I've always had a hard time buying the same mold more than once. A good chunk of why I actually buy a Transformer is to try and work out the transformation - whether that be for the first time or just grabbing one off the shelf to fiddle with while the kids are stressing me out. There are, of course, reasons that sometimes I have to double dip on a mold. An extremely clever or imaginative retool would do it, like maybe Krok from Skullcruncher in Titans Return. Simply "needing" a representation of the character might be important enough for me to do it, like the old E-Hobby Orion Pax from Targetmaster Kup. Or sometimes it's even for display purposes - all three original Seekers together just looks great and gives a great sense of completion.

But at the Masterpiece scale, that's a heavy toll. I remember wanting to get Cordon after already having Sunstreaker, and I just couldn't justify the cost. So for the most part, I found myself missing out on characters. I've got Sideswipe but not Red Alert, Ironhide but not Ratchet, Inferno but not Grapple. I've got Tracks, but purchased Road Rage but never even bothered to open it.

A while back there was a lot of talk about a Sideswipe V2, especially after Sunstreaker came out. It got me thinking that would be a great way to different "same" characters with new experiences. A new Sideswipe would most likely have a skinnier chest (among other things), so then I could have two different molds that were both cartoon accurate. I took it a step further and thought, "well...Red Alert technically needs bigger wheels on his shoulders and his spoiler on his back, so I guess I need a new one of him too." Then the old V1 mold could be delegated to Deep Cover and Clampdown - and maybe Tigertrack could be a hybrid and look like Shohei Kohara's original character model for Sideswipe (who just might have been yellow at the time)! It got me excited because I could flesh out my collection with characters I might not otherwise get. Also, it gave each character some individuality and uniqueness. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in all of G1 that Eject and Rewind are the *only* Autobots who share an identical character model. And I think this makes a lot of sense. Autobots are, after all, consumer goods which vary quite a bit. Military hardware can often times be identical while things like cars and trucks vary by model, year, trim, accessories, etc.

The first time I actually put this into action was when a red Sunstreaker (Spinout) by BadCube when on heavy sale. It was a bit of a weird feeling essentially getting a "worse" Super Tuning Countach to robot conversion toy after already having the superior Takara Sunstreaker, but I absolutely loved it. I thought it was so cool working through a completely different transformation to get from two near identical cars to two near identical robots. I really liked putting them next to each other to compare their own strengths and weaknesses, and I got the feeling like Spinout might have looked like if he was part of the season 2 bots introduced with Hoist and Red Alert..

It's been a fun exercise to work out exactly which figures I would buy from which molds to continue fleshing out my Diaclone-originated bots. This fever hasn't spread over to the minibots yet - and it's going to be tough if it does and I try to decide how cannon all those South American repaints are in my own personal head-cannon... But I have to factor in how I think a figure "should" look, what other molds exist, what they actually cost, are there ones I already have, and what might come in the future. So hopefully you find this at least entertaining, but if nothing else it's a list to get everything straight in my head!

My go-to example of how this will work is Wheeljack. Wheeljack should look like his character model in the cartoon (this is the starting point for most molds). Since Exhaust didn't have a character model, my next step is to explore the source material for the character. In his case, it would be the Diaclone toy. For Slicer, his source material would be the Action Master toy. Now since Takara is the only mold available here, it makes assigning the actual toys quite easy. MP Wheeljack complete with back wings and a single missile launcher. MP Exhaust, in order to mimic the Diaclone toy, would also get the back wings but now two toy accurate missile launchers and of course the new head. If Slicer were to be made from the same mold, he would go back to the Wheeljack head, and in keeping with the Action Master would get no back wings and no missile launchers with a slightly modified head (two mouthplate sections instead of three!). Technically Exhaust and Slicer should have shoulder wheels, but now I'm just getting picky...

Hound is another easy one. Hound should look like Hound in the cartoon - so Takara - piece of cake. Detritus should look like...rant coming .... I hate Detritus. Of all the E-Hobby repaints I think he is my 2nd most hated. And I think the reason I don't like it so much is because they tried to make him a Junkion. He just doesn't fit. Not in look, not in alt mode, not in robot mode, not in color, not in size, not in personality, nothing. He doesn't have a toy yet, but one of the promotional Hound's from Takara had a long toy accurate rifle so they might have been thinking about it. The thing is, if they gave him that weapon it would make him even *more* un-Junkion like, who all use melee weapons. To extend an olive branch, if substantial remolding and recoloring was done, new head, new weapons, and spiked wheels, you might get my attention. Retool and recolor a G2 Sideswipe similarly and I'd start to be tempted.

