Merry Christmas!

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Weekly Update 4/22/24

Welcome to another week on Zone Base! I had a pretty good weekend for the most part. My Origins Wheeljack came in Friday. I ordered one mid week and a later stop by Target proved that to be a good idea. They still haven't gotten one! Hopefully the upcoming Legacy United 4 pack will be easier to get. I need that Squeezeplay! Also Friday, the Mrs picked up a Legacy Silverbolt for me! Woo! Beast Wars is life! Saturday while out shopping with the Mrs I picked up Studio Series Sunstreaker and Gnaw! I just realized I already had the figure from the 2021 release, but I guess I got another. You can never have too many Sharkticons! I also picked up some Star Wars Doorables... because I'm hooked. Also stopped by Michaels to look at the Nevermore Collection. Halfway to Halloween is is coming up and this little aisle of gothy decor is just the thing to help ring it in! My local store didn't have it all up, but I enjoyed looking at what they had. Sunday was spent at home and enjoying some homemade pizza for dinner and lots of playing Mighty Doom. Well, I've got a busy day full of chores and recording the newest episode of Transform Squadron in score for me. Hopefully I'll have it up this week. Speaking of things in score, there's a fun week of content planned for you! Thank you for reading Zone Base. If you like what I'm doing, thanks! Please share the site with your friends and Mutual High Fives all around! Our next Zone Base Special Event starts next week, get ready for Halfway 2 Halloween!

Santa Claus X Exkaiser

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. 

Mastering the Brave

 

Transformers is a pretty big brand that's been going for a pretty long time. During that time and growth, there's been a lot of ideas that never became real. I'm going to talk about one of those right now. Mainly because it's something that I wish would have happened. That would be New Transformers: Bravemasters. Bravemasters was a proposal by Hayato Sakamoto for an E-Hobby exclusive toy line. The line was to use non-screen character Transformers movie toys in new colors as new characters.

The setting would have been the time period between Headmasters and Masterforce. A new group of Deceptcions led by Master Hell would have attacked Earth. A lone Autobot still on Earth named Brave would have been the first line of resistance with others to join him as things progressed. The series would have been a triple threat. New fans would have a virtual clean slate to pick up from. Older fans would have a look into a time that hadn't been explored much. Third, it would visually appeal to fans of Brave and give them something new.

Personally, I would have loved to see Bravemasters become a reality. It's such a cool idea and theoretically would have given some great toy molds some much deserved attention. I wasn't there at BotCon 2015 when the information was revealed at a panel featuring Sakamoto. However it's been something I've wished for since reading the panel notes. I'd have been a big fan of this series and I'm pretty sure others would have too. Ultimately, a lot of the concepts pitched at the time would have led way to Transformers Cloud. Itself a neat line exclusive to E-Hobby.

Desert Warrior Dynabot

 

I've got a particular attachment to Snarl. It all started when I went trick or treating dressed as him for Halloween. It was a Collegeville costume, the plastic smock and mask style that often gets lumped in with Ben Cooper costumes. Amusingly, the character was labeled Dynabot on the box. My cousin was quite impressed and asked me if it transformed, in which I told him it did as I got on all fours (with requisite transformation noise). I pulled the mask over my head and began to snarl and chomp. I understand if you're impressed, he was. He was also jealous, as I suspect you are.

Thing is, Snarl is pretty awesome looking. The way his plates and spiked tail form 'wings' in his robot mode has always looked cool to me. I recently got the Cyberverse figure (pictured above). I'd been after it for sometime now. You're aware I like Snarl, but also liked the resemblance to his Action Master box art. It's a good toy, simple like most Warrior Class figures, but still a good toy. 

Snarl's cartoon model got recycled as Armor Geist in Brave Exkaiser. I used to think the Age of Extinction Snarl toy would make a good update of that (and still do), but this Cyberverse Snarl would be a good candidate as well. Maybe with a new head. It's so true to the cartoon model that I could see it invoking the character well. Wonder if some kid was Armor Geist for Halloween and really likes him as a result? I hope so.

Convoy to the Stars

I had no clue Star Convoy existed until I was in college. Here I was, some doofy kid who really liked these things, but only knew the ones I grew up with. As the internet became a thing and entered my life I got educated on the stuff I didn't know about. That's what pre-internet life was like when you were a dorky kid. Maybe you got some information from random magazines (professional or fan) or oddball conversations. I knew they came from Japan (more or less) and there was ones released around the world that weren't here. That was about it. Sometimes some different looking ones would pop up as bootleg robot toys at discount stores. That was neat. Turns out there was this thing called Brave a well. Thanks internet!

After learning of Star Convoy I had to have one. Unfortunately it was pretty hard to get. How hard? Real hard. Was that filler? Yep. Like I said it was hard to get one, and if you were in that position, very expensive. Eventually in 2005 Unicron came, but also Takara re-released him. Now you could just get one affordably! Which I did! The reissue was a little different though. Now the yellow chest... thing was gold chrome. That and his box was more in the style of earlier G1 than the late G1 style Takara boxes. I didn't care, I finally had one. Now I just need the new versions. Well, eventually.

