Two all Bot Patties, Special Plot, Let us See

 

It was the early 2000's and Transformers had been slowly growing from this kids thing with a small adult fan following into a pop culture phenominon. This was years before the live action movies propelled things into the strotosphere and you had Bumblebee on bottles of Mtn Dew. However thanks to places like Hot topic selling shirts with Autobot symbols on them and the then new Dreamwave Transformers comic flying off the shelves, things were growing.

Armada was a much bigger hit than anyone expected, leading to stores demanding more toys faster than they could be produced. Not to mention, the adult fan community was growing now with the internet getting into more homes and connecting people in ways it wasn't before. Repainted toy molds are a common thing in every toy line. However, for the most part, only a handful of Transformers would get a repaint up to this moment. Suddenly Hasbro needed to get more product out.

Toys take longer to develop than you'd think. There's a lot of hands in the pot all working on the same project. Transformers is a toy line with a longer developmental timeline due to the engineering involved. The fastest way to get stores new stuff out ASAP is to reuse existing resources and that's what they did. Practically every toy in Armada was repainted into a new version of the toy. At BotCon 2002, the exclusives bore the new label 'Expanded Universe" similar to Star Wars. Before then, they'd have the current lines logo. The ongoing story line would take place off screen of the current fiction usually with non-show toys serving as characters. 

Expanded Universe toys were still starring in the ongoing convention story line. Honestly it seemed like a good way to brand the convention toys and let those who used them fictionally to place them wherever. Halfway through Armada, something called Transformers Universe happened. It all but replaced the former BotCon, now called OTFCC's storytelling. Now all of their exclusives bore that title instead of Expanded Universe.

Transformers Universe ultimately was a brand new toy line made completely from repainted existing toy molds that sold right next to Armada (later Energon and Cybertron). At the time, Transformers didn't have the standard amount of shelf space most of us are used to. There was an entire 6-8ft section in most stores full of product. It was cool, and maybe a little overwhelming. You might hear the occasional older fandom member say "it used to be about 20 toys a year". It really was, and now there was a ton out seemingly nowhere. Add in things like G1 reissues, odd merchandise that kept popping up, or the cool things going on in Japan like when Robot Masters came out. There was just a ton of stuff!

Lots of stores had exclusive Transformers, mostly under the banner of Transformers Universe. There was a mix of Beast Wars/Machines, Robots in Disguise, Armada, and even older G2 and Machine Wars molds! Want a toy in exciting new colors, here ya go! Miss out on a toy before, well, here's another chance! It was great, and according to the Hasbro Transformers team, they were working on getting Brave molds into the line. Neat! Fictionally, all the Transformers throughout the greater Transformers Multiverse were all brought together inside Unicron. They'd fight to the death while Unicron would feed off the death and anger. OTFCC was directly selling comics to further the story... and that's where this story takes a nose dive.

There's some of you who read the name OTFCC and said 'what?'. Some of us collectively exhale. I've talked about it before, but let's explain it as simple as we can. Prior to Fun Publications BotCon was ran by 3H. 3H was the convention founding Hartman brothers and their friend Glen Hallit. They split up shortly after BotCon 2002. The brothers took the BotCon name with them and Glen continued to run the convention and now fan club named simply 'Official Transformers Collectors Convention/Club' or OTFCC for short. IUp to this point Hasbro supported BotCon, but by 2002, they had secured a license.

OTFCC didn't go as planned. Delays and other issues cause the show to fail and shortly after the 2004 convention the license was taken away from Glen. A little later Fun Publications was the new holder with the Hartmans back on board. Those 3H comics had sporadic releases and the story line ultimately went unfinished due to 3H closing down shop. The toys, however, went strong for a few years before dwindling down in 2005 before living out a few years as a discount store line. As a discount store line, the toys were generally lower cost figures repacked from prior lines such as Energon or Cybertron in a generic Transformers Universe packaging. The name itself got another life years later. What we now call Generations, went through a few names changes initially and was called Universe for a while. 

And just like that, it was forgotten. The Multiverse comes up time and time again and gets used differently in various fictional outlets. The word multiverse gets thrown around a lot lately, that's what inspired me to write this. Some people have outright forgotten about the original Universe or maybe never learned about it depending on their fan experience. Often you'll hear G2 colors either mocked or loved, but the often weird purple's and wine colors used in Universe go by unmentioned. That's a shame, it was fun. I thought so at least, I mean, I just wrote a lot of words talking about it. 

Send (Wrecker) Hook

 

Robotmasters was a neat Transformers line from the mid-2000's that I have a lot of love for. A mixture of new and old toy molds in fantastic decos in a Transformers multiversal showdown in the Blastizone (a suburb here on Planet Zone). It was pure robot anarchy and I loved it. Wrecker-Hook was one of the early stand outs. Outside of Japan we know him as Tow-Line. He was a lovable character in Robots in Disguise that took his tow truck alt mode a little too seriously.

However by 2004 he had somehow lost his memory and became a Decepticon! During this time Wrecker-Hook became a capable mechanic who can fix almost anything. He got a visible upgrade as well. From the green and purple as an Autobot to black and red with gnarly flames as a Decepticon! Wrecker-Hook seemingly improved himself as a bad guy. Even made himself a new friend in Wingstun!

