> > I've got it in my head now that I'm going to try and different repaints from the different companies. Something like Takara Inferno, Maketoys Artfire, Ocular Max Hauler, and X-Transbots Grapple. That way I get to experience all the different molds and still flesh out the collection.
> I see where your head is at (getting to experience all the different designs without buying the same character repeatedly) but it would really, really bug me if my Inferno didn't match my Grapple.

Really poor example. 9 months later, let me try and fix it!

My overall goal will always be to get the best representation of how *I* see the character, very specifically to my own headcanon. This usually simply comes down to the closest a figure can come to it's cartoon appearance (for better or for worse). Then, I have to start thinking about other factors. What if it wasn't in the cartoon? Can I get something new that I haven't experienced before? Does it look good and the way I want it to on a shelf? Are their financial reasons? Should I wait for something better?

So let's fix my Inferno example.

Inferno - MP-33 - For one, I already have this figure. I'm not made of money enough that I can just willy nilly decide I'm going to get one with better feet and throw this one away. For two, this figure is awesome, I've liked it every since I got it. For three, it's perfectly cartoon accurate and exactly how I want my Inferno to look.

Grapple - MP-35 - This is where my example above was rushed. I completely agree, Grapple should match Inferno, and that's exactly how I want him to look. Even better, there's enough new tooling and tricks to make him just a little bit new, and I absolutely love that Takara took those extra steps and want to encourage that!

Artfire - Ocular Max Kojin - Artfire only really existed as a toy (and still looked the part in sparse media). And that toy looks nothing like Inferno's animation model. I think the Ocular Max version works perfectly as a slim and sleek design that truly captures the toy.

Hauler - Ok here's where headcanon comes into play. For me, Hauler is a completely different character than Grapple. He's an orange crane that crashed into earth on the Ark and was woken up in 1984 and helped pull Hound out of the ravine. Furthermore, although he's also an orange crane as is Grapple, the two look very dissimilar. If Hauler's robot animation model from season 1 ever surfaces, I would expect a smaller chest area, more pronounced waist, and more of a boxy feel to his arms and legs. And I think X-Transbots Da-Vinci fits this extremely well. Whatever head I choose for Grapple, I'll choose the opposite for Hauler, and probably give him 2 hands to try and differentiate them as much and as authentically as I can.

Road Hauler - Is, canonically, really just Hauler. But I've never really liked it. I definitely think it was one of the weakest E-Hobby repaints in sculpt, color, and story. So I'm undecided. The one thing I think I know is that if I accept this character, I want him to look like a Constructicon if I were to put them all together on a shelf (think how awful G1 Road Hauler would look next to the 1985 Constructicons). To be fair, Ocular Max's vehicle mode for Road Crane actually looks like a animation model of a Constructicon, but he's also an expensive hard to find exclusive. X-Transbots Carraviggio currently is the only other option and could maybe work, but I think I would definitely need a black and grey head, and I think I would prefer some purple in there. Red eyes or blue eyes? I'm not sure. They all had red eyes even before the Robo-Smasher, but I don't know if I trust that flash back. Now of course I don't have any Masterpiece Constructicons and none of the big companies have made cartoon accurate versions yet. So maybe I should wait until somebody does - heck it might even spark some more Road Hauler releases!

Bulkhead - Oh god. X-Transbots just put this out and I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I know I hate the head, but not sure about the rest. On one hand, I applaud X-Transbots for doing something new. On the other hand, I'm very picky about who I accept into my Diaclone ranks. I have no attachment to Bulkhead, just like I have no attachment to yellow Trailbreaker - but I want yellow Trailbreaker infinitely more. Usually, just a random repaint not from Takara (I dunno, like a green Jazz) doesn't do anything for me. But then again, Transformers, in a sense, *should* exist across different universes. Slipstream comes from the same Animated universe and I wouldn't hesitate to get a Starscream 3.0 version of her. Bulkhead gives me pause - but I think I'm leaning toward..yes? Can I imagine a scenario where both Hauler and Bulkhead (maybe I just hate the name) were on the 1984 catalog and made it fully into season 1? Yes...? Maybe.

