BWprowl vs. Nostalgia

[BWprowl]

Warning: Long post is long.

Okay, so check this out: The Generations line is hot shit right now, and has been since it effectively started with Classics back in, what, 2006? On-and-off, but fairly consistently there’s been a sizable portion of the toyline devoted to making new, better toys of G1 guys. We basically take it for granted now, with the enduring question of “Who’s Hasbro going to make a new toy of next?” being a common one at basically every panel and event that fans can ask it. This is kind of hilarious since, a little over a decade ago, such a thing was considered a pipe dream for the toyline (seriously, remember how places like TFW used to have FAQs for going to BotCon, and they would always reiterate “Do NOT waste time asking Hasbro if we’re going to get new, modern toys of G1 guys. They’re sick of hearing it and it’s never going to happen.” Ha.). Now, despite my near-constant cries for new characters and concepts in TF, I won’t deny that I enjoy the Generations ilk for what they are: generally cool toys of characters I tend to be familiar with, usually through comics I’ve enjoyed (having gone back and read a lot of the Marvel G1 comics, and ESPECIALLY the Marvel UK stuff, there’s several guys I like because of their involvement in those, to say nothing of the stuff I’ve loved coming out of IDW these days). But that’s a thing, I generally like these guys just as characters from stories I happen to enjoy, I buy them as toys of the characters the same way I would buy action figures of DC comics characters I liked, or figurines of my favorite Friendship is Magic Ponies, or Figuarts of my favorite Kamen Riders, or Figmas from that Bakemonogatari anime I love so much. Now, TFs have the advantage of being about a million times cooler than a plain ol’ action figure, but the main reason I bought, say, Generations Jazz is because he’s Jazz, and Jazz happens to be in a lot of stories I like. But I do this with non-G1 guys too, buying toys of, say, Movie Starscream and Barricade, or most of the Animated cast, or TFPrime Ratchet because I happened to like the characters in their particular stories. Now, this doesn’t apply to everyone. About 90% of my Movie toy purchases were based on how kickass the toy looked, and I enjoy them as such. Hell, I hadn’t even read the Marvel issues with Straxus before I got him, and I still bought him because he looked like an awesome toy (and he was).

But lately I’ve been noticing that this isn’t exactly how a lot of the toy-buying TF public operates. I’ve touched on nostalgia in the hobby before, and how I generally don’t ‘get it’ as a motivating factor, but I’m really starting to feel it lately, as more and more G1-inspired toys are unveiled and the resultant waves of fan-bitching that inevitably follow reveal the popular feelings on them (I’ve also become especially weary of said bitching, but that’s a topic for another time). Take Thundergate as a common-knowledge starting point. Back when BotCon Thundercracker happened, you’ll recall that I flat-out couldn’t understand why it was such a Big Deal. Yeah, the Seeker mold was an okay mold, and Thundercracker seemed like an okay color scheme, and maybe he might get to do something interesting to me in a comic book that hadn’t come out yet, but I couldn’t understand all the yelling and screaming over making him hard to get versus some other guy from the 80’s like, say, Sideswipe. Sideswipe hadn’t come out yet, and he was a G1 guy, why was it more important to get Thundercracker before Sideswipe just because these other two G1 guys named Starscream and Skywarp had also been released? But people kept yelling and screaming about it, apparently having really latched onto this group of differently-colored Decepticon jets back when the cartoon was airing. Me? I was happy that I’d just picked up Skywarp, since he was the color scheme I liked the most (I hadn’t even bought Starscream), and was wondering if they would make Sunstorm at any point.

Flash-forward to the Hall of Fame thing this year, and me (after hearing people bitch about wanting a new toy of him for years and years) just not getting what is so damn special about Wheeljack. Yeah, he’s a scientist, but TF has lots of scientist characters. No one’s vocally screaming for new toys of Brainstorm or Fractyl or Tarantulas or Bump or Signal Flare or anything. To me, my biggest exposure to Wheeljack is that he was around and doing important stuff in last month’s issue of RID, and I’d already had a new toy of him for half a year by then. He’d never really grabbed my attention before then.

Anyway, I’m getting off-track, I think. My point is, I didn’t ‘grow up’ with G1, so it’s nothing ‘special’ to me compared to the other TF series, it’s just another in a long line of iterations that I’ve been through (ironically, I lived through all of them except for G1, which ended before my time). For instance, with RiD’s release, I couldn’t really get into ‘Transformers as cars and trucks are BACK’ thing, because while yeah, I’d had Transformers as cars and trucks, that was only for a few years, and not what I was raised on. I’d also had them as realistic animals, and stuck-together animals, and robot animals, and techno-organic animals fighting weird alien vehicles, so now realistic vehicles fighting robot animals was just another take. I didn’t even know why they changed Mach Alert’s name to ‘Prowl’ since I had no idea that Prowl Was Supposed To Be A Police Car. Rather ironically, the name Prowl held no *specific* meaning to me, Beast Wars had used it on two separate guys already. When Mutant Soundwave came out I read a couple of bits on how he ‘didn’t look like the original Soundwave’, and I had no idea who that was (I thought his name was Blue Jay, watching the G2 cartoon, remember). Imagine that, a fan of TF who doesn’t know who Soundwave is?

I mean, as years went on, obviously I read up on G1 and the characters therein and so forth, but even then, it registered less as ‘The Original Transformers’ and more as ‘That series that came out before those G2 toys I started with’. I mean god, most of the G1 toys I wanted (and got) I did so just because they seemed like cool toys, and not because I knew anything about the characters or what they represented to me (Sky Lynx, Doublecross, Stepper…).

But anyway, now I see people talking about wanting to ‘complete their Ark Crew’ because they were basically raised on the G1 cartoon, and that whole roster is burned into their brain, to the point that they NEED Gears and Trailbreaker standing there to make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Conversely, I’m the guy who didn’t even notice when the Autobot teams had members getting drawn in the wrong places in volume 3 of the Ongoing because most of the ‘84-’85 Autobots blue into a blocky red and white mass of sameyness to me. I mean, I know that Hound is hologram-emitting human-friendly guy, Sideswipe is brash jetpack guy, and Wheeljack is robot-mummy-face scientist guy, but none of those guys are more ‘special’ or important to me than, say, X-Brawn the left-handed strong guy, or Hot Shot the brash yellow guy, or Leobreaker the headstrong upgraded lion guy.

And I kind of feel like I’m missing something when I don’t see anything more in these guys than more kinda cool robot toys to add to my collection. I mean, it was neat to eventually get all six original Seekers, but it was hardly the amazing victory someone like, say, Dom might have experienced, since I really don’t have much attachment to the Seekers as a group (hell, I didn’t even care about G1 Starscream until Barber got ahold of him a few months ago). I mean, much as I hate what David Willis has become these days, you’ll see him come out with a review of some new toy of a G1 guy and he’ll be all “Oh man, this character was MY HERO growing up, you have no idea how much he means to me”. I don’t get that, I don’t get a rush off of completing my favorite sub-groups from when I was little, or getting a guy colored like some comic page that was burned into my mind when I was a kid. I wasn’t particularly upset about, say, Classics Grimlock looking ’wrong’ because I’d already seen Grimlock reimagined a dozen different ways before then, there is no ‘right’ look for him because there’s no look I saw every morning before school while I was still young and impressionable.

I think, and this kinda goes back to the Hall of Fame thing, I wonder if I’m missing out on seeing the ‘iconic’ G1 guys as, well, iconic. To me, they’re just the most whored-out iteration of a brand I enjoy, not this pantheon of memorable icons who I spent every day cataloging the comic adventures of. I say Rumble is Red and Frenzy is Blue because that’s how most of the incarnations I’ve seen of them have it. I knew nothing of the G1 cartoon before I started looking into the toys and other character portrayals of the era, and in fact it was one of the last bits of G1 I even checked out. So, from what I saw, the Frenzy/Rumble color switch was just a goof in a cartoon that didn’t have the strongest quality control in the first place, not unlike Sparkplug being called ‘Leader-1’ in the early parts of Armada. The G1 cartoon doesn’t ‘mean’ or ‘represent’ anything to me.