Let's Transform Cyberjet Jetfire!

Good old Jetfire. One of the more popular Cyberjets and for a while there, one of the more often used molds. Chances are you've probably got a version or two of it and let's transform it? As you can see above your figure should have two missiles. These fire from the launcher on the top of the jet which is also the robots right hand. It only fires one at a time, so the spare is often held in the other hand as a club.

 

In jet mode, the spare missile can be stored underneath the jet. With both missiles in place he looks pretty heavily armed. The jet itself is pretty neat. It's small, but not tiny. The wings can open up as well.

To fire the missile, just push on the end and it pops out flying a few inches. Instead of a spring trigger, the launcher has a sort of marble mechanism. 

The launcher clamps around the ball shape on the missile. The pushing plays with the friction of the holder and it just pops out. This works really well and is very handy as you won't loose missiles by accidental firings.

Let's start transforming him now. simply unfold the jet's undercarriage out. It's pretty obvious that these are Jetfire's legs. Thanks to the sculpting they blend in pretty well. There's also some fold-able landing gear built into them which stores out of the way in robot mode.

After you flip out those legs, adjust those arms into place. The missile launcher is one and by now you've noticed the other was the storage for the spare missile. Spread them out like in the picture. Just like the picture, don't get creative. 

By now you can probably see the robot's head, that's generally where you need to start folding. So do that. Fold it. Now. As you do this everything will fit into place with a little adjusting. Maybe a lot if you got creative with those arms like I told you not to.

You've mostly got Jetfire transformed. Just fold those arms up into place and you've got a pretty good looking robot.

 

Place one of those missiles in the launcher so Jetfire can shoot it at somebody. The other can be held like a club or stored on the underside of his arm. It's the same place you had it stored in jet mode and looks like an arm mounted gun when done so here.

Like I said before, this mold got a lot of use and chances are you've probably got a version or two of it. There's five different versions of it out officially and I still see bootlegs of it occasionally. 

It was used twice in G2 as Hooligan and Jetfire. In Robot Masters as R-Blade and Wind Sheer in Universe (v1). The last use was in the BotCon 2005 exclusive set as Ricochet. Each version is pretty different from the other and are pretty sharp looking toys. Go get one if you don't already own a version. Then fly him around your living room. Make "pew pew" noises.

Reverse Convoy/Megatron

Thinking about Megatron the other day led me to thinking about Reverse Convoy/Reverse Megatron from the Robot Masters toy line. As I've said before I quite liked the Robot Masters toy line. Sure it had more than it's share of critics (take a shot), but I really liked it (take another shot). When Reverse Convoy was revealed on news sites, it was met with mixed response (you probably shouldn't take another shot, it's a weeknight). Many praised the use of the fan favorite Hero Megatron mold and the inventive head swapping gimmick. Though many criticized that same head swapping gimmick as the Megatron head was far from perfect and several didn't like the colors. I recall even hearing complaints about the reuse of the mold (ask for water and then complain about getting water... I swear some people...).

No surprise, I liked it.

It's a mold I'll never get tired of and with this revision of it, they improved the one thing I never liked. They took away the air pump. It was part of the original toys play gimmick that I always just felt like was in the way. Just a box hanging off the toy that could be stored, but still left the hose in just the right position to assure any slight bump would remove said box from it's storage place and now it was gone. Utilizing the tanks cannon, the head swap gimmick would allow for a quick transformation from Reverse Convoy to Reverse Megatron. Basically Reverse Convoys head would stow away inside the tank kibble as it would during normal transformation, and Reverse Megatron's head would rotate around from the back of the tank's cannon, which of course was mounted on his shoulder. The Megatron head was far from perfect admittedly, due to the back plate of the head fitting into the tank cannon, it was a bit awkward looking. Not to mention, those round things that are often depicted on the side of Megatrons helmet (what are those anyway) looked like hair rollers to some people. I didn't share that opinion, but there was no doubt that the head could have been better. Though the Reverse Convoy head I thought looked sharp.

The colors? Once again, I thought they looked good. I do say they could have used something extra, just to give it a little more pizazz. As is, the colors make me think of Machine Wars Megatron. Whom for all purposes could have been the last appearance of Megatron in this timeline. Not the exact shade, but pretty similar. History hasn't been kind to Robot Masters as many people have either forgotten it or never were aware of it despite regular bootlegs of the toys at your local discount stores. That's a shame, or at least to me as I thought it was great.

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.

Weekly Spotlight: Reverse Convoy/ Rebirth Megatron

A warrior born on Planet Vehicon. Also an authority on energy production. In actuality, use of the black hole link system Reverse Convoy possesses caused him to become the rebirth of original Destron Emperor of Destruction, G1 Megatron.

Enter The Blasty Zone

This line was a whole lotta fun.

Weekly Spotlight: Robot Masters Wreckerhook

 

 

A soldier of many mysteries, he has lost his memory of the past, and there is no recorded data on him. A serious 'bot, he goes ahead and takes care of those repairs his teammates would rather not do. Once he gets a weapon in his hand, he's like a different person. No one can physically approach him.