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 11:58:49 AM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:

> My overall goal will always be to get the best representation of how *I* see the character, very specifically to my own headcanon. This usually simply comes down to the closest a figure can come to it's cartoon appearance (for better or for worse). Then, I have to start thinking about other factors. What if it wasn't in the cartoon? Can I get something new that I haven't experienced before? Does it look good and the way I want it to on a shelf? Are their financial reasons? Should I wait for something better?

The way I look at Transformers collecting currently is the way I used to look at Star Wars. I was a big fan of Star Wars as a kid, largely forgot about it growing up, and then rediscovered it when they came out with the Power of the Force 2 toy line in the 1990's. By that point I was not playing with toys, I was collecting them, and I found it delightful that not only were they doing characters that didn't exist in the original toy line (Grand Moff Tarkin, etc.) but the POTF2 sculpts were generally superior to the vintage versions.

And then they did something totally unexpected. They completely reinvented the action figures, starting with the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection, giving them knee joints and wrist joints and ankle joints that should have been impossible on such tiny action figures. There was actually a reason to replace the POTF2 toys, whose sculpts suddenly seemed dated, especially the early releases who all had Kenner superhero body proportions. They were closely paying attention to things like character scale (Carrie Fisher was only 5' 1", so the newer Princess Leia figures were super tiny) and were creating what I felt was the definitive action figure collection. I don't think they quite got around to replacing every single POTF2 figure (there was never a new EV-9D9 or 8D8 as far as I know) but they got pretty darn close. It's pretty impressive how they managed to render almost every POTF2 release completely obsolete. It went from being one of my favorite toy lines to being just a big box full of early attempts, before they managed to release the "real" versions of all those characters.

So, to bring this back around to Transformers, I feel like we're in the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection phase now. Generally, speaking, every recent release of a character has become the definitive version, and replaces all prior attempts. (There are exceptions. Kingdom Waspinator and Rhinox failed to surpass their predecessors.) And they're even expanding G1 in unexpected ways, including inessential, but welcome, characters like Artfire, who used to cost thousands of dollars but now you can get a very good version of him for about thirty bucks. That blows me away.

> Bulkhead - Oh god. X-Transbots just put this out and I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I know I hate the head, but not sure about the rest. On one hand, I applaud X-Transbots for doing something new.

I really wonder if this was something X-Transbots was planning to do anyway, or whether it was inspired by Hasbro's decision to release a Gewunnified version of Bulkhead. It still seems like a wrong-headed move, no matter where it comes from.

> On the other hand, I'm very picky about who I accept into my Diaclone ranks. I have no attachment to Bulkhead, just like I have no attachment to yellow Trailbreaker - but I want yellow Trailbreaker infinitely more.

To me, yellow Trailbreaker is an authentic toy from the Diaclone days who could have *theoretically* made it into Transformers if the cards had been shuffled differently. So, I accept him as one of the many possible inclusions in the Hasbro Transformers line, in an alternate-quantum-reality sort of way. Tomorrow, Bob Budiansky could find a piece of paper in a desk drawer and go, "Oh yeah, I forgot about these, here are some characters called Stoplight and Brakes and Cop-Out that Hasbro told me to create for 1986 but they ended up getting canned in favor of The Transformers: the Movie" and the fandom would just nod their heads and go, "Well, that explains why we never got red Mirage or silver Skids or police car Sunstreaker."

> Usually, just a random repaint not from Takara (I dunno, like a green Jazz) doesn't do anything for me. But then again, Transformers, in a sense, *should* exist across different universes. Slipstream comes from the same Animated universe and I wouldn't hesitate to get a Starscream 3.0 version of her. Bulkhead gives me pause - but I think I'm leaning toward..yes? Can I imagine a scenario where both Hauler and Bulkhead (maybe I just hate the name) were on the 1984 catalog and made it fully into season 1? Yes...? Maybe.

I have so many thoughts about this.

I'm not too keen on the fandom's interpretation of Transformers as a multiverse. Now, obviously in our real-life existence, Transformers is indeed splintered into many different continuities that are incompatible with each other: G1, Michael Bay films, Animated, etc. And each iteration is itself divided even further: G1 cartoon, G1 comic book, G1 Find Your Fate books, etc. You could break it down even further to sub-continuities, like the two versions of "Dark Awakening," the two versions of "Five Faces of Darkness," the G1 cartoon as depicted in the G2 cartoon series; etc.