Anyway, this was meandering and too long and you can feel free to skim it if you like, but at the end of the day, seeing the way the majority of the fandom goes about things, I’ve been wondering lately if I haven’t been Doing Transformers Wrong by just seeing/treating G1 as this one incarnation of the series that just seems to get more love than all the other iterations out there, rather than the core, ‘master’ series that all these other ancillary, inconsequential versions orbit around.

[Shockwave]

I read that whole thing. Every. Word. And I think I can explain what you're not understanding. I did grow up with G1. It was the first time the world had seen anything like it (well, I guess technically Go-Bots came out first, but I didn't know anything about those until well after I was heavily ensconsed in Transformers and my attitude was one of "Fuck Go-bots, Fuck 'em hard.") So I'm gonna paint the picture for you. It's Christmas of 1984. England. I come downstairs to open presents and after quite a few newly unwrapped He-Man figures and vehicles, I get to a little present from a relative. I open it up and find what looks like 4 Hot Wheels cars. But they're not only cars. They're robots. So they're toy cars and action figures. In the same toy. I was so blown away that I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what they were or if there were more of them and the descriptions on the back, while adding character, didn't alude to other toys. So I designated Wincharger the leader over Brawn, Huffer and Gears. It was a few weeks later when I told my friend across the street this that he corrected me "No, Optimus Prime is the leader." "What's an Optimus Prime?" Well I found out. And from there a 30+ year obsession was born. Soon, I had most of the toys and was reading the UK comic every week. My mom recorded the cartoon when it came on so I could watch it when I got home. I was enthralled in the stories and characters. Now, one thing you have to understand about my younger years is that, I don't remember them fondly. I wasn't great in school and my parents were pretty strict so there weren't a lot of good times. So, when I go on ebay and I buy a G1 Skywarp MIB, the nostalgia takes me back and reminds me of some of the few good times I had as a kid and of playing with some of my favorite toys. Those characters were the ones I grew up with and it was the starting point. Plus, that old toy takes me back to a time when the wonder of the franchise was young and new. It was the first time that I had been presented with the idea that maybe the car on the street was... More Than Meets The Eye. I never looked at technology the same way again. So when I hold that old Skywarp, and I apply the stickers and perfectly transform and parts form his fists and missiles and whatnot, for me it's about remembering the good times and the sense of wonder that started it all.

[Dominic]

Gonna bring in some points from the HoF thread.

I can still hear her shrill nagging in my head when I close my eyes, and see her wagging her finger, OH GOD!

So, besides JT and Scourge, how many of you know about the time I proposed to Kim Karda-Cardesh, that smokin' hot Armenian chick?

Seriously. I did. And, uh, I can honstly say that she did not refuse....because my proposal did not even warrant a "cease and desist". Apparently, I need to step things up.

Can I just say that ‘Ark Crew’ has become my least favorite phrase in Transfandom as of late? Just for all the incessant bitching that’s come out of it. No one cares about Gears, you idiots.)

Somebody cares about Gears. Suprisingly, I do not, despite the obvious similarities.

But, somebody does.

Most people really do not care about Windcharger the character. I do.

The problem is that over time, many fans (including some who were not even *alive* in 1984 have come to see the original cast as being all important.

I was really happy to get a Windcharger figure, (even putting aside the damned thing's scarcity). But, I would have never expected that to happen, (again, putting aside %^&*@#$%^ scarcity).

There are some people who may legitimately want a set of good toys of all the characters that showed up on the splash pages of the first issue of the Marvel comic. But, that is really not practical in today's toy market.

He’s endearing, I guess, and I don’t deny that he probably deserved to be inducted into the HoF at *some* point. I guess my point was it would’ve been more *interesting* to see Sky-Byte or even BW Megs make it in. This is the equivalent of Cold Stone’s having a big survey to find out people’s favorite flavor, and Vanilla coming out on top. Another Autobot car gets into the Hall of Fame, woo hoo.

Define "interesting". If you mean "different for the sake of being 'creative' becaust that is awesome", then "interesting" should be avoided. The whole point of a HoF is to recognize what is widely known and understood, not put over some obscure fan-favourite.

I voted for Wheeljack because he matters. He has done stuff in comics and cartoons. I would not have been so hot to vote for Windcharger, or even Sunstreaker, as much as I like those two character.

Similarly, characters like Sunstorm had an impact on the fandom and were used in the comics. But, he really has not done much more than that (still) nameless blue and yellow Decepticon jet from season 3.

Similarly, I really like Megaplex in concept, even if there has never been a good Megaplex toy. (I would say the same about most of the E-Hobby characters actually.) It would be really cool and edgy to put Megaplex over, but the character has not contributed anything meaningful to the franchise.

Your generation was just wronged by bad Hasbro decisions. There's nothing good about those figures IMO, they are bad ideas crystallized into an expression of the brand and desired simply for nostalgia's sake or hipster irony (you would be the former). Not everything has value just because it came out when we were kids, there are plenty of forgotten toy lines that probably have a few fans still, but AM TC really looks so bad that I can't see any objective point to it.

There is actually no small amount of crossover between nostalgia and ironly. Willis and Sipher seem to operate on the assumption that "this is shit, but it is the shit we had when we were kids, so we will celebrate shit"...possibly because they cannot move on from their childhoods. That is why so many fans want AM/G2 Thundercracker or are over-joyed about the idea of "Shattered Glass", where a stupid cliche has "Transformers" mixed in.

I buy them as toys of the characters the same way I would buy action figures of DC comics characters I liked, or figurines of my favorite Friendship is Magic Ponies, or Figuarts of my favorite Kamen Riders, or Figmas from that Bakemonogatari anime I love so much.

In general terms, this is probably the best way to go about it. If you have the space and money, then this works. (I filter because I lack both of those things.)

Sideswipe hadn’t come out yet, and he was a G1 guy, why was it more important to get Thundercracker before Sideswipe just because these other two G1 guys named Starscream and Skywarp had also been released?

This was purely a question of wanting to complete a set. Salt was rubbed on to the wound when "Time LInes" Thundercracker was released, because that meant that a complete set sort of existed, but few people were likely to be able to complete their set.

In contrast, there was no Sideswipe figure to worry over. (Sideswipe is a case study of "old character that people like, despite the character having done nothing that has ever mattered". Ironically, Sideswipe's most important moments all came in G2, which is much more rare in toy form...)

Yeah, he’s a scientist, but TF has lots of scientist characters. No one’s vocally screaming for new toys of Brainstorm or Fractyl or Tarantulas or Bump or Signal Flare or anything.

Yes, but the only one of those characters who is even close to as important as Wheeljack is Tarantulas. (There, I said it, despite hating BW.) Fractyl showed up in some middling comics with almost no distribution, and later some absolutely terrible comics with only slightly better distribution. Bump? Signal Flare? I am going to assume that you were being sarcastic.

Remember, the only reason Wheeljack died, (if the rumour mill is to be trusted), was to punish Latta for being a drunk ass. Wheeljack was not only storyboared to clearly survive the battle of Autobot City, but he showed up in episodes produced in Japan, where Latta being a lush was not a problem. He was endearing to viewers for being a jovial scientist and having blinky ears. He gave the writers a way to bring in crazy McGuffins. (Aside, Wheeljack's death is one of the few things in the fanchise that I will not immediately dismiss fanon discussion of. Windcharger on the other hand died. Suck it.)

read a couple of bits on how he ‘didn’t look like the original Soundwave’, and I had no idea who that was (I thought his name was Blue Jay, watching the G2 cartoon, remember). Imagine that, a fan of TF who doesn’t know who Soundwave is?

Blue Jay huh?

(Sky Lynx, Doublecross, Stepper…).

This shows how much differently that you see G1. Stepper was an obscure character, ironically made more recognizable for having a rare toy, in Japan. Sky Lynx was a fun tertiary character. And, Double Cross might have shown up in a few comics, just to fill out a scene. The only one of those worth getting for character nostalgia reasons is Sky Lynx. I happen to like Stepper because I like the basic design of the characer, if not the mould. But, Stepper is not a character that I care about at all.

I know that Hound is hologram-emitting human-friendly guy, Sideswipe is brash jetpack guy, and Wheeljack is robot-mummy-face scientist guy, but none of those guys are more ‘special’ or important to me than, say, X-Brawn the left-handed strong guy, or Hot Shot the brash yellow guy, or Leobreaker the headstrong upgraded lion guy.

That is the difference between reading the comics (or watching the cartoon) and reading a wiki.

