The Energon Pub

PRESS RELEASE:

Auto Assembly Unveils It's First Ever Exclusive Toy For 2013

After listening to requests from our attendees for over a decade Auto Assembly, Europe's largest Transformers Convention, is proud to announce that it is able to unveil that it will have its FIRST EVER Exclusive Toy available for its 2013 convention taking place this August...

ROBOT MANUEL X is an exclusive repaint of the critically-acclaimed third party toy Demolition Crue Apex from Mech Ideas and is being produced into the Robot Manuel X convention exclusive being brought to the convention in conjunction with Sensible Collectibles.

Supplies of this toy will be extremely limited and will be available on a first come, first served basis and to ensure that as many of our attendees are able to get this toy, they will be limited to a maximum of ONE per person.

Robot Manuel X is available to pre-order from the Auto Assembly website NOW for those of you who have already purchased tickets for the convention for just £45 and you can then collect your toy when you arrive at the convention. When ordering you will need to provide your Auto Assembly 2013 ticket number or we will not be able to process the order and it can be ordered from http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/auto-ass ... rder-form/

If you have not already booked for the convention, tickets are still available and they can be purchased from the site at: http://www.autoassembly.org.uk/auto-ass ... -bookings/

Please note that as this is a third party toy, our normal restrictions for the sale of third party products apply so they can not be supplied to anyone under the age of 18.

The toy will be available to fans who attend the convention and those who purchase the Auto Assembly 2013 Non-Attendee Pack which will be made available through the convention's website shortly which will include the toy, one of our exclusive t-shirts plus other mystery items which will be announced in the near future.

Any supplies of the toy remaining after pre-orders and Non-Attendee Pack orders close may be available at the convention while stock lasts.

This toy is one of a two-part set and his “spark-mate” will be made available at another Transformers Convention this Summer which will be announced at a later date.


We will be joined at Auto Assembly 2013 by Dan Gilvezan (G1 Bumblebee), Neil Kaplan (RiD Prime) and Steve Blum (TF: Prime Starscream), as well as comic guests Simon Furman, James Roberts, Andrew Griffith and many more.

Auto Assembly 2013 is Europe's largest EVER Transformers convention and is taking place over the weekend of 9th - 11th August 2013 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel. To book your tickets or find out more including details of all the dealers attending, all of our guests and a full schedule for the weekend, visit the website at www.autoassembly.org.uk


Hope to see you all in August!

The Auto Assembly Team

I kinda want this. If his partner will be made available at another convention, I suspect it'll be TFCon.

Just a weird repaint, not a homage. Pass...

Rated X wrote:Just a weird repaint, not a homage. Pass...

Actually, it's an homage of a weird repaint.

craggy wrote:

Rated X wrote:Just a weird repaint, not a homage. Pass...

Actually, it's an homage of a weird repaint.

Glad somebody spotted that. Glad AA is jumping on the G2 homage train, can't wait to pick mine up at the con in August.

It's a great figure, an obscure homage and its the first uk exclusive figure for the con. It's awesome on many levels.

Anybody who is not planning to attend anyway and whose contribution to the conversation is 'pass' thank you for coming but nobody cares and you're just being disrespectful so please save all of us the 5 seconds we wasted reading your comment.

Stumpybot wrote:Glad AA is jumping on the G2 homage train

erm, no?

Stumpybot wrote:It's a great figure, an obscure homage and its the first uk exclusive figure for the con. It's awesome on many levels.

erm, no!

Stumpybot wrote:Anybody who is not planning to attend anyway and whose contribution to the conversation is 'pass' thank you for coming but nobody cares and you're just being disrespectful so please save all of us the 5 seconds we wasted reading your comment.

Calm down dear!
As much as I being a brit would like to make it to an AA meeting (do I need to bring a bottle?), they always seem to fall around the wrong time of the month and I dont do saving up!

I have both Apex and Geminus and they are great. I cant fault the figure, but this odd choice of a repaint is, well, just a bit boring.
Guess you could use him as Iron Man maybe?
Excelsior Transformers fans!

robotmel wrote:

Stumpybot wrote:It's a great figure, an obscure homage and its the first uk exclusive figure for the con. It's awesome on many levels.

erm, no!

I think this part is up for debate. It's an interesting homage to the Salt Man X/Z repaints of the figures, although I don't recall either of the Salt Man repaints to be red/yellow.

Also Apex is a neat figure. If anyone's going to the con and wouldn't mind picking one up for me, I could certainly make it worth your while...