But I think the fandom tends to group together everything labeled "Transformers" as a multiverse built from characters who all exist simultaneously and can all meet each other, as if all they had to do was open a door and an Animated character can just magically step into the G1 cartoon. Or, conversely, that if a character exists at all, then he therefore must exist as multiversal equivalents in all such realities; i.e., if there's a movie Barricade then there must therefore be a G1 Barricade; if there's an animated version of Bulkhead there must also be a G1 Bulkhead; etc.

I'm not directly opposed to the transposition of ideas from different iterations of the franchise. (If they did a thirty-dollar Earthrise Starscream in Slipstream colors, I can't say with certainty that I would not buy it.) But the tendency of people to play mix-and-match tends to muddy the waters.. I mean, Transformers is largely just character archetypes. In G1, they had a cantankerous old man and they called him Kup. Animated also had the same cantankerous old man archetype, but this time they called him Ratchet. So is there also an Animated version of Kup? Why would he even exist? What would be the point, when that role is already being fulfilled?

I mean, sure. Fans can imagine whatever they want. Let your creative juices run wild. In fact, don't stop with Transformers. There's nothing to stop you from envisioning a world where Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk and the Ninja Turtles and the Smurfs all exist together. Go crazy with it.

I think what bothers me about taking characters from, say, Animated and feeding them through a Deryfication filter is that it destroys part of what makes Animated so distinctive. The visual style of Derrick J, Wyatt is one of the things that sets it apart from other iterations and makes it instantly recognizable. It's so distinctive that a fan can draw an erroneous character in that style and you will instantly go, "Oh, I get it, it's an Animated version of Monstructor" or whatever. And with Wyatt's recent death, it feels especially tone-deaf of Hasbro to make these steps towards minimizing his contribution instead of celebrating it.

My COVID-addled brain probably isn't presenting a very cohesive argument, and I can already see half a dozen ways in which people will poke holes in it. But, I already typed it, so I'm not gonna delete it now.

Zob (armchair social justice warrior at large)