Sideswipe? He did not do much of anything, (less than Windcharger even), until G2. AHM is the first time that I ever really thought, "damn, I like Sideswipe for more than just being a cool toy". In contrast, Hound did stuff (at least in the cartoon). We have talked about Wheeljack.

Similarly, I would give somebody Hotshot. He did stuff. The character changed over time (and was arguably part of the last time the franchise had an ongoing story associated with its central manifestation, rather than having the ongoing story relegated to secondary lines and media).

X-Brawn? The character was one of several parody characters on what you describe on a parody show. Again, if you say that RiD is a huge part of TF, then you have to argue that Ambush Bug is a hugely important character in comics. (And, I fucking love Ambush Bug. But, dammit, he does not matter. The character himself spends pages dealing with this.)


And, here is the really important point .

That is not a question of nostaligia, it is a question of priorities.

Hotshot does not get the nod because he is ~10 years old. Wheeljack does not get props for being 25+ years old. They get props because they did stuff in parts of the franchise that have some staying power.

Why the hell is somebody going to latch on to some obscure asshole, like X-Brawn or Doublecross or Gears?

Actually, let me rephrase that, why would somebody expect everybody else to? Everybody has a favourite. But, not everybody realizes that their favourite, even if their reasoning is completely solid, might not matter. Other people like to assert their independence or show that they are creative individuals by flamboyantly latching on to obscure characters.

[flash back to Dom's childhood trauma at the movies]

When I was 8, I saw the 1986 movie. Like most kids, I spent the first half of the movie counting bodies and sorting the dead in to several (sometimes over-lapping) categories.

-characters that I had toys of (and by extension, toys I could no longer play with barring specific settings).
-characters I happened to like.
-characters that happened to be important, regardless.

Oh, boy, was I busy for 20 odd minutes. Remember that scene on the Autobot shuttle? I never really cared about Brawn, and the toy was not even close to good enough for me to buy it without liking the character. But, I knew the character mattered. I had Ratchet, and liked the character, and he mattered. (But, for some reason, putting that toy aside never bothered me.) I never had an Ironhide or Prowl, but seeing them get killed was no fun because not only did I like the characters, but they mattered.

Can I tell what my least favourite frame was though? Can you guess? Can I tell you how much I identified with Arcee, right before she helped Springer move the launcher in to place? Wheeljack? Toy, check. Character that mattered, check. Character I liked, check. Windcharger? Toy, check. Character that mattered, not so much. Character I liked, well, I did have the toy.

I was 8, and I knew that Windcharger did not really matter, despite me having the toy.

Remember, Optimus and Megatron getting killed off was telegraphed in the ads. Starscream's death blew my mind though.

[/flash back to Dom's childhood trama at the movies]

it was neat to eventually get all six original Seekers, but it was hardly the amazing victory someone like, say, Dom might have experienced,

You have no idea.

I don’t get that, I don’t get a rush off of completing my favorite sub-groups from when I was little, or getting a guy colored like some comic page that was burned into my mind when I was a kid.

This goes back to priorities. Why bother half-assing the sub-groups? (This was something that kept me off of Marvel figures in the early 90s, when Toy Biz never complete sub-groups with consistent scale and uniforms.)

I wasn’t particularly upset about, say, Classics Grimlock looking ’wrong’ because I’d already seen Grimlock reimagined a dozen different ways before then, there is no ‘right’ look for him because there’s no look I saw every morning before school while I was still young and impressionable.

Some of the problem here is that some fans never fucking moved past 1985. Gwimwock needs to look a certain way.

But, for others, they are just annoyed that they never got a good toy that looks like a certain iteration of their favourite character. For example, there are some damn good "Iron Man" figures on the shelves. But, it sucks to be somebody who just wants a *good* toy based on the Centurion armour or the armour from the Byrne/Romita run.

To bring this back to TF. I really like the 2006 Mirage figure. It is a good mould that nicely represents the character it was designed to be (and it does an even better job with Dragstrip). But, it looks nothing like any of Mirage's worthwhile appearances (his creepy as hell room-tossing in "Man of Iron", AHM, a few episodes of the cartoon). As much as I like 2006 Mirage, I still want a *good* figure of how he looked in old G1.

And, in some cases, the newer toy might have something bothersome. My problem with TFU Grimlock is the same as my problem with TFU Overkill. The transform kinda sucks. The robot mode is terrible. (Who thought that a tail club was a good idea?) Similarly, "Classics" Megatron is a fun *toy*, but a middling "Transformers" figure and a terrible "Megatron".

I’ve been wondering lately if I haven’t been Doing Transformers Wrong by just seeing/treating G1 as this one incarnation of the series that just seems to get more love than all the other iterations out there, rather than the core, ‘master’ series that all these other ancillary, inconsequential versions orbit around.

And, here it is.

Like I said above, it is not just a question of nostalgia, it is a question of priorities. You seem to give equal weight to primary, secondary, tertiary and even less significant characters.

Yes, there is a substantial number of fans that give too much attention and weight to "what came before", because they had it as a kid (and they never grew the fuck up). But, some of that old stuff actually does matter.

If you go to a comic shop, there is a reason that people still talk about Simonson on "The Mighty Thor" or Michelinie on "Iron Man". There is a reason that John Byrne's "Man of Steel" set the pre-"Flash Point" standard for Superman comics. Those guys were good and their runs were defining. Saying as much is not an act of joining the herd, it is acknowledging what those guys did and the weight of their work.

The same applies to G1. "Man of Iron" was Earth shattering to me when I was 12 or so. (I think I was 12 when I first read it.) Different "Transformers" comics in other countries? TF comics that were so much better than what we had been getting in the US? But, there were plenty of other Earth shattering comics I read at that age that I no longer care about. "GI Joe" #109 was the first appearance of the SAW Viper, and the first time that named Joes died. But, the shine wore off it a few years later, because I can admit it was not that good. (Hey, I was 13 when it came out, and I got suckered by the promise of character death.)

"A Death in the Family" stuck with me, even though it is not as good as some say, because (up until "Hush"), it mattered. Starlin and Aparo? Hot diggity. Direction changing and tone-setting story? Change in how publishers heard and interacted with fans? Check to all of the above. "X-Tinction Agenda"? Not so much. "Spider Man: the Assasination Plot"? "Atlantis Attacks"? Well.... You get the idea.


Dom
-would follow Barber or Costa to other books before reading Kirkman or Ennis on TF.

[Onslaught Six]

For me, I think there's a little bit of video game-esque Completionist Syndrome creeping in. I got Classics Starscream not because I have any particular affinity for Transformers that turn into jets, nor for his colour scheme, but for his character. (I think he was the first Starscream I ever bought who was intended to represent G1 Starscream. I think the only other one I owned at that point was EnerScream.) I didn't buy Skywarp because I didn't particularly feel like hunting for a Target exclusive in late 2006/early 2007. (At the time, I didn't have a license or a vehicle, and income was low. I was content with skipping him.) In fact, even after buying Thundercracker (who is a whole other case) and the Coneheads, it wasn't until Shocktrek was selling his Skywarp for super-cheap competitive pricing that I jumped and bit it. I could have been content with possibly never getting Skywarp, because, hey, he was an expensive, hard-to-find toy. There's a lot of that in my collection--I would love to own Clench and Skyquake and Thunderclash, but they're all relatively expensive obscure toys, and usually the money I would spend would be better put towards newer toys, or video games, or printing CDs, or whatever.

But then, I bought Thundercracker not because he was part of a set, but because he was my favourite Seeker character (and arguably one of my favourite Decepticons period). His colour scheme is the coolest (black and purple is overrated), and of the early Decepticons he's definitely got the most interesting personality. He's an unwilling soldier! That's really cool! But I wasn't alive in 1984 to see that firsthand. I learned about this from reading transcribed tech specs on websites like Unicron.com. I saw "cool colour scheme, unwilling soldier," and I was in.

To some degree I don't have this kind of thing. I mean, I don't even own every toy of the previously-released 1984 guys. If Hasbro does put out a new deluxe Trailbreaker--sure, I'll buy him, why not? Trailbreaker's not important. Hell, I can't even spell his name without first writing "Trailerbreaker." (Who sounds like an awesome cross-dimensional Optimus Prime murderer.) But if he's there on the shelf, and I have the money...hell, why not?

