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Those of us that grew up in the 90’s remember 2 Transformer lines. The revival of the US portion of the franchise that was Generation 2 and Beast Wars which many fans hold dear for its unique twist on transforming robots with the use of organic structures and blurring the lines of what we expected a robot to be. I also can’t forget to mention just how awesome the Beast Wars story was, but that’s not the point of this article.
Where exactly does Machine Wars fit into the 90’s? Besides the rather limited launch of the toyline, I believe it can be accepted by the fandom at large that we really have no idea where the story of Machine Wars fits into the franchise as we know nothing about it beyond what is given on the toys bios. Given that, I think that is a pretty good reason to see Machine Wars make its way to Botcon and possibly shed some light on their untold story.
Now let’s focus on the toys that Botcon 2013’s theme is now based on and hopefully fuel the excitement for our yearly pilgrimage to the convention. Machine Wars was a line that was entirely exclusive to the now closed Kay Bee Toy store consisting of 12 figures. 4 large sized figures were made that were repaints from previous molds used in the European G1 line. Despite his lack of an Optimus Prime head, the Thunderclash mold found itself bearing the colors of Optimus Prime as well and Sandstorm was given new life with the Rotorstorm mold.
For the large scale Decepticons we find ourselves with a Starscream that is so wildly out of scale with the set that anyone who bases their collections on scale will most likely have an aneurism just by looking at him compared to the Megatron of this line. However, those that fear GPS on their Euro-exclusive Skyquakes were able rejoice with Starscream by not having to worry about him crumbling to dust in their hands. We also get a unique take on Soundwave which used the Predator Stalker mold.
And lastly, the line is rounded out with 8 basic sized figures using 4 unique molds which were originally intended to be part of the G2 line up, but found themselves cancelled during the switch to Beast Wars. However, we can most likely give a nod to these molds as being the ones that helped spur the engineering of much of the early Beast Wars that used the flip changing technology in which the simple pull of a lever was all that was needed to turn a robot into his disguised mode. For the Autobots we have Hoist, Hubcap, Mirage, and Prowl. And the Decepticon basics received Megatron, his clone Megaplex, Skywarp, and Thundercracker.
Until recently, the 12 figures that made up this line have almost faded away into the darkest corners of Cybertron’s archives, but with Botcon now approaching us along with the inevitable figure reveals, it’s time to go back and take a look at these relatively unknown and somewhat mysterious figures. As a proud owner of a complete Machine Wars collection, I can genuinely say that I am excited to see the direction that Botcon is taking this year by giving the Machine Wars a story that goes beyond just the bio cards found on the 12 toys. Please feel free to take the time to look around Seibertron’s galleries and take a look at some figures that you either may have not seen before or didn’t pay much attention to until now.