On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 3:12:51 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 11:58:49 AM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > My overall goal will always be to get the best representation of how *I* see the character, very specifically to my own headcanon. This usually simply comes down to the closest a figure can come to it's cartoon appearance (for better or for worse). Then, I have to start thinking about other factors. What if it wasn't in the cartoon? Can I get something new that I haven't experienced before? Does it look good and the way I want it to on a shelf? Are their financial reasons? Should I wait for something better?
> The way I look at Transformers collecting currently is the way I used to look at Star Wars. I was a big fan of Star Wars as a kid, largely forgot about it growing up, and then rediscovered it when they came out with the Power of the Force 2 toy line in the 1990's. By that point I was not playing with toys, I was collecting them, and I found it delightful that not only were they doing characters that didn't exist in the original toy line (Grand Moff Tarkin, etc.) but the POTF2 sculpts were generally superior to the vintage versions.
>
> And then they did something totally unexpected. They completely reinvented the action figures, starting with the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection, giving them knee joints and wrist joints and ankle joints that should have been impossible on such tiny action figures. There was actually a reason to replace the POTF2 toys, whose sculpts suddenly seemed dated, especially the early releases who all had Kenner superhero body proportions. They were closely paying attention to things like character scale (Carrie Fisher was only 5' 1", so the newer Princess Leia figures were super tiny) and were creating what I felt was the definitive action figure collection. I don't think they quite got around to replacing every single POTF2 figure (there was never a new EV-9D9 or 8D8 as far as I know) but they got pretty darn close.. It's pretty impressive how they managed to render almost every POTF2 release completely obsolete. It went from being one of my favorite toy lines to being just a big box full of early attempts, before they managed to release the "real" versions of all those characters.
>
> So, to bring this back around to Transformers, I feel like we're in the Vintage Original Trilogy Collection phase now. Generally, speaking, every recent release of a character has become the definitive version, and replaces all prior attempts. (There are exceptions. Kingdom Waspinator and Rhinox failed to surpass their predecessors.) And they're even expanding G1 in unexpected ways, including inessential, but welcome, characters like Artfire, who used to cost thousands of dollars but now you can get a very good version of him for about thirty bucks. That blows me away.
> > Bulkhead - Oh god. X-Transbots just put this out and I don't know how I feel about it. Well, I know I hate the head, but not sure about the rest. On one hand, I applaud X-Transbots for doing something new.
> I really wonder if this was something X-Transbots was planning to do anyway, or whether it was inspired by Hasbro's decision to release a Gewunnified version of Bulkhead. It still seems like a wrong-headed move, no matter where it comes from.
> > On the other hand, I'm very picky about who I accept into my Diaclone ranks. I have no attachment to Bulkhead, just like I have no attachment to yellow Trailbreaker - but I want yellow Trailbreaker infinitely more.
> To me, yellow Trailbreaker is an authentic toy from the Diaclone days who could have *theoretically* made it into Transformers if the cards had been shuffled differently. So, I accept him as one of the many possible inclusions in the Hasbro Transformers line, in an alternate-quantum-reality sort of way. Tomorrow, Bob Budiansky could find a piece of paper in a desk drawer and go, "Oh yeah, I forgot about these, here are some characters called Stoplight and Brakes and Cop-Out that Hasbro told me to create for 1986 but they ended up getting canned in favor of The Transformers: the Movie" and the fandom would just nod their heads and go, "Well, that explains why we never got red Mirage or silver Skids or police car Sunstreaker."
> > Usually, just a random repaint not from Takara (I dunno, like a green Jazz) doesn't do anything for me. But then again, Transformers, in a sense, *should* exist across different universes. Slipstream comes from the same Animated universe and I wouldn't hesitate to get a Starscream 3.0 version of her. Bulkhead gives me pause - but I think I'm leaning toward..yes? Can I imagine a scenario where both Hauler and Bulkhead (maybe I just hate the name) were on the 1984 catalog and made it fully into season 1? Yes...? Maybe..
> I have so many thoughts about this.
>
> I'm not too keen on the fandom's interpretation of Transformers as a multiverse. Now, obviously in our real-life existence, Transformers is indeed splintered into many different continuities that are incompatible with each other: G1, Michael Bay films, Animated, etc. And each iteration is itself divided even further: G1 cartoon, G1 comic book, G1 Find Your Fate books, etc. You could break it down even further to sub-continuities, like the two versions of "Dark Awakening," the two versions of "Five Faces of Darkness," the G1 cartoon as depicted in the G2 cartoon series; etc.
>
> But I think the fandom tends to group together everything labeled "Transformers" as a multiverse built from characters who all exist simultaneously and can all meet each other, as if all they had to do was open a door and an Animated character can just magically step into the G1 cartoon. Or, conversely, that if a character exists at all, then he therefore must exist as multiversal equivalents in all such realities; i.e., if there's a movie Barricade then there must therefore be a G1 Barricade; if there's an animated version of Bulkhead there must also be a G1 Bulkhead; etc.
>
> I'm not directly opposed to the transposition of ideas from different iterations of the franchise. (If they did a thirty-dollar Earthrise Starscream in Slipstream colors, I can't say with certainty that I would not buy it.) But the tendency of people to play mix-and-match tends to muddy the waters.. I mean, Transformers is largely just character archetypes. In G1, they had a cantankerous old man and they called him Kup. Animated also had the same cantankerous old man archetype, but this time they called him Ratchet. So is there also an Animated version of Kup? Why would he even exist? What would be the point, when that role is already being fulfilled?
>

I've gotten used to the idea that Slipstream is rarely just a Starscream repaint, I do want some remolding and retooling at the very least. Even as a Starscream clone they weren't strictly identical. I still wish I hadn't passed on that Cyberverse Slipstream when they were readily available, it was a new mold of a character that hasn't been accessible in toy form.

> I mean, sure. Fans can imagine whatever they want. Let your creative juices run wild. In fact, don't stop with Transformers. There's nothing to stop you from envisioning a world where Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk and the Ninja Turtles and the Smurfs all exist together. Go crazy with it.
>

Someone just put together a Spiderman/Encanto/Scream mashup, so I can't say it's the strangest idea.

> I think what bothers me about taking characters from, say, Animated and feeding them through a Deryfication filter is that it destroys part of what makes Animated so distinctive. The visual style of Derrick J, Wyatt is one of the things that sets it apart from other iterations and makes it instantly recognizable. It's so distinctive that a fan can draw an erroneous character in that style and you will instantly go, "Oh, I get it, it's an Animated version of Monstructor" or whatever. And with Wyatt's recent death, it feels especially tone-deaf of Hasbro to make these steps towards minimizing his contribution instead of celebrating it.
>

This just puts Transformer version of Rodger Rabbit in my head. Will Cade walk through a door and end up talking to Jack from Prime? Will Prime Knock Out replace his Breakdown with a slimmer Stunticon breakdown? These are scary thoughts.