Because while there's no specific memory of me knowing the 84 cast (just as an example), there's still precedent for it. I have a sort-of dream of getting Marvel Universe-scale toys of (most of) the main cast of the 90s X-Men cartoon, in their cartoon outfits. (Half the reason I was so hell-bent on getting the Jim Lee Cyclops toy was because of specific memories of Cyclops in that outfit, mostly from the cartoon, but also from pretty much all the other X-media from the 90s.) Likewise, at some point I'll probably end up with the entire 1984 cast in Classics-style toys, assuming they make them. Because even though I have no specific memory of the '84 cast, they're still collectively a group--and the task has been set before me. "Complete the 1984 Autobot cast in Classics toys," the checkbox says. Maybe I don't have the specific drive to actually complete the goal--the main reason my X-Men goal currently consists of Cyclops and Colossus who I don't even think was in the cartoon, but I fucking love Colossus for reasons only the X-Men arcade game can explain, and thus I bought Colossus. (He was also $3 at BBTS, a large deciding factor.) But the goal is there.

Divergent path: We all have this kind of thing. You yourself have this Movie Starscream thing! I mean, okay, I get it, you actually like Movie Starscream as a character (as established in Reign of Starscream). Similarly, I like Barricade. I think he was one of the most memorable parts of the first movie, he had a really cool design, and a neat personality established in his bio. But I don't buy stuff like every Legends version of Barricade, or the RC toys of him, or whatever; I was content with just buying his Deluxe in the first film and DOTM and the ROTF Human Alliance toy. (The HA toy was mostly in the hopes that he would be an actual better toy than the original Deluxe; in the same way you might buy ROTF Leader Prime because he's probably a better toy than the first film's Leader Prime.) But you ended up with a fair amount of Movie Starscreams...and as such, you just kept buying more of them to "complete the set." There was a Movie Starscream toy, so thus, you bought it. It makes sense, in an addictive way.

But as you said; for me, it's largely about getting together guys who are from stories I like. I don't know why I bought Generations Thrust and Dirge--neither are particularly that important (beyond Dirge constantly dying--although, mind you, RID is threatening to make him interesting and cool) and I don't have any real "memories" of them, nor any attachment to their personalities as characters. Hasbro released them, I found them, I had money, and I didn't want anything else at the time. Seems simple enough, right?

I guess there's just the question of...why would I specifically buy them, then? Why decide on buying Dirge and not, say, Steeljaw? (Who I did totally pass on.) I can't tell you. Maybe it's because Dirge, as a 1985 character, is somehow "more valid" than Steeljaw. Maybe it's because they were part of a subgroup, and Steeljaw kind of isn't, beyond "Pretenders." I don't get this way with GI Joe, either--people will say stuff like, "We need Kwick Kick to round out the 1986 guys!" and I'm just like, I don't care about the 1986 guys, Kwick Kick sucks ass. I mean, sure, I tried to collect all of the O13 green guys--and I actually did it!--but that was mostly to give me an incentive to buy Joe-side characters since I was going to have a disproportionate amount of Cobra dudes. (Now that I've basically got every Cobra guy I could ever want, the Joe side is ever-expanding in terms of random dudes...) I didn't buy Low-Light so I could complete my cast of New Characters From GI Joe: The Movie, or even to complete my PoC Updates group or anything. I bought it because Low-Light's a neat character and he had a fuckton of cool gear. I bought Recondo despite not giving a single fuck about Recondo because he looked like Jesse Ventura in Predator, and that's incentive right there.

So, I dunno why.

[JediTricks]

Spock is a scientist, Scotty is an engineer. Scotty knows the science but he is only interested in applying it to the physical universe he lives in: he builds stuff with science! Spock can build things, but his outlook is about furthering the cause of science, not of making stuff. Wheeljack is Scotty, and there aren't enough Montgomery Scott types in TF.

I still to this day don't get the appeal of Sky Lynx, it seems like a very bad joke played on TF fans and yet they didn't get the joke and ran with it like it's something great.

Anyway, I read that whole thing. I still think growing up with G2 and Machine Wars and BW/BM and RID and Armada as your TF, where ugly colors and wacky designs were very commonplace as your baseline is more skewing things than a lack of G1 nostalgia - are there young adults out there who prefer neon Batman figures over regular Batman? If you look at the G1 product catalogs, the '84 and '85 2-sided fold-outs with a big battle going on, the layouts are exciting and the characters are very grounded, with only the Insecticons really looking outrageous. Nobody had big colorfulness, every figure was about awesome play while looking like a real disguised thing as well, those first figures I think are so important because they are so focused on being the core of Transformers. And nostalgia doesn't enter into it directly, I prefer Sideswipe over Sunstreaker despite knowing Sunstreaker was the genesis of the entire Takara pre-TF concept, Sunstreaker in those catalogs looks weird because his bot layout isn't as elegant or as accurate in alt mode as Sideswipe's. Also, there is something more exciting about real things, about sexy sports cars and powerful vehicles and war machines becoming sentient robots than just a weird pile of stuff origami'ed into a robot where the disguise is more conspicuous than the robot. Ultimately, what is Transformers is found most heavily in the first 2 years in G1, that toy line influenced the cartoon and in turn the cartoon influenced the line, and the personalities came out of both at the same time. The cartoon gives nuance to an already great character like Optimus Prime - the new movies and TFP make Cullen's OP out to be largely a humourless dick who wears the weight of the universe on his shoulders, but G1 OP had a sense of humor and a sense of place in the universe which made him a rounded character and easier to relate to.

The further you get from the core of TF which is largely the Ark Crew (sorry, but it's true), the more convoluted you make the brand until ultimately you reboot it or you redefine it.

Thundercracker and the issue of the Seekers, there aren't many Decepticons from G1, I think in the first 2 years there's like half as many Decepticon molds as Autobots, so the recolors helped grow the enemy ranks, and since they're tied to Starscream who is such a big character, they carry a piece of that gravitas with them (I was going to write "that spark with them" but then realized the TF implications). Look at how the Classics main line was before Thundergate...

Decepticons (new molds):
Astrotrain
Starscream
Ramjet
Megatron

Autobots (new molds):
Bumblebee
Rodimus
Grimlock
Mirage
Cliffjumper
Optimus Prime
Jetfire

There are nearly double the number of Autobots as Decepticons, it's not fun to set up battles on the shelf with the Autobots outnumbering their enemies 2 to 1. Even adding the 2-packs into the mix, for original characters you get Ultra Magnus and Skywarp, which makes it 8 vs 5, and the Autobots get 3 times as many Voyager-class figures to boot.

Gonna bring in some points from the HoF thread.

Why? Especially the non-salient ones.

I buy them as toys of the characters the same way I would buy action figures of DC comics characters I liked, or figurines of my favorite Friendship is Magic Ponies, or Figuarts of my favorite Kamen Riders, or Figmas from that Bakemonogatari anime I love so much.

In general terms, this is probably the best way to go about it. If you have the space and money, then this works. (I filter because I lack both of those things.)

I disagree, I think there should be balance. I understand getting a toy as idolatry for a character, but the product needs to be worthy as well or it becomes entirely inwards-looking which is ultimate self-defeating -- no brand can grow doing that, only shrink until death.

Sideswipe hadn’t come out yet, and he was a G1 guy, why was it more important to get Thundercracker before Sideswipe just because these other two G1 guys named Starscream and Skywarp had also been released?

This was purely a question of wanting to complete a set. Salt was rubbed on to the wound when "Time LInes" Thundercracker was released, because that meant that a complete set sort of existed, but few people were likely to be able to complete their set.

In contrast, there was no Sideswipe figure to worry over. (Sideswipe is a case study of "old character that people like, despite the character having done nothing that has ever mattered". Ironically, Sideswipe's most important moments all came in G2, which is much more rare in toy form...)

I think Sideswipe isn't that important, but his original toy looks great, and the character has a unique relationship among those early G1 figures to another character so it makes him unique. But it doesn't make him important, especially when the Decepticon forces are outnumbered 2 to 1 at market.

Yes, but the only one of those characters who is even close to as important as Wheeljack is Tarantulas. (There, I said it, despite hating BW.)