Stumpybot wrote:

craggy wrote:

Rated X wrote:Just a weird repaint, not a homage. Pass...

Actually, it's an homage of a weird repaint.

Glad somebody spotted that. Glad AA is jumping on the G2 homage train, can't wait to pick mine up at the con in August.

It's a great figure, an obscure homage and its the first uk exclusive figure for the con. It's awesome on many levels.

Anybody who is not planning to attend anyway and whose contribution to the conversation is 'pass' thank you for coming but nobody cares and you're just being disrespectful so please save all of us the 5 seconds we wasted reading your comment.

Dude are you serious ?

I don't live in Euorpe. If the figure was a homage to a real character, I would pick it up on e-bay in the future. But it's NOT so I will PASS. I don't understand why me passing up a chance to own this figure offends you so much ???

However, I will be attending the Botcon Captured Prey custom class and building the Pounce and Wingspan versions of this mold. They ARE homages of real characters.

This appears to be a homage to Universe Blaster which was just a lazy repaint of Cybertron Soundwave. If you like it that much to travel to England just to get it, nobody's stopping you. Have a bloody good time !

LOL Blaster



Argentina G2 Top Spin and Twin Twist, guys.

I'm guessing TT will be @ TFCon.

Blurrz wrote:LOL Blaster



Argentina G2 Top Spin and Twin Twist, guys.

I'm guessing TT will be @ TFCon.

Never saw these in my life. G2 box, but is this a repaint only available in South America ? I don't see a Hasbro logo on the package and the name "Robot Man" just screams KO.

They were officially licenced, but only available in Argentina. The company that made them, Antex, were involved for a long time in sub-licencing products from a large number of other toy brands for distribution over there (Playmobil being another example).

In this particular case, they had their own colour scheme unique to them... not that I'm complaining!

Simes wrote:They were officially licenced, but only available in Argentina.

So he wasn't allowed to cross the border ?

Would you consider this an official G2 toy ? Or just Hasbro cashing in on 3rd world countries with molds that were already out dated at the time ? I remember seeing a bunch of weird colored mini bots from South America on some collectors forum a while back...

I'm slowly developing a Mercenaries shelf (so far consisting of a Devcon custom, Steelcore and TFCon's Powered Convoy), maybe I'll add this guy and the Robot Manuel Z figure (I'm betting he'll be a TFCon guy) to it.

They were actually released in G1, 1985 as Salt-Man X and Salt-Man Z, in boxes, then released in G2 in '91 or '92 as Robot Man X and Robot Man Z. So they are G1 and G2 characters.


They came in a couple different color patterns. X was the Topspin jet mold, and Z was the Twin Twist drill tank mold.

BTW - In case anyone was wondeing "salt" is latin for "jump". So salt-man translates to jump-man. An appropriate name for a Jumpstarter.

The text on the box says "Un Salto Mas Hacia el Futuro!", translated - "A jump to the Future!"

Rated X - you are sooo hard to please
This guy even has the same surname as you and you still find fault with it?

Seriously this is a big thing for the UK, you septic tanks are spoilt for choice when it comes to convention exclusives, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this guy.

Just need to save up some cash and get my ticket.

One question though - this is called a repaint but is this actually a re-use of the mould in red and yellow, or is it one of the original demolition crue with red and yellow paint slapped on it?

The figure has become a little more interesting to me since I found out it's a homage to a real G2 figure. I honestly thought it was a homage to the Universe Blaster repaint of Cybertron Soundwave. But I'm into G2. If I can get it cheap I might consider it. I wouldn't pay more than $100 though including shipping. But Im not thrilled those Brits took a low blow at latinos by calling him "Manuel" Just because the original figure was only available in Argentina, they didn't have to go there.

yeah, it sucks when people are insensitive to others, doesn't it X?



anyway, I'll not be at AA, but really do like him. Hope people can get him for a reasonable price, and great to see some con exclusives for the UK!

Banjo-Tron wrote:One question though - this is called a repaint but is this actually a re-use of the mould in red and yellow, or is it one of the original demolition crue with red and yellow paint slapped on it?

If they're working in tandem with the third party, it will be molded red and yellow plastic. Other conventions might have painted on exclusives, like Dairycon, old TFcon exclusives and what not, but when the third party is involved you're going to get the good quality you'd expect from 3Ps.

craggy wrote:yeah, it sucks when people are insensitive to others, doesn't it X?



anyway, I'll not be at AA, but really do like him. Hope people can get him for a reasonable price, and great to see some con exclusives for the UK!