> My COVID-addled brain probably isn't presenting a very cohesive argument, and I can already see half a dozen ways in which people will poke holes in it. But, I already typed it, so I'm not gonna delete it now.
>

COVID messed up my stomach and gut for an additional 3 weeks after I was cleared for work and a bunch of people are telling me that men are getting UTIs after COVID so maybe that's what I had?

>
> Zob (armchair social justice warrior at large)

Zobovor <zmfts@aol.com> wrote:
> On Friday, January 21, 2022 at 11:58:49 AM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> My overall goal will always be to get the best representation of how *I*
>> see the character, very specifically to my own headcanon. This usually
>> simply comes down to the closest a figure can come to it's cartoon
>> appearance (for better or for worse). Then, I have to start thinking
>> about other factors. What if it wasn't in the cartoon? Can I get
>> something new that I haven't experienced before? Does it look good and
>> the way I want it to on a shelf? Are their financial reasons? Should I
>> wait for something better?
>
> The way I look at Transformers collecting currently is the way I used to
> look at Star Wars. I was a big fan of Star Wars as a kid, largely forgot
> about it growing up, and then rediscovered it when they came out with the
> Power of the Force 2 toy line in the 1990's. By that point I was not
> playing with toys, I was collecting them, and I found it delightful that
> not only were they doing characters that didn't exist in the original toy
> line (Grand Moff Tarkin, etc.) but the POTF2 sculpts were generally
> superior to the vintage versions.

I have a lot more interest in the vintage toys than any of the newer
incarnations. They might have been less accurate, but they had a certain
charm that the newer toys haven’t matched.

Grand Moff Tarkin was missing, and if I still had any significant numbers
of Star Wars toys, I would have hunted down the faux vintage one that came
outa few years ago with some board game. But, all I have is an R5-D4.

(R5-D4 is my spirit droid… he has a bad motivator)

And I would love Doctor Aphra, 0-0-0, and BT-1 in faux vintage glory.

> And then they did something totally unexpected. They completely
> reinvented the action figures, starting with the Vintage Original Trilogy
> Collection, giving them knee joints and wrist joints and ankle joints
> that should have been impossible on such tiny action figures. There was
> actually a reason to replace the POTF2 toys, whose sculpts suddenly
> seemed dated, especially the early releases who all had Kenner superhero
> body proportions. […] It's pretty impressive how they managed to render
> almost every POTF2 release completely obsolete. It went from being one
> of my favorite toy lines to being just a big box full of early attempts,
> before they managed to release the "real" versions of all those characters.

The new ones look nice, but I don’t see much value in those middling years
toys.

> So, to bring this back around to Transformers, I feel like we're in the
> Vintage Original Trilogy Collection phase now. Generally, speaking,
> every recent release of a character has become the definitive version,
> and replaces all prior attempts. (There are exceptions. Kingdom
> Waspinator and Rhinox failed to surpass their predecessors.) And they're
> even expanding G1 in unexpected ways, including inessential, but welcome,
> characters like Artfire, who used to cost thousands of dollars but now
> you can get a very good version of him for about thirty bucks. That blows me away.

Why do I like Artfire so much?

>> Bulkhead - Oh god. X-Transbots just put this out and I don't know how I
>> feel about it. Well, I know I hate the head, but not sure about the
>> rest. On one hand, I applaud X-Transbots for doing something new.
>
> I really wonder if this was something X-Transbots was planning to do
> anyway, or whether it was inspired by Hasbro's decision to release a
> Gewunnified version of Bulkhead. It still seems like a wrong-headed
> move, no matter where it comes from.

The new Bulkheads just don’t capture the character. Bulkhead has a
roundness in both vehicle and robot mode that is as distinctive as
Megatron’s arm cannon or Optimus’s chest windows.

It means that he doesn’t really fit as a realistic modern Earth vehicle,
and I would rather they approached him as a 2005 character than a 1984
character. Bulbous military transport or SUV from the “future”? Sure.

