that of a Maximal, but within beats the fuel pump of a devious espionage agent! A former saboteur, this agent adopted several aliases while involved with the Beast Wars. As an assassin, he works best when operating solo. His irradiated spark, which was salvaged by the Vok, allows him to cloak his energy signature. Carries a low-radiation proton bomb launcher, with laser targeting. His only weakness is sensitivity to bright light.