I actually got about halfway through this post before it all got deleted and I had to start over. The first time I wrote it I said that I really liked Takara Tracks, but since then I've picked him up and messed around with him and my opinion has somewhat changed. I still think he looks pretty good, but there are some obvious flaws with the toy that could be improved upon.. This is definitely a case of where I think the toy looks cooler than the character model and if not for the disconnected feet, floating head, and empty torso, I would probably keep him as my Tracks - but my gut tells me that a better one is coming. If I eventually upgrade my Tracks, I'll still have Road Rage who is...problematic. He started out as an esoteric variant of Tracks before becoming a prominent Decepticon? on the back of the box artwork before transitioning to a female Autobot and then finally getting a Masterpiece toy but being heavily influenced by her Animated model. Yikes. Normally I would be against not using the original toy/art for reference, but since I already have her, I have to jump through some hoops here. Here's what I'll start with. I actually applaud all of the changes Takara made to make her distinct from Tracks, so I want to support that. Also, even though I don't agree with using her Animated head and colors, I can't disagree that she actually fits in with the season 1 bots quite well. In fact, the dark face, slanted eyes, and mouthplate look more evil than anything else. Which..just so happens to be how she's (he's?) portrayed on the back of the box fighting Grimlock and Jetfire. Maybe they're just - different characters?! I know, it's a stretch and a cheat, but they do have different heads, slightly different colors, and the Decepticon one doesn't have missiles and has front facing wheels on his legs. The fact that they would be on different shelves and he could help build my Decepticon cars (Slicer, Runamuck, Runabout, Loud Pedal, Counterpunch, etc) would also help. The tooling exists for him from Takara, but I doubt they'd revisit him just to give us Road Rage (toy version), so I might have to wait for another company to take a crack at it. Speaking of Loud Pedal, the Takara version is beautiful, honors the source material, and if hypothetically I get a new Tracks, keep the same Road Rage, and get a new Decepticon Road Rage, then Loud Pedal would be the sole toy-Tracks-Takara tooling in my collection, so I would have to pick him up.

There's a picture out there of MP Prowl, Bluestreak, Smokescreen, and blue Bluestreak that I absolutely love. I'll be the first to say that they look fantastic and are the true Masterpiece versions of these toys. The picture also differentiates all of the missile launchers which gives them all uniqueness which is exactly what I'm trying to do! That being said, some of them aren't cartoon accurate - which is also what I'm trying to do. Takara Prowl has stood the test of time - no launchers. Bluestreak, if I'm being honest with myself, needs new legs and to lose the tires behind his shoulders. Smokescreen needs new legs and his skirt. Both of these guys need an upgrade, so I'll have to replace the Bluestreak I have. Now the question is, do I consider blue Bluestreak (Streak, grudgingly in my head) and all-silver Bluestreak (Silverstreak) different characters? Well, based on what I did with Road Rage (wait for Skids..), the answer is obviously yes. Takara blue Bluestreak comes with Prowl's head, toy accurate missile launchers, and basically his whole body is just an upgraded version of the Diaclone toy which is exactly how we knew blue Bluestreak for decades on catalogues and fuzzy Diaclone pictures. I'm guessing that at some point if Bluestreak and Smokescreen are done by a different company (hopefully FansToys, they do extensive retools), Prowl will be with them and I'll probably end up getting him for consistency with my new Bluestreak. So that would leave blue Bluestreak as the single original Takara version which I think is appropriate.. I don't have quite as much love for Silverstreak, as he would just be a recolored blue Bluestreak with a new head, but the Takara version is the toy inspired source material that I would want. In a perfect world, I would get a whole new mold for him (Takara V2, X-Transbots). *There's also a yellow colored Datsun Diaclone concept art version and Barricade out of Smokescreen, neither of which I'm interested in (at least yet). **I guess this is also a good time to bring up that with some of these I'll go down the rabbit hole to varying degrees. There's the Mexican more black Prowl and Smokescreen colored Bluestreak, and maybe even G1 Rapido - but those all feel less authentic to what I'm trying to do.