>> Usually, just a random repaint not from Takara (I dunno, like a green
>> Jazz) doesn't do anything for me. But then again, Transformers, in a
>> sense, *should* exist across different universes. Slipstream comes from
>> the same Animated universe and I wouldn't hesitate to get a Starscream
>> 3.0 version of her. Bulkhead gives me pause - but I think I'm leaning
>> toward..yes? Can I imagine a scenario where both Hauler and Bulkhead
>> (maybe I just hate the name) were on the 1984 catalog and made it fully
>> into season 1? Yes...? Maybe.

No. His design works better as Season 3 character — single color, stylized
design.

> I have so many thoughts about this.
>
> I'm not too keen on the fandom's interpretation of Transformers as a
> multiverse. Now, obviously in our real-life existence, Transformers is
> indeed splintered into many different continuities that are incompatible
> with each other: G1, Michael Bay films, Animated, etc. And each
> iteration is itself divided even further: G1 cartoon, G1 comic book, G1
> Find Your Fate books, etc. You could break it down even further to
> sub-continuities, like the two versions of "Dark Awakening," the two
> versions of "Five Faces of Darkness," the G1 cartoon as depicted in the
> G2 cartoon series; etc.
>
> But I think the fandom tends to group together everything labeled
> "Transformers" as a multiverse built from characters who all exist
> simultaneously and can all meet each other, as if all they had to do was
> open a door and an Animated character can just magically step into the G1 cartoon.

> Or, conversely, that if a character exists at all, then he therefore must
> exist as multiversal equivalents in all such realities; i.e., if there's
> a movie Barricade then there must therefore be a G1 Barricade; if there's
> an animated version of Bulkhead there must also be a G1 Bulkhead; etc.

I don’t think there’s a hard rule that there can’t be though. It depends on
whether such a character fits into the universe. G1 Barricade lost a lot
coming over from the Movieverse and is a lot less special.

Does G1 have a big, friendly dumb guy who knows he’s a big friendly dumb
guy? Not that I can think of, and it seems like a missed opportunity. There
are big, surly dumb guys (Dinobots), but that’s not really the same thing.
Bulkhead has the possibility of fitting into an empty spot.

> I'm not directly opposed to the transposition of ideas from different
> iterations of the franchise. (If they did a thirty-dollar Earthrise
> Starscream in Slipstream colors, I can't say with certainty that I would
> not buy it.) But the tendency of people to play mix-and-match tends to
> muddy the waters. I mean, Transformers is largely just character
> archetypes. In G1, they had a cantankerous old man and they called him
> Kup. Animated also had the same cantankerous old man archetype, but this
> time they called him Ratchet. So is there also an Animated version of
> Kup? Why would he even exist? What would be the point, when that role
> is already being fulfilled?

Kup and Ratchet are radically different. Ratchet is very reluctant to
share, and carries around a lot of guilt because of everyone he couldn’t
save, and the robot he had to hurt. His cantankerousness is self-loathing
tempered by the knowledge that he is being too hard on himself.

You can almost squint hard enough to see a similarity with Kup in “Chaos”,
but even there Kup is mostly friendly. And a coward.

> I mean, sure. Fans can imagine whatever they want. Let your creative
> juices run wild. In fact, don't stop with Transformers. There's nothing
> to stop you from envisioning a world where Optimus Prime and Captain Kirk
> and the Ninja Turtles and the Smurfs all exist together. Go crazy with it.
>
> I think what bothers me about taking characters from, say, Animated and
> feeding them through a Deryfication filter is that it destroys part of
> what makes Animated so distinctive. The visual style of Derrick J, Wyatt
> is one of the things that sets it apart from other iterations and makes
> it instantly recognizable. It's so distinctive that a fan can draw an
> erroneous character in that style and you will instantly go, "Oh, I get
> it, it's an Animated version of Monstructor" or whatever. And with
> Wyatt's recent death, it feels especially tone-deaf of Hasbro to make
> these steps towards minimizing his contribution instead of celebrating it.

If it helps, they are pulling Bulkhead from the TF:Prime version as much as
TF:Animated.

I think they are bringing characters in with too much of a G1 filter,
though, and that some of the distinctiveness of the originals is being lost
though. Barricade should be a monstrous robot covered in spikes, but G1
spikes. G1 Prime Arcee should be slimmed down. G1 Bulkhead should be
rounder. These are all visual elements that could be referenced but aren’t.