Good job, way to go admitting something like that. And I agree, Tarantulas is the only one of them that holds up, he's a figure I'd like to see brought back in some form, he was an awesome schemer and he built stuff and he fought both factions and the gods themselves, after a fashion... and then he gets squashed like a bug by his own actions after all his grand schemes and machinations and devices! Tarantulas is terribly undervalued these days, both as himself and as a character concept in newer entertainment (TFP sorta has Starscream trying to play that role, but they make him so damned ineffective and wishy-washy and focused on a rather inconsequential goal).

Similarly, I would give somebody Hotshot. He did stuff. The character changed over time (and was arguably part of the last time the franchise had an ongoing story associated with its central manifestation, rather than having the ongoing story relegated to secondary lines and media).

This is somewhat true, but Hot Shot was such an overused cliche when he came out, it seemed like every piece of entertainment, TF or not, had that sort of character. He did grow though, although I'd argue he's based on Cheetor who had even more growth and mattered more than Hot Shot. Also, we haven't forgotten Hot Shot at all, we've had a lot of toys based on him, with a new one coming out this month in TFP. And when the Armada figure gets a second attempt and STILL sucks, I think it's time to retire the design, it's cursed to suck forever. (The Animated figure was canceled for trying to break that curse )

Why the hell is somebody going to latch on to some obscure asshole, like X-Brawn or Doublecross or Gears?

Well, not everybody thinks they're assholes, I guess. But you are somewhat right, I can remember what X-Brawn's toy looked like, but I couldn't tell you one thing about his personality or how he sounded or a single thing he did, not from his bio notes and not from the cartoon; and he's not alone, RID or not there are plenty of TF characters who fit that bill.

I had Ratchet, and liked the character, and he mattered. (But, for some reason, putting that toy aside never bothered me.)

Maybe because that toy had zero character since it was designed not to be a sentient robot but a mere mecha. It has no head, and a skeletal robot form. It's easy to set aside.

Speaking of the movie, I didn't see it in theaters, but I knew 2 things: I liked the Hot Rod toy. And I hated the Hot Rod character for getting OP killed (I eventually saw it on a bootleg tape at a collecting store by school, but my friends were all talking about it so clearly that it matched what I had imagined from their descriptions).

a terrible "Megatron"

Disagree.

[Dominic]

Why? Especially the non-salient ones.

Some of those points transitioned in to this thread.

And, really, why would you not want to make a joke about Kim K?

If you look at the G1 product catalogs, the '84 and '85 2-sided fold-outs with a big battle going on, the layouts are exciting and the characters are very grounded,

More importantly, the catalogues are clean and organized. You knew what was out. Hell, nowadays, we have the internet, and still have no idea what is out.

The cartoon gives nuance to an already great character like Optimus Prime - the new movies and TFP make Cullen's OP out to be largely a humourless dick who wears the weight of the universe on his shoulders, but G1 OP had a sense of humor and a sense of place in the universe which made him a rounded character and easier to relate to.

Agree about G1 cartoon Prime.

"I said I'm fine!"

Prime yelling *meant* something because Prime was pretty well rounded.

There is a reason besides nostalgia that Cullen's voice is still the voice of Prime after all these years.

Thundercracker and the issue of the Seekers, there aren't many Decepticons from G1, I think in the first 2 years there's like half as many Decepticon molds as Autobots, so the recolors helped grow the enemy ranks, and since they're tied to Starscream who is such a big character, they carry a piece of that gravitas with them

And, the BotCon toy was just a slap in the face, because it was so close, yet so far...

I understand getting a toy as idolatry for a character, but the product needs to be worthy as well or it becomes entirely inwards-looking which is ultimate self-defeating -- no brand can grow doing that, only shrink until death.

Fair point.

Well, not everybody thinks they're assholes, I guess. But you are somewhat right, I can remember what X-Brawn's toy looked like, but I couldn't tell you one thing about his personality or how he sounded or a single thing he did, not from his bio notes and not from the cartoon; and he's not alone, RID or not there are plenty of TF characters who fit that bill.

I do not hate those characters. I was using "asshole" generically, and trying to ask Prowl if how he sorts characters.


Dom
-would love to prank Kim K.

[Onslaught Six]

Why the hell is somebody going to latch on to some obscure asshole, like X-Brawn or Doublecross or Gears?

Well, not everybody thinks they're assholes, I guess. But you are somewhat right, I can remember what X-Brawn's toy looked like, but I couldn't tell you one thing about his personality or how he sounded or a single thing he did, not from his bio notes and not from the cartoon; and he's not alone, RID or not there are plenty of TF characters who fit that bill.

X-Brawn was the oldest brother. He sounded like Ironhide, sorta. He had this rough-and-tumblr Southern accent. He had this feel like he'd been across the block a few times and wasn't afraid to tell somebody when they were being an idiot. So, yeah, in a lot of ways, he's just sort of Ironhide. (What? There's a reason Sky-Byte is in the nominations, and not X-Brawn. I may love the hell out of RID but not all of its characters were super-unique. You're gonna get a "crotchety old guy" character in pretty much any iteration of the franchise; the difference between RID and current series is that at least then, that guy was sort of a unique character--name aside.)

The thing is, not every iteration of TF is going to be super-unique, but I think it's important that the unique elements of each series be remembered. In G1, Starscream was a unique character, and subsequently Starscream has been an important part of every single TF series released since. (Even BW, a series that ostensibly had no reason to, had an entire episode based around Starscream showing up and possessing one of the main characters.) Most of the Headmasters were one-note characters who aren't important, but Scorponok was the Decepticon leader at time, and so he is occasionally an important guy in other series like the IDW comics or Energon. The important things from a single iteration should be kept--the things that weren't memorable should be washed away.

RID itself might not be very memorable to you, but you can't talk about that series without talking about Sky-Byte, the same way you can't talk about Return of the Jedi without talking about Jabba the Hutt, or the 2007 movie without Barricade, or All Hail Megatron without Kup. These are notable characters in their own way. Sky-Byte might be a little fish in a big pond (to use a horrible pun), but RID itself is a pretty tiny pond, and in it, Sky-Byte is one of the biggest damn fish there is.

a terrible "Megatron"

Disagree.

Ditto. Although I will say I like Henkei Megs' paintjob more, the mould itself is great. Pretty much the only bothersome thing is the "wings," and honestly, just about every first-run Classics toy has some weird element like that. (For example, I'm not fond of the giant truck halves on Classics Prime's forearms.)


Side note and this probably doesn't belong here, but who else thinks it's funny that RID Prowl is pretty much the opposite of G1 (and IDW) Prowl? All about doing things by the books. No wiggle room allowed. They're the Good Guys, damn it, and they need to stick to that.

[BWprowl]

The problem is that over time, many fans (including some who were not even *alive* in 1984 have come to see the original cast as being all important.

There are some people who may legitimately want a set of good toys of all the characters that showed up on the splash pages of the first issue of the Marvel comic. But, that is really not practical in today's toy market.

This is my point. There’re a lot of people out there who are all “I’ve got an incomplete Ark Crew, and Hasbro’s wasting time making TFPrime and Fall of Cybertron toys!” (pretty much an actual quote I’ve seen). These guys don’t give a toss about new, current, interesting content and won’t rest until they’ve got everyone who appeared in 1984 in perfect toy form. Of course, these are the same guys who think a toy company exists to make what fans want, so you know.

Define "interesting". If you mean "different for the sake of being 'creative' becaust that is awesome", then "interesting" should be avoided. The whole point of a HoF is to recognize what is widely known and understood, not put over some obscure fan-favourite.

To me, ‘interesting’ would be ‘Someone other than a boxy ’84 guy who turns into a vehicle’. The HoF is already littered with guys like that, but there isn’t a single character from after 1994 (which, dear god, was *eighteen* years ago. I’m old.), and Sky-Byte would’ve been a good springboard towards inducting guys like Hot Shot and Barricade and Bulkhead.

I voted for Wheeljack because he matters. He has done stuff in comics and cartoons. I would not have been so hot to vote for Windcharger, or even Sunstreaker, as much as I like those two character.