On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 5:55:43 PM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

WOW. What a great post to sink my teeth into. I love discussions like this.

> I've always had a hard time buying the same mold more than once.

I think it's funny how Transformers as a brand has trained us to be more accepting of this. I would never buy two identical Darth Vader action figures, but I'm always up for a Thundercracker and a Skywarp to go with my Starscream, regardless of the scale or size or design.

It helps that there are "in universe" explanations for it. I mean, Cybertron was literally a toy factory, and the Quintessons were just spitting out robots to the consumers like they were candy. We tend to think of some characters like Mirage or Brawn as having unique body types, but the truth is that EVERY Transformer probably has hundreds or thousands of dopplegangers running around (or, at least, the ones part of the mass-produced product line on Cybertron).

> But at the Masterpiece scale, that's a heavy toll.

Yeah, I feel you. I'm okay with picking up inessential characters like Cordon or Spin-Out if I can get neo-G1 versions of them for $20, but there's no way I'm spending Masterpiece prices for those guys. Media characters only, thankyouverymuch. And I haven't even bought any of the Beast Wars characters, either. Not at those prices.

> A while back there was a lot of talk about a Sideswipe V2, especially after Sunstreaker came out. It got me thinking that would be a great way to different "same" characters with new experiences.

Huh, I don't remember seeing discussion about that. Sideswipe's not a *bad* Masterpiece toy, certainly. He doesn't quite capture the cartoon look the way the modern Masterpiece toys do, but I'm not sure he needs a do-over. I'm honestly tired of seeing them do the same characters repeatedly. I'd rather see characters who haven't gotten the Masterpiece treatment at all yet.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in all of G1 that Eject and Rewind are the *only* Autobots who share an identical character model.

I could be cheeky here and mention Fastlane and Cloudburst. But I won't.

> The first time I actually put this into action was when a red Sunstreaker (Spinout) by BadCube when on heavy sale. It was a bit of a weird feeling essentially getting a "worse" Super Tuning Countach to robot conversion toy after already having the superior Takara Sunstreaker, but I absolutely loved it.

I'm sure it's more fun to buy an entirely new Masterpice-scaled toy rather than just continuing to buy the same boring old Takara design two or three times in a row! I don't think I could go down the third party rabbit hole myself, because there are so many options and they're all so expensive. I think I need to stick to official Masterpiece toys just out of financial necessity.

> It's been a fun exercise to work out exactly which figures I would buy from which molds to continue fleshing out my Diaclone-originated bots. This fever hasn't spread over to the minibots yet

Ther are lots of good third-party Mini Autobot options out there at Masterpice scale. (I wonder when Takara will eventually start addressing them in Masterpiece format, because we really need them.)
> My go-to example of how this will work is Wheeljack. Wheeljack should look like his character model in the cartoon (this is the starting point for most molds). Since Exhaust didn't have a character model, my next step is to explore the source material for the character. In his case, it would be the Diaclone toy. For Slicer, his source material would be the Action Master toy.

I don't have much to add here, except to say that I like to pose my Masterpice Wheeljack in that slightly bent-knee cowboy stance that he assumes in his animation model (which in turn was based on his box art).

> Hound is another easy one. Hound should look like Hound in the cartoon - so Takara - piece of cake. Detritus should look like...rant coming .... I hate Detritus.

You're preaching to the choir. He's not a motorcycle, he's not the right colors, and he doesn't fit in with the other Junkions. I understand Takara's desire to do a Hound redeco to recoup the production costs associated with reissuing him, but Detritus was a terrible way of doing that.

> I actually got about halfway through this post before it all got deleted and I had to start over. The first time I wrote it I said that I really liked Takara Tracks, but since then I've picked him up and messed around with him and my opinion has somewhat changed. I still think he looks pretty good, but there are some obvious flaws with the toy that could be improved upon..

Masterpiece Tracks isn't my favorite of the bunch, but he's good considering what they had to work with. The feet bother me the most (and it's funny how they revisited this same idea for the Kingdom toy). I don't hate him.

> If I eventually upgrade my Tracks, I'll still have Road Rage who is...problematic.