Whoa Damn Cyberverse

Toy Fair is this weekend, so of course all sorts of news is dribbling out from various sites before the onslaught this weekend. Today's bit of exciting Cyberverse news is a pretty awesome. The new Battle Call figures are slated for release during the second half of this year. That's pretty unfortunate as I want them now. I've been a fan of Cyberverse since it's release and seeing it improve as it goes along is great. These new Battle Call figures are named such as they have voice activated lights and sounds... which I'll likely have turned off most of the time.

What I'm most excited for (other than the cool looking figures) is the cool battle armor. Depending on the size and class of the figure, the armor either flips out or attaches separately. That was called a simple explanation, you'll only get that here folks. I'm a sucker for this type of gimmick. Not only is it super fun to deck your bots out in neat armor bits, but it also tends to improve the looks of the figure a lot. I make a lot of comparisons of Cyberverse to older super robot toys, and with this armor, it's even more apparent. They look straight out of late Japanese G1 or Brave and I love that look.

I really appreciate the new characters. While I've never complained about the regular use of the main cast, it is super cool to see new characters. I really like Wildwheel, it's hard not to love a cowboy and something as silly as a cowboy robot is just fun. The returning characters look great a here as well. It could be a coincidence, but Starscream looks like a mix of Cyclonus and Leozack to me with his feline-ish armor. Megatron's armor pretty much converts him into Galvatron, which is really similar to an unused Action Master concept. Probably unintentional, but cool regardless.

Go Goldran!

Thanks to a random fake image, I've had Goldran on my mind lately. I'm not going to pretend to know everything about Brave (there's plenty of others online who'll be glad to do that), my knowledge is pretty basic. Goldran, somehow is the one Brave series I've gotten the most toys from though. A Korean Death Garry Gun, and a few bootlegs (I'm telling you, they're everywhere). One take away I've had since buying my bootleg Goldran is how much I marveled at just how much it fits into late G1 TF.

Sure, Brave is extremely Late G1 TF in design (it's basically late G1 as is) and of course Death Garry Gun (yes, that's his name.. it's one of those words don't always translate well) is a late G1 TF mold reused, like others in Brave. But Goldran, man...

That dragon mode draws mental comparisons to Trypticon for me. It's not exact, but it's there. I suppose it's the similar stature and proportions. That's fair, that'd be a pretty reasonable explanation as to why I do so. I've always felt the dragon head was similar too, though that's probably just me. Vacuum metalizing is always a point of contention among TF fans. While it looks great, it can flake away easily. So of course Goldran is almost completely coated in gold vacuum metal. Honestly, I think it's gorgeous. It's such a pretty toy, specially in that samurai super mode. It almost looks like a trophy as opposed to a toy, or in my case, a bootleg robot toy I bought at Tuesday Morning.

Da Garn Land Bison commercial

Steel Divine aka Brave Advenger bootleg

I've never pretended to be the biggest scholar when it comes to Brave. I like it, but I'm not a walking encyclopedia or anything. One thing that has always been part of it's charm is it's odd relation to Transformers. It's Takara's post G1 series that started it's life intended to be a Transformers series and even uses some Transformers molds in it's toy line. The cartoon is very similar to the Takara Transformers cartoons and the toys are from the designers. So basically, it's a continuation of G1 in a  semi sorta way. I have a good number of the toys, but aside from a Death Garry Gun (yes, that's his name, he's also recolor of Sky Garry... yes that's also his name) they're all bootlegs. Bootlegs of Brave toys are pretty rampant in the robot world and can usually be purchased at discount stores.

well...crap

Unfortunately when it comes to bootleg toys the plastic can vary from pretty ok to a pile of garbage. My Advenger (yes, that's his name) from Tuesday Morning here has kinda oki-ish plastic with a pretty low quality build. So he fell apart instantly as I was removing him from his j-card prison. Fortunately, he went right back together. I'm sure I could fix him easily, but for a 5$ bootleg, I don't know if I'll take the effort. Attempts to transform him became basically putting him back together after twisting a few parts resulted in him falling apart, and I had to put him together with ample cussing.

Advenger is still a nice looking robot, even with the cludginess (that's my word for it) that comes with a discount store bootleg robot toy. He has most of his accessories, though his firing rockets are molded in. His shield is a leftover from from an additional train car that the real toy came with that pretty much has nowhere to go when he's transformed into train mode now. Though the hitch to attach the car is there, and his storage for car bots in train mode still works.

I was actually impressed with some of the bits that actually functioned correctly, his flip out panels for launching gimmicks fold out, though the launching gimmicks are molded in. For a discount store bootleg of a 20 year old toy I'd expect those to be molded over, so it's nice that the small amount of original toy remains even though it's in a neutered state.

His train mode suffers a bit as it doesn't properly go together. It might, but I'd never know as I had to snap him back together several times to force him into what gets close as possible to a train engine. Though his thighs still flip over to the coal bin in train mode. Which, like the flip out panels in robot mode, I'd figured would have been left out. Advenger can store his accessories in this mode, but Steel Divine just kinda has to leave them behind. I have no clue if the storage works as I could hardly get him to hold together in this mode.