I dunno, what has Wheeljack actually *done* that’s so important, compared to, say, BW Megatron? He built the Dinobots in one continuity, and that’s part of what I’m getting at here: to me, that’s just one continuity that I don’t pay a lot of mind too. In my preferred G1 fiction, the Dinobots were always around, they just woke up earlier than the rest of the crew and wound up with dinosaur altmodes. That’s what I’m wondering here: am I *wrong* and Wheeljack does deserve credit and Hall of Fame recognition because the continuity where he built the Dinobots is more widely-remembered by the majority of the fandom because that cartoon got more exposure? I want to recognize Movie Starscream for trying to unite Cybertron and nearly reconstructing the AllSpark, but does that not count because it happened in a lower-exposure comic that didn’t come out during the fandom’s childhoods? Well I read it, it seemed like a big deal to me. Do I count less as a fan just because I ended up not caring about the G1 cartoon as much as everyone else, just because I happened to be born after it could ‘resonate’ with me?

Similarly, characters like Sunstorm had an impact on the fandom and were used in the comics. But, he really has not done much more than that (still) nameless blue and yellow Decepticon jet from season 3.

You could argue that Sunstorm showing up and dying in this month’s issue of RID cemented his status as an important character, since that seems to be what previously-important characters do in that series (yo, Ratbat!).

Similarly, I really like Megaplex in concept, even if there has never been a good Megaplex toy. (I would say the same about most of the E-Hobby characters actually.) It would be really cool and edgy to put Megaplex over, but the character has not contributed anything meaningful to the franchise.

And I’d never be crazy enough to try to put Sky Lynx or Stepper or BW Sky Shadow (a toy and character concept I LOVED as a child) over for similar reasons. But RiD as a series was memorable, and Sky-Byte was a large part of why it was memorable, and was so himself.

Your generation was just wronged by bad Hasbro decisions. There's nothing good about those figures IMO, they are bad ideas crystallized into an expression of the brand and desired simply for nostalgia's sake or hipster irony (you would be the former). Not everything has value just because it came out when we were kids, there are plenty of forgotten toy lines that probably have a few fans still, but AM TC really looks so bad that I can't see any objective point to it.

How was your generation wronged by Hasbro’s decisions then? The entire reason the fanbase spent so much time whining before (and after) Universe Ironhide was released was because the cartoon model they used that was burned into your brain looked nothing like the toy that was available (similar for a lot of the G1 characters). So is it Hasbro’s fault for not making toys that looked like that cartoon fast enough, or your fault for latching onto designs just because the show was playing when you were young and impressionable? Because that’s basically the same reason I have an inordinate fondness for bright clashing colors on things: because that’s what I saw as a kid.

I buy them as toys of the characters the same way I would buy action figures of DC comics characters I liked, or figurines of my favorite Friendship is Magic Ponies, or Figuarts of my favorite Kamen Riders, or Figmas from that Bakemonogatari anime I love so much.

In general terms, this is probably the best way to go about it. If you have the space and money, then this works. (I filter because I lack both of those things.)

Space gets mitigated by rotating things in and out, but the cost of buying plastic incarnations of things I like does add up, admittedly (Figmas and Figuarts get *expensive*).

This was purely a question of wanting to complete a set. Salt was rubbed on to the wound when "Time LInes" Thundercracker was released, because that meant that a complete set sort of existed, but few people were likely to be able to complete their set.

That’s my point though: Three repaints of the same guy only constituted a ‘set’ because that’s what you were shown in the material when you were a kid, and it impressed upon you. I consider Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker a ‘set’ only slightly more than I do Prowl, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen, and that’s mostly due to how respectively visible IDW has kept the characters in the current incarnation which, again, just goes back to how they were associated back in G1.

(Interestingly, Hasbro apparently considers Prowl/Bluestreak/Smokescreen more of a set than Starscream/Skywarp/Thundercracker, considering the former was the ‘set’ they made easily available at retail, within a short time of one another, within the same line. So apparently that’s where their priorities lie.)

Yes, but the only one of those characters who is even close to as important as Wheeljack is Tarantulas. (There, I said it, despite hating BW.) Fractyl showed up in some middling comics with almost no distribution, and later some absolutely terrible comics with only slightly better distribution. Bump? Signal Flare? I am going to assume that you were being sarcastic.

What about UT Red Alert? Guy showed up and did Important Stuff throughout two lengthy cartoon series (combined they lasted longer than G1) that were arguably part of the same continuity, and yet he doesn’t get close to the recognition Wheeljack does. Why? Because Wheeljack existed in the 80’s when the fans were kids.

read a couple of bits on how he ‘didn’t look like the original Soundwave’, and I had no idea who that was (I thought his name was Blue Jay, watching the G2 cartoon, remember). Imagine that, a fan of TF who doesn’t know who Soundwave is?

Blue Jay huh?

I told you before, I was a stupid fucking kid. I couldn’t garner any information from what I watched. I thought Inferno was named ‘Vernon’. It flew right over me somehow that Ravage turned into a cassette. In a fit of hilarious wrong-ness, for nearly a decade I misread Beachcomber’s name as ‘BeachBomber’. For god’s sake, I never even knew for years that Starscream was one of multiple guys who shared the same mold in different colors (When I saw some other kid’s Ramjet toy, I assumed it was Minefield, that female Decepticon from the cartoon who could detonate herself whenever she wanted WHERE THE HELL DID I GET THAT SERIOUSLY?!)

This shows how much differently that you see G1. Stepper was an obscure character, ironically made more recognizable for having a rare toy, in Japan. Sky Lynx was a fun tertiary character. And, Double Cross might have shown up in a few comics, just to fill out a scene. The only one of those worth getting for character nostalgia reasons is Sky Lynx. I happen to like Stepper because I like the basic design of the characer, if not the mould. But, Stepper is not a character that I care about at all.

Does it show that I’m a mostly toys-first kind of guy? My first real exposure to G1 toys came from browsing unicron.com’s character pages when I was twelve or so, seeing stuff like Sky Lynx and Doublecross and going “Wow, those are actually pretty cool looking toys!”. The G2 and BW toys I’d grown up with made most older Transformers look…unfavorable in comparison. I gained an appreciation for them later, but still. Keep in mind that when I was looking at them in the late 90’s, G1 toys weren’t quite ‘vintage’ yet and rather were simply ‘old toys’. Not collector’s items or representations of an endearing brand (G1 was dead and buried at the time), just things my slightly older cousins would have thrown out before they graduated High School.

That is the difference between reading the comics (or watching the cartoon) and reading a wiki.

Sideswipe? He did not do much of anything, (less than Windcharger even), until G2. AHM is the first time that I ever really thought, "damn, I like Sideswipe for more than just being a cool toy". In contrast, Hound did stuff (at least in the cartoon). We have talked about Wheeljack.

Similarly, I would give somebody Hotshot. He did stuff. The character changed over time (and was arguably part of the last time the franchise had an ongoing story associated with its central manifestation, rather than having the ongoing story relegated to secondary lines and media).

That’s a thing though: I watched the G1 cartoon for the first time barely a year or two ago. This is me now, when I’m actually cognizant and attentive and can grasp stuff. And you know what? I’d *still* be damned if I could tell you what made Wheeljack or Sideswipe or Soundwave more ‘special’ or memorable than Hot Shot or X-Brawn. Besides building the Dinobots, I can’t remember anything else ‘important’ that Wheeljack did. I don’t think I could even properly recall and describe what his voice sounded like. Ditto Sideswipe, or even Mirage (“The ship was…full” is about all I can recall about that guy). None of these supposedly ‘iconic’ characters made any impact on me, because without a childhood nostalgia filter to burn it into my impressionable brain, it’s just a middling cartoon that’s about on the level of Cybertron, in terms of quality. And I can at least tell you some character traits or vocal qualities or defining actions of some Cybertron characters, and I watched that years earlier than I did G1.

And, here is the really important point .

That is not a question of nostaligia, it is a question of priorities.

Hotshot does not get the nod because he is ~10 years old. Wheeljack does not get props for being 25+ years old. They get props because they did stuff in parts of the franchise that have some staying power.

Why the hell is somebody going to latch on to some obscure asshole, like X-Brawn or Doublecross or Gears?

Actually, let me rephrase that, why would somebody expect everybody else to? Everybody has a favourite. But, not everybody realizes that their favourite, even if their reasoning is completely solid, might not matter. Other people like to assert their independence or show that they are creative individuals by flamboyantly latching on to obscure characters.