I don't think we should be required to take the battle scene artwork as gospel that Road Rage is "really" a Decepticon. I mean, if you go strictly by the battle scene art, then there are multiple Megatrons, numerous Soundwaves, assorted Laserbeaks and Ravages, dozens of Dinobots, etc.

Also, if you look closely, if Road Rage is firing at Grimlock, she is one *really* shitty marksman. She's right on top of him but she's shooting way over his head. It's more likely that Road Rage and Grimlock aren't even on the same plane. Road Rage is firing on a Decepticon somewhere behind Grimlock, who we can't see, and Grimlock is actually preparing to square off against the Deluxe Insecticons who are behind Road Rage.

> Takara Prowl has stood the test of time - no launchers. Bluestreak, if I'm being honest with myself, needs new legs and to lose the tires behind his shoulders. Smokescreen needs new legs and his skirt.
Honestly, Smokescreen needs an all-new toy. I understand why Takara made him a redeco, but he's just not short and fat enough. I know he's not a prominent character like Starscream or Bumblebee, so he probably won't get a redo. But he kind of needs one.

> But back to Inferno. Yup, him and Grapple have to be Takara - slightly pudgy and all. I know they are just retools of each other, but to have them be drastically different wouldn't work.

Agreed, it would be like having a Ramjet that didn't match your Thrust or Dirge.

> But Hauler, he was season one so his robot mode should look considerable different than Grapple (see Trailbreaker and Hoist).

I always imagine Hauler's cartoon robot mode as being orange and grey, not orange and black like the Grapple toy. In my mind, he would have gotten the Wheeljack treatment.

> In fact, he should have a more defined waist, somewhat boxier limbs, a more heroic posture...just like X-Transbots Da Vinci has!

That's actually not a bad-looking toy. And it would be a good way to differentiate Hauler and Grapple in your collection, for sure.

> Taking it back to Sunstreaker. I've got MP-39 and I was blown away by it - easily one of their absolute best figures, a lot of fun, and the transforming rear portion into a straight Contach was brilliant and something I didn't even know I wanted until I got it.

I think that was Takara making the car enthusiasts happy. Sunstreaker as a character never had the ability to transform into a normal-looking Lambroghini, but Sunstreaker's an odd duck because he was based directly on Takara's own Cosmo Countach toy. (One supposes the Ark had a hiccup. Maybe Teletraan I only scanned half a car for Sunstreaker's new Earth mode and had to guess at what the rear half looked like?) Anyway, it's cool that the toy can do it, and it helps cement the idea of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe as twin brothers, but honestly it would be like coming out with a Knight Rider K.I.T.T. toy where the nose can tuck away and hide the red sensor on his front. Like, that's how the character looks. You don't need to hide it.

> When I was looking for source material to see if I could make any modifications to it I was surprised to see besides a few merchandizing mishaps, red Sunstreaker didn't manage to creep in anywhere that I could find.

I'm not aware of any. I would humbly suggest, if such things are possible (depending on which toys you end up with), that you treat Cordon and Spin-Out as second-season characters, and give one a gun-arm on his right and the other a gun-arm on his left, to mirror what was done with the Grapple/Inferno character designs.

> There are a few Transformers out there with funky colored eyes, but as far as I know, no Autobot has red eyes and no Decepticon has blue eyes (at least as far as the G1 cartoon, to be thorough though, I even checked Powermaster Optimus Primes commercial).

Actually, in the cartoon, Hot Spot and Metroplex both have red eyes, and Misfire has blue eyes during many scenes in "The Rebirth." So, while it's rare, it's not unheard of. Cordon having red eyes isn't entirely unprecedented.

> Ironhide and Ratchet were for years dismissed as impossible to achieve as a toy that could transform into their robot character models. The Takara Masterpiece was the first to come really close but has become pretty dated.

Those hip plates still bug me a bit. Surely Takara could have come up with a better solution.

On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 10:24:27 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> On Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 5:55:43 PM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:
>

> Yeah, I feel you. I'm okay with picking up inessential characters like Cordon or Spin-Out if I can get neo-G1 versions of them for $20, but there's no way I'm spending Masterpiece prices for those guys. Media characters only, thankyouverymuch. And I haven't even bought any of the Beast Wars characters, either. Not at those prices.