Over all it's still a nice looking robot, and if you can pick up one that holds together correctly (or you take the time to fix it) you'd have a nice enough version of a old toy. Visually they got most of it right, and it has that great late G1 looks. It does make me want a real version of the toy as man it's sharp. So I guess it wasn't a total bummer that it falls apart and I suppose I could spend a little time to fix it up. Maybe.

Sky Garry

Ability: Directs the new Cybertron soldiers, the Micromasters in attacking the Destrons. Uses the Mystery Circle Punch which instantly pierces the bodies of his enemies. Has a good relationship with his sibling, Grandus.
Weapon: Star Shot

J Decker intro

J Decker is one of those Brave series that is like that slightly underground punk band that everyone has seemingly heard of, but never quite escapes that slightly underground nature.

I kinda want a toy of him

I don't know why people keep saying it's a real life Transformer. 

It's clearly a Brave guy.

Max Team Form Up!

Last week I briefly mentally compared Zenon to God Max, which resulted in having God Max on the brain. I spent a little time with mine afterwards, and what a great toy. Ok, mines a Family Dollar knock off, and so is most of my Brave toys. I think my Death Garry Gun is the only legit Brave toy I own. The rest being knock offs bought from various discount stores in various forms of quality. My God Max is pretty good actually, I think you can still find it at Family Dollar stores (comes in a set for about 15$). Decent quality (some loose bits, but it's a knock off of a 20 something year old toy) though the colors are off, which happens with discount store knock offs.

Fun toy, Brave toys are essentially G1 Transformers under a different line name and it shows. Takara decided to work on a  new venture and let Transformers cool, which resulted in a very Transformers show and toy line called Brave (think late Japanese G1 and you've pretty much got it). It's really neat to show someone who isn't familiar. First there's TF mold reuses in the line, which gets a few laughs, then you show them the newer mold toys for the line and their mind just blows.

Combine! Invincible Brave Exhibition!

It's a shame I live in Georgia and not Japan. Not because of any grass being greener on various sides of fences, but then I'd be able to make this great looking Brave Exhibition going on in Nakano. Taking place over the course of three weeks looks like a fun time showcasing the history of Brave.

Well, I did just get my oil changed and did just swap my air filter. Guess I'll gas up my Fusion and see just how good that gas mileage is.

Source:Hero Club

Thanksgiving weekend status update

I'm currently enjoying a really relaxing Thanksgiving holiday weekend. I promise regular updates will resume soon, I just needed a little down time.

In other news, the wife and I decided to do a trip to Universal Studios Orlando for Christmas next year! As long as nothing effects those plans, man, it's going to be a long year! It's hard enough not being in that wonderful place every waking minute, let alone patiently waiting a year for my next trip.

I'm currently on a pre Christmas restriction from buying any toy for myself as the wife is buying me presents. Though I am allowed to buy my beloved crazy bootlegs and random Legions. So, time to get some more K.O Brave toys from Tuesday Morning!

So far I've spent this break watching movies and holiday shopping. It's been relaxing and I have a few days left. Man, I've really needed this. Thanksgiving is a time for being thankful for what you have. I'm certainly thankful for the folks who read Zone Base. I promise regular updates will resume soon!

Fighbird intro

Exkaiser intros

Dino Bravery

Giant guns always improve robot dinosaurs.

I'm not going to lie, I didn't pay much attention to Dino Charge like I should have. After Megaforce ended I somehow never watched. I don't have much of an explanation, I thought it looked neat and as it went into Super Charge I took notice, but once again it largely passed me by. I did take notice of the Megazord toys, and thought they were great. As Ninja Steel began it's media push, I just went ahead and made a point to not let it slip by. I thought it looked neat, and didn't want to regret missing it.

So news of the new South Korean series Power Rangers Dino Force Brave, which is meant to be a sequel to the Super Sentai show Dino Force is based on, was posted last week to the various kaiju/toku sites/groups I follow. I'm not going to lie, it caught me off guard. Probably because of the use of Brave in the title, and the reworking of the Rangers and Megazord. It looks great, really great. The Dinoforce Megazord was already a good looking robot, but in the new white and red color schemes, and with new weapons like the chain gun and chainsaw sword. It really pops.

I'm hoping dubs of the short format show (15 minute episodes) will be easily available. I generally just watch clips of the Japanese shows as I'm not into torrenting (which seems to be the most accessible way to get the dubbed episodes) and as I've mentioned before, I like Power Rangers just fine as is. So, it's really enough for me.

What these clips have more importantly done is. They've turned up my desire to watch Dino Charge finally, and oh hey... that's right, it's on Netflix. So, thinking I'm going to start that pretty soon. I've been regretting not watching it and letting it slip by. Though I suppose there's plenty of time to make up for that now. I still regularly see that Megazord on shelves, think I should get it while I still can. It looks great and well...

I think I need it.

*edit* I binge watched Dino Charge shortly after writing this post. OMG it's amazing.