That kinda gets at what I’m talking about here: Am I missing out on the ‘right’ way to enjoy Transfandom, because instead of latching onto the ‘right’ characters that everyone else did like Wheeljack and Brawn and Prowl, I instead ended up, for whatever reason, caring more about guys like Sky Lynx, Venom, Tankorr, Urban Ruination, and Kicker? I see guys write impassioned essays on boards about why they KNOW Hasbro will get around to making Trailbreaker because he DESERVES a new toy, but I can’t say anything because I know me liking Sky Lynx is just because I think he’s cool, and that he certainly isn’t a ‘classic’ and that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of him getting a new toy.

[flash back to Dom's childhood trauma at the movies]
…
[/flash back to Dom's childhood trama at the movies]

See, I guess the equivalent of this for me would be seeing Airazor and Tigatron sucked out into space at the beginning of ‘Other Visits’. It came out of nowhere, and I really figured they were gone for good (that turned out to be untrue, but still) and I happened to like Airazor a bit (yup, had her toy), so it did kinda hit that way, I guess. Still, that didn’t make me care about Airazor or anything she did enough to nominate her for the HoF years later, or be happy when the fanclub got into a mood for writing fanfics about her that year (seriously, they were really up on Airazor for a while there, weren’t they?).

it was neat to eventually get all six original Seekers, but it was hardly the amazing victory someone like, say, Dom might have experienced,

You have no idea.

And this is the basis for this entire thread. I really do have no idea, and I feel like I’m missing out because of it.

This goes back to priorities. Why bother half-assing the sub-groups? (This was something that kept me off of Marvel figures in the early 90s, when Toy Biz never complete sub-groups with consistent scale and uniforms.)

Sub-groups have less meaning to me since I wasn’t around to see them portrayed as such. Until recently, the ‘Seekers’ to me were just a loose conglomeration of guys who happened to be based on the same mold, rather than a need-to-be-complete group. Conversely, you’d think people would want all seven Insecticons to complete that sub-group, but people only ever ask about Bombshell, Kickback, and Shrapnel because surprise, they were the ones in the cartoon. (Me, I wanted, and got, all seven G1 Insecticon toys because I thought they all looked like neat toys, and because even without context I appreciated how they looked as a group.)

To bring this back to TF. I really like the 2006 Mirage figure. It is a good mould that nicely represents the character it was designed to be (and it does an even better job with Dragstrip). But, it looks nothing like any of Mirage's worthwhile appearances (his creepy as hell room-tossing in "Man of Iron", AHM, a few episodes of the cartoon). As much as I like 2006 Mirage, I still want a *good* figure of how he looked in old G1.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter to me, since G1-style Mirage doesn’t ‘mean’ anything to me. AHM, maybe, but that’s honestly a minimal role that the Classics toy sits in for just fine. Or maybe I’m just not too discerning, I don’t know.

And, in some cases, the newer toy might have something bothersome. My problem with TFU Grimlock is the same as my problem with TFU Overkill. The transform kinda sucks. The robot mode is terrible. (Who thought that a tail club was a good idea?)

And sometimes there’s just difference of opinions. I think Classics Grimlock is a pretty cool toy, only real issue is the arms not locking in. The transformation’s clever, especially the way the torso folds around and assembles, and you can just leave the tail on its connection point and fold it back if you don’t want to use it as a weapon, it’s no less innocuous than the G1 toy’s head just folding back.

And, here it is.

Like I said above, it is not just a question of nostalgia, it is a question of priorities. You seem to give equal weight to primary, secondary, tertiary and even less significant characters.

Yes, there is a substantial number of fans that give too much attention and weight to "what came before", because they had it as a kid (and they never grew the fuck up). But, some of that old stuff actually does matter.

If you go to a comic shop, there is a reason that people still talk about Simonson on "The Mighty Thor" or Michelinie on "Iron Man". There is a reason that John Byrne's "Man of Steel" set the pre-"Flash Point" standard for Superman comics. Those guys were good and their runs were defining. Saying as much is not an act of joining the herd, it is acknowledging what those guys did and the weight of their work.

The same applies to G1. "Man of Iron" was Earth shattering to me when I was 12 or so. (I think I was 12 when I first read it.) Different "Transformers" comics in other countries? TF comics that were so much better than what we had been getting in the US? But, there were plenty of other Earth shattering comics I read at that age that I no longer care about. "GI Joe" #109 was the first appearance of the SAW Viper, and the first time that named Joes died. But, the shine wore off it a few years later, because I can admit it was not that good. (Hey, I was 13 when it came out, and I got suckered by the promise of character death.)

I’m saying that a lot of it *is* nostalgia. Without your childhood backing it, the G1 cartoon is just a middling cartoon, nothing of more impact than the Unicron Trilogy (and that series lasted longer). Can you really say that anything ‘important’ happened in that show compared to any events from later Transformers cartoons? Because like I said, I watched that show comparatively recently for the first time, and almost none of it had any impact on me. That’s what I’m asking: Should it have? Did I miss out on a crucial component of Transfandom by not having this as part of my childhood, by not growing up with G1?

Typed this up between e-mails at work, and now it looks like there's two or three other replies I'll want to respond, gyah.

[Dominic]

but RID itself is a pretty tiny pond,

And, a not terribly important pond, which is what JT and I are arguing here.

and Sky-Byte would’ve been a good springboard towards inducting guys like Hot Shot and Barricade and Bulkhead.

This gets back to prioritizing characters.

Skybite should not be in the HoF to open the door for post-94 characters. Post-94 characters should be in there on their own merits. Barricade should be in there because Barricade is cool. i would support Barricade before (my old stand by) Windcharger. Why? Because Barricade is a more important character.

What about UT Red Alert?

Is it wrong that people will probably vote for Gears or Windcharger or Ramjet before they vote for Red Alert or Barricade or Bulkhead? Yes. But, by the same principle, it is also wrong to vote for an obscure character from a dead end in the franchise simply to recognize that thing that was current 10+ years ago and (spuriously) open the door for later run characters.

Why? Because Wheeljack existed in the 80’s when the fans were kids.

"When many of the *voting* fans were kids."

Many G1 characters have the advantage of longevity. But, them's the breaks. Much the same happens with comics. That is one of the reasons I bought, and am tempted to read back issues leading up to, "Spawn" #200. the series has lasted more than 10 years, and has a mythos. And, yes, characters like Superman or Spider-Man get a pass, and there are more shitty comics with them. But, there are also plenty of runs by a-list talent.

Red Alert is a good example. He did not do much in the comics. But, the UT comics did not run as long as G1, and there were different story telling conventions in the early part of the last decade than in the 80s.

He built the Dinobots in one continuity, and that’s part of what I’m getting at here: to me, that’s just one continuity that I don’t pay a lot of mind too. In my preferred G1 fiction, the Dinobots were always around, they just woke up earlier than the rest of the crew and wound up with dinosaur altmodes.

It is not about the fictional achievements of fictional characters. If it were, Primus would have won in the first year.

It is about how much the characters have done in terms of screen/page time and their over-all importance. Wheeljack was one of the originals. He is visually distinctive. He was meaningfully in many episodes of the cartoon, and made a good showing in the comics. His characterization is consistent, which is a feat for a 1984 character.

(And, for the record, I much prefer the comic origin, or variants of it, to the cartoon origin for the Dinobots.)

I want to recognize Movie Starscream for trying to unite Cybertron and nearly reconstructing the AllSpark, but does that not count because it happened in a lower-exposure comic that didn’t come out during the fandom’s childhoods?

Hasbro has declared the movie characters as being idiomatically the same as the G1 guys. So, movie Starscream has been given his due.

Sadly, the fact that "Reign of Starscream" came out as a comic does make it seem less important for many fans. The same thing happens in "Star Wars" as a whole. (That fandom loves the moving pictures. I have seen fans praising exactly the sort of plot points that they condemned in the comics.)

But, even so, "Reign of Starscream" was one isolated story. It was damned well written. But, it did not have much of an impact on other movie comics, let alone the franchise as a whole.

And I’d never be crazy enough to try to put Sky Lynx or Stepper or BW Sky Shadow (a toy and character concept I LOVED as a child) over for similar reasons. But RiD as a series was memorable, and Sky-Byte was a large part of why it was memorable, and was so himself.

Skybite warrants more than the characters mentioned above. But, RiD is really not that big a thing. It epitomizes the ephermeral reboot that I get in to below. I kicked up in mid-'01, and went away in mid-'02. It was around for one year. It was like everything that I heard, and did not like, about the Japanese method in that it just kept time for a year and moved along for the next thing.