I haven't yet, I was super turned off by Dinobot and Megatron's prices. But I feel like at some point I'm going to have to, Beast Wars was a HUGE part of my teens. Then I can have fun with the "Diaclone" beasts: orange Tigatron, Buzzsaw, Fractyl and Lasorbeak (it would be fun to see if I could adjust the wings).

> > A while back there was a lot of talk about a Sideswipe V2, especially after Sunstreaker came out. It got me thinking that would be a great way to different "same" characters with new experiences.
> Huh, I don't remember seeing discussion about that.

It used to pop up all the time in the End All Be All Masterpiece Speculation Thread on TFW2005. That group used to be a lot of fun, but it's practically a graveyard now because there's so little coherency between Takara releases and honestly, who can stay excited about a Masterpiece Jazz for 20 years with nothing to show?

> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think in all of G1 that Eject and Rewind are the *only* Autobots who share an identical character model.
> I could be cheeky here and mention Fastlane and Cloudburst. But I won't.

:-/

> I don't think we should be required to take the battle scene artwork as gospel that Road Rage is "really" a Decepticon. I mean, if you go strictly by the battle scene art, then there are multiple Megatrons, numerous Soundwaves, assorted Laserbeaks and Ravages, dozens of Dinobots, etc.

Well I needed some type of justification to got both Animated-faced Road Rage and ninja-faced Road Rage. I fully admit it's a bit ridiculous and like I said, my "criteria" for new characters is all over the place. Moreso, I was just trying to have some fun with it.

> Agreed, it would be like having a Ramjet that didn't match your Thrust or Dirge.

Boy you're really not going to like this, but I think I might experiment with mismatching Seekers. The Takara one was just so expensive. My justification would be that even if SS, TC, and SW came out of the same factory with the same specs, they wouldn't still look identical after *millions* of years of war. I mean, we've seen parts of them get blown off (Skywarp's tailfin in MTMTE part 3) and we've seen them used spare parts to rebuild themselves (Roll For It). The counter argument could be that the CNA of their self healing circuits restores all parts to factory specification. It might be a failed experiment but I'd like to give it a shot.

> > But Hauler, he was season one so his robot mode should look considerable different than Grapple (see Trailbreaker and Hoist).
> I always imagine Hauler's cartoon robot mode as being orange and grey, not orange and black like the Grapple toy. In my mind, he would have gotten the Wheeljack treatment.

I'm going off of the robot lying on the Ark floor in MTMTE part 1, who has some white. The different shades or orange seemingly match Hauler's appearance later with Ratchet and Cliffjumper. It's actually a project I'm currently working on. I happen to look at the Japanese version of the 1985 back of the box art and guess who's there? An orange crane bot with two hands - another appearance of Hauler!!

> Actually, in the cartoon, Hot Spot and Metroplex both have red eyes, and Misfire has blue eyes during many scenes in "The Rebirth." So, while it's rare, it's not unheard of. Cordon having red eyes isn't entirely unprecedented.

I knew I should have researched that more...

> > I dunno, black Ironhide is tough.
> So there's a black Ironhide who appears in the background in the season two episode "City of Steel." (Well, he's sort of a dark blue, but let's pretend he's black.) A season two interpretation of the Ironhide toy design would be more literal than the season one approach. I think a season two version would have looked basically like the Diaclone toy, with a windshield for a face and no robot head to speak of. To my knowledge, there has never been any attempt to do an update of the Ironhide/Ratchet toy that looks like the Diaclone design, though.

I dunno, would he? Let's say 1984 went the same and black Ironhide was a 1985 toy. Floro Dery would have probably gotten a picture of just the front of the toy to work with. I see three options. 1. Floro essentially draws the toy like you said and that's what we get. 2. Floro looks at it, thinks it's ridiculous and comes up with something more humanoid. 3. Floro looks at it, remembers how ridiculous that toy was the last time he had to draw it, and just recolors his Ironhide design. Even if he did option one, would it have been approved?

I also, and I've been confused about this for 30 years, don't agree with Ironhide and Ratchet not having heads on their toys. The sticker that covers the seat behind the windshield is clearly a face. It's not a proper head, but it's still a head. And yet everyone always makes the exclamation that he didn't have a head at all.

Also also, I forgot that it's possible Bob was holding a black Ironhide in his hand when he came up with the profile for him. That makes me feel better about a season 1 design.

> If you go by the logic that Tigertrack and Deep Cover both recycle Sideswipe's 1984 box art, and Clampdown recycles the Red Alert art from 1985, that means Tigertrack and Deep Cover are "really" season one 'bots who more strongly resemble Sideswipe's cartoon body type, while Clampdown shares a similar-but-not-identical design with Red Alert

This was a big discussion here on ATT 20 years ago with one side of the argument saying what you are while the other saying that box art shouldn't dictate relationship to cartoon models. Both sides had good points.

> > Stepper, like Artfire, should be influence by the original Takara Targetmaster with toy details.
> The Takara box art for Stepper is gorgeous. I think of that as his "true" character design.

Agreed.

> I think it would be interesting to arbitrarily assign one of the tow trucks as a heroic "season one" body type and one of the camper trucks as a dumpy "season two" body type, just to mix things up. Not sure if that's in the cards, though. And, yes, a mix of hands and gun-arms for variety's sake. And I feel like Lift-Ticket should have a more literal interpretation of the Hoist toy face (like the way he looks on the cover of Marvel Comics issue #14).

That's what I'm hoping *might* be an option with Takara. Ocular Max Hoist would have been cool for one of them, but they didn't do blue or red. BadCube would have been cool because you could at least make him a little bit taller, but again, no repaints.

On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 10:30:27 AM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:

> I haven't yet, I was super turned off by Dinobot and Megatron's prices. But I feel like at some point I'm going to have to, Beast Wars was a HUGE part of my teens.

Apparently, people spent $300 on Masterbeast Megatron, his pelvis broke the first time they transformed him, and Takara basically went, "Huh, that's a real shame." No replacement parts, no recalls, no exchanges, no nothing. Yeah, no thank you.

> That group used to be a lot of fun, but it's practically a graveyard now because there's so little coherency between Takara releases and honestly, who can stay excited about a Masterpiece Jazz for 20 years with nothing to show?

Jazz is a pretty important character, and a great Diaclone design to boot, so honestly it's not surprising they've been saving him for last. It would have been terrible marketing to do all the cool characters first, and then they got down to the last Car Robo toys they hadn't done yet and were like, "and, um, well, here's Skids, I guess."

I don't blame people for going third party with some Masterpiece toys since, yes, it has been a long wait and at some point you just want to be able to finish off a set of characters. At the same time, though, I'm kind of glad I'm only buying one or two Masterpiece toys a year. (I'm also collecting Ninja Turtles from both NECA and Super7, and that shit adds up quick.)

> Boy you're really not going to like this, but I think I might experiment with mismatching Seekers.

Hey, do what makes sense to you. Not what I would personally want for my collection, but if it tickles your fancy, then by all means, go for it.

> Let's say 1984 went the same and black Ironhide was a 1985 toy. Floro Dery would have probably gotten a picture of just the front of the toy to work with. I see three options. 1. Floro essentially draws the toy like you said and that's what we get. 2. Floro looks at it, thinks it's ridiculous and comes up with something more humanoid. 3. Floro looks at it, remembers how ridiculous that toy was the last time he had to draw it, and just recolors his Ironhide design. Even if he did option one, would it have been approved?

That's super hard to predict, since pretty much every Transformer followed a very specific house style, and the Ironhide/Ratchet toy deviates from it so wildly. I mean, I'm honestly surprised they kept Shockwave's single eye and no mouth. At the same time they were gearing up to sell Roadbuster and Whirl, Hasbro filed a patent for the tank from Special Armored Battalion Dorvack, and that didn't have a head either. I'm sure the weird robot design is the reason they never ended up selling it as a Transformer, but at least it would have established some kind of precedent for headless robots.

But, there's also no precedent for an existing season one design being recycled for a new 1985 toy for season two. So, whatever a hypothetical second-season Onebox Vanette would look like, it would be a new and different design, for sure.
> I also, and I've been confused about this for 30 years, don't agree with Ironhide and Ratchet not having heads on their toys. The sticker that covers the seat behind the windshield is clearly a face. It's not a proper head, but it's still a head. And yet everyone always makes the exclamation that he didn't have a head at all.