There were some great toys in that line, but the plot was insular filler. (Again, how many points is being an in-house parody really worth?)

How was your generation wronged by Hasbro’s decisions then? The entire reason the fanbase spent so much time whining before (and after) Universe Ironhide was released was because the cartoon model they used that was burned into your brain looked nothing like the toy that was available (similar for a lot of the G1 characters).

Ironhide and Ratchet a special case.

Most of the G1 toys were bad, even for the time. But, they were "good enough" if you liked the cartoon and the characters. Even I was more forgiving back then because I knew that I had to be. (And, as a kid, having the toys meant much more to me than it does now. Now, I probably want a good representation of the character more than anything else.)

But, Ironhide and Ratchet were shit, even for the time. The robot modes were terrible. The faces were stickers. Stickers. Optimus' eyes may have been the wrong colour. Jazz's visor may not have been painted at all. But, dammit,they had moulded detail and looked "good enough".

Even as a kid, not knowing the real reasons for why the toys looks so bad, I wondered why Hasbro bothered making them and why they were on the cartoon.

Three repaints of the same guy only constituted a ‘set’ because that’s what you were shown in the material when you were a kid, and it impressed upon you. I consider Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker a ‘set’ only slightly more than I do Prowl, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen, and that’s mostly due to how respectively visible IDW has kept the characters in the current incarnation which, again, just goes back to how they were associated back in G1.

But, that is the thing. They were not "recolours of the same guy", they were "different guys". Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp were a trio of guys who worked together. If one was around, the other two were probably going to show up. The shared moulding helped to define them as a teacm.

Prowl, Smokescreen and Silver/Blue Streak were not shown as being closely associated. They just happened to be guys on the same faction. The association is much looser. (Like I said in the earlier post. This is the difference between reading/watching comics/cartoons and reading a wiki. The wiki says "these guys are recolours", but it does not necessarily show how they were presented in context.)

(When I saw some other kid’s Ramjet toy, I assumed it was Minefield, that female Decepticon from the cartoon who could detonate herself whenever she wanted WHERE THE HELL DID I GET THAT SERIOUSLY?!)

Shrooms? Acid? Maybe meth? Was it meth? It was meth wasn't it?

And if those questions are not uncomfortable enough...

Without your childhood backing it, the G1 cartoon is just a middling cartoon, nothing of more impact than the Unicron Trilogy (and that series lasted longer).

This raises some really awkward questions, like "if it is so middling why do we bother?"

At a more basic level, some of it is longevity. The G1 characters have had more time to be around and make impressions. And, they are more likely to be re-used. (If I weight for recent content, Prowl starts to edge out Jazz as my favourite.)

And, yes, some of it is nostalgia. But, just voting for the newer character does not make much sense either.

because instead of latching onto the ‘right’ characters that everyone else did like Wheeljack and Brawn and Prowl, I instead ended up, for whatever reason, caring more about guys like Sky Lynx, Venom, Tankorr, Urban Ruination, and Kicker?

Like I said. Priorities.

If you prioritize for characters, then Wheeljack, Brawn and Prowl have a huge advantage.

Tankorr was a pretty important characters. But, he was also an especially controversial character in a series that more than stirred up the chamber pot to begin with. If RiD was barely a ripple, BM (bwahahahahahahahahahaha, poop) was an ill mannered prank with a full bed pan. And, because of that, Tankorr (and the concepts related to the character), will not be substantively revisited ever. Aside from a symbol (and very heavy handed) panel in "Balancing Act" (which was probably based on unpublished 3H material), nothing was done with the character after he died.

Sky Lynx is a fun, but not terribly important, character.

On the other hand, Venom? What the hell has he or any of the deluxe Insecticons ever done? I think they showed up in the UK a couple of times. Aside from that and filling in scenes in the DW and IDW comics, Venom's biggest moment was in a sourcebook. Urban Ruination was a non-show recolour of a character that only appeared in some episodes of a cartoon that few people really cared about.

Now, if you prioritize for toys, the field shifts considerably.

I will be damned if I can think of a good Jazz toys. G1 Jazz is fragile and barely articulated. RTS Jazz has a poorly sculped face and an unstable chest assembly. Pretender Jazz is a piece of junk. The only good Jazz toy I can think of is the damned PVC from 10 years back. Wheeljack only recently got a good toy.

Prioritizing for toys, the Predacon trio from RiD is looking much more appealling. There are Micromaster bases that I would choose over Jazz. And, as much as I am not a fan of the movies in context, there are movie toys that I like.

And this is the basis for this entire thread. I really do have no idea, and I feel like I’m missing out because of it.

But, you seemed to understand. I had been trying to get all of the G1 Decepticon jets for 20+ years. As a kid, it was not going to happen.

Re-issues in 2004 were problematic because at that point the moulding was enough to trouble me. And, they were expensive, even before Sunstrorm was introduced. As good as the PVCs were, Dirge was hard enough to find that it was not an option. The UT iterations of the characters were not the same guys in all cases (Skywarp and Thrust), some of the toys were not so good *and* 2 of them were missing.

But, finally, between the US and Japan, I was able to get a complete set of 6 in one more or less consistent aesthetic. And, I had Acid Storm. (There is no official Sunstorm at that scale. So, not having him is just something I will deal with.) You might not get the same rush (and believe me, it was a rush), but you can definitely understand it.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t matter to me, since G1-style Mirage doesn’t ‘mean’ anything to me. AHM, maybe, but that’s honestly a minimal role that the Classics toy sits in for just fine. Or maybe I’m just not too discerning, I don’t know.

AHM Mirage looks pretty much like G1 Mirage, and Mirage is pretty important in AHM. "Classics" Mirage is too skinny to represent G1/AHM Mirage. The toy represents Mirage in general terms. Think of it this way, if you really like the scene in "Empire Strikes Back" where Luke Skywalker confronts Vader, is Luke in his Jedi gear from "Return of the Jedi" going to cut it, even if the latter is a good representation of the Luke Skywalker in general terms?

Do I count less as a fan just because I ended up not caring about the G1 cartoon as much as everyone else, just because I happened to be born after it could ‘resonate’ with me?

You are no less a fan. But, and I am pretty sure JT will agree with me, that you (along with fans your age and younger) did miss out on something. You missed out on the franchise before reboots became standard. And, in that sense, you did get cheated.

As much as I am in favour of periodic reboots to prevent stagnation, there needs to be breathing room between them or things can seem more ephemeral and it can become more difficult to sort characters and stories by priority. (After all, if it all goes away in a year or so, it is harder to look at the comics or cartoons as if they matter.)

G1 had the appearance of being "built to last". Part of the impact of the 1986 movie, and to a lesser degree the comics (where TFs being dead was usually more an inconvenience than a permanent state) was that it *mattered*. Both sides took casualties and things really were not the same afterwards. Things changed and the changes stuck.

Conversely, you’d think people would want all seven Insecticons to complete that sub-group, but people only ever ask about Bombshell, Kickback, and Shrapnel because surprise, they were the ones in the cartoon

The other 4 guys did nothing of importance. I recall one of them getting stomped on by an Omega Sentinel in "War Within". But, he was in a pre-Earth form that did not look like the toy. Oh, and another one was there for the sacking of Iacon. But, who the hell cares?

Most Transfans are prioritizing for characters.

But, if you are prioritizing for toys first, why bother with stuff that is older than you when there is newer and better stuff? The HoF would be "best of a given year. Hasbro would have declared ~20 older *toys* and used a combination of fan votes, sales figures and customer feedback to choose current and future *toys*.

To use a non-TF example: As much as I liked the "Micronauts" comics and novels from early part of the last decade, I liked the "Microman" *toys* independently of the comics. (There were no *good* toys of characters from the comics and novels, if there were toys at all.) Given the chance, I always picked up the newer figures. And, when I picked up older figures, I only picked up re-issues, skipping incomplete loose figures.

Prioritizing for character, Karza

Spoiler

or the Time Traveller who was the same guy

wins. Prioritizing for toys, Acrobiom Ocean Master wins.



Dom
-planning to touch on this more in the comics thread.

[Onslaught Six]

Fuck! I spent too long trying to post, got logged out, and the post disappeared. And now I don't remember my specific arguments. Shit!