I mean, TORQ III had a *face* but he arguably didn't have a *head.* But your point stands. Though, the face on Ironhide and Ratchet was really the seat for the Diaclone driver and, unless I'm mistaken, that sticker didn't exist during the Diaclone days—it was a Hasbro addition. Nonetheless, I'm sure what people mean is that the G1 Ironhide/Ratchet toy didn't have the same head that the characters had in the cartoon and comics.
> This was a big discussion here on ATT 20 years ago with one side of the argument saying what you are while the other saying that box art shouldn't dictate relationship to cartoon models.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. Deep Cover and the rest were never in the G1 cartoon, so any speculative cartoon design for them is just that—completely speculative. But, it's fun to imagine a hypothetical third year of Diaclone releases. (I guess since Floro Dery jumped ship before season three, somebody else would have probably just recycled his models. Octane becomes Optimus Prime, LIthonians become Junkions, and Red Alert gets turned into all the third-season Diaclone Countach characters.)

> That's what I'm hoping *might* be an option with Takara. Ocular Max Hoist would have been cool for one of them, but they didn't do blue or red. BadCube would have been cool because you could at least make him a little bit taller, but again, no repaints.

We also don't know for sure what Takara's version of Masterpice Hoist is going to end up looking like. He might have options for two hands, or gun-arms, or a replacement face (a 1985 toy face seems highly unlikely, but Hoist can't really do screaming expressions so you'd think they would throw in *something*). I'm willing to wager you'll be able to transform him into robot mode so he's substantially shorter and fatter than Masterpiece Trailbreaker. I just wonder if it's going to be a mold change, or just an alternate way of configuring the robot parts. (I don't own Trailbreaker yet, but I'm hoping he ships soon.)

Zob (I keep looking at my Masterpiece shelf during this discussion, and now I want to rearrange my Autobots to make room for Skyfire)

On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:49:33 PM UTC-5, Zobovor wrote:
> On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 10:30:27 AM UTC-7, brianj...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I haven't yet, I was super turned off by Dinobot and Megatron's prices. But I feel like at some point I'm going to have to, Beast Wars was a HUGE part of my teens.

Infinite Transformation has just released their "4th Party" version of MP-41 Dinobot, for about $45 USD including shipping; less than the price of a Hasbro Leader class toy.

https://showzstore.com/infinite-transformation-it-02-masterpiece-mp-41-dinobot-beast-war_p1314.html

Infinite Transformation previously released a well-regarded MP-36 Megatron, and they seem to have done a decent job with this one too, judging from some of the reviews I've seen, although they neglected to paint the inside of the spinning tail sword.

Review with comparisons to the original here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LfXzYQTHso

> Apparently, people spent $300 on Masterbeast Megatron, his pelvis broke the first time they transformed him, and Takara basically went, "Huh, that's a real shame." No replacement parts, no recalls, no exchanges, no nothing. Yeah, no thank you.

There's a "4th party" release of Masterbeast Megatron for $110 including shipping, which is supposed to be a quality improvement over the original. Still a bit pricey for my blood, but a vast improvement over $300.

https://showzstore.com/toysmage-tm01-megatron_p1747.html

Review with comparisons to the original here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMT2y8vN3Qg

I had two unofficial rules when I was putting all this together.

1. If a 3P company "invented" a new color scheme for a mold, like say a blue Sunstreaker, I didn't count it. Everything had to be Takara/Hasbro/pre-Transformer originated.
2. Besides the tongue in cheek all shades of blue Jazz from Dark Awakening, I didn't count animation mistakes (although I must admit, some would have helped my case) - so no Bluestreak with yellow head or Ironhide colored Trailbreaker.

X-Transbots Taiho is a police colored version of their Skids, and even though it broke my first rule, I had to admit that it was a cool concept. I also really liked that the upper arm was black so it kind of hid the wheel tucked in there.

Come to find out, it breaks my second rule as well! I just discovered that right before Blitzwing runs them over that Prowl and Skids switch color schemes for exactly one scene. I don't know if X-Transbots was referencing this scene, or just continuing the "all Diaclones had a police mode" in-joke, but I thought it was cool either way. Poor Skids. He was only on screen about 8 seconds and still couldn't escape an animation error!

BJN

Taiho's color scheme doesn't copy Prowl's, but I did a quick check to see if it referenced the more-black Mexican Prowl. It doesn't, but it did make me second-guess whether I want to make Mexican Prowl a whole new character (that black head really helps sell it).