Getting in to arguments over opinions is one thing. But blatant racism is a totally different ball game. I'm sure the British would get offended if Botcon made a character bio that is Cybertronian royalty, snobbish by nature, and drinks energon tea. Remember the uproar THEY started over the name Spastic being used for Drag Strip ? Like if Americans are supposed to know their slang before we name our products ? Say a word about the royal family and they will swarm on you like killer bees. But the same people think it's ok to jump on the anti-latino bandwagon.

Rated X wrote:Getting in to arguments over opinions is one thing. But blatant racism is a totally different ball game. I'm sure the British would get offended if Botcon made a character bio that is Cybertronian royalty, snobbish by nature, and drinks energon tea. Remember the uproar THEY started over the name Spastic being used for Drag Strip ? Like if Americans are supposed to know their slang before we name our products ? Say a word about the royal family and they will swarm on you like killer bees. But the same people think it's ok to jump on the anti-latino bandwagon.

LOL even while decrying racism you can't help but make sweeping generalisations about other nationalities. 1) not everyone in the UK is a royalist, myself and many, many people I know included see them as an inbred waste of money, but, ironically we tolerate them because for some reason nations who have done the sensible thing and disbanded their own monarchies come and visit to see ours. 2) I would laugh my ass off if a tea-drinking limeybot was produced but then I have a sense of humour. 3) 'Spastic' is an unacceptable term for a disabled person, it's an entirely different argument which you are insensitively trying to shoehorn into yours.

What is so racist about calling a robot 'Manuel'? maybe it has a different meaning in the US as it does to here. Is basically any latin name off limits or does Manuel have a certain significance? Is it ok to name robots after other races, or are they all off-limits?

Rated X wrote:I'm sure the British would get offended if Botcon made a character bio that is Cybertronian royalty, snobbish by nature, and drinks energon tea.

I too would absolutely love that! Give him a bowler hat and a stiff upper lip too!!

Rated X wrote:Remember the uproar THEY started over the name Spastic being used for Drag Strip ?

Oh dear sir...

Rated X wrote:Say a word about the royal family and they will swarm on you like killer bees. But the same people think it's ok to jump on the anti-latino bandwagon.

Outdated nonsense, so no 'swarming' here sir!

Auto Assembly should consider getting a design team onto the cration of a Robot Master style 'Rack n Ruin' figure, deluxe in sizing but no need for a transformation?
Now that would be a cool release Simes!

Banjo-Tron wrote:

Rated X wrote:Getting in to arguments over opinions is one thing. But blatant racism is a totally different ball game. I'm sure the British would get offended if Botcon made a character bio that is Cybertronian royalty, snobbish by nature, and drinks energon tea. Remember the uproar THEY started over the name Spastic being used for Drag Strip ? Like if Americans are supposed to know their slang before we name our products ? Say a word about the royal family and they will swarm on you like killer bees. But the same people think it's ok to jump on the anti-latino bandwagon.

LOL even while decrying racism you can't help but make sweeping generalisations about other nationalities. 1) not everyone in the UK is a royalist, myself and many, many people I know included see them as an inbred waste of money, but, ironically we tolerate them because for some reason nations who have done the sensible thing and disbanded their own monarchies come and visit to see ours. 2) I would laugh my ass off if a tea-drinking limeybot was produced but then I have a sense of humour. 3) 'Spastic' is an unacceptable term for a disabled person, it's an entirely different argument which you are insensitively trying to shoehorn into yours.

What is so racist about calling a robot 'Manuel'? maybe it has a different meaning in the US as it does to here. Is basically any latin name off limits or does Manuel have a certain significance? Is it ok to name robots after other races, or are they all off-limits?

It’s good to know you have a sense of humor. On the word spastic, it is the equivalent of the word retard here in the US I imagine. However not everybody frowns on the use of the word here. It depends on how sensitive you are to the subject.

On the use of the name Manuel, They only used it because “Robot Man” was exclusive to Argentina. So they decided to make it funny by adding “uel” to Man and giving him a Spanish name to match the geographic location the original figure was sold.

But this harmless pun comes at a time when there is a heated debate in US Congress on how to deal with millions of immigrants living in the US illegally. Most of them are of latino decent and live peaceful lives. Many are elderly. Many were brought into this country as children and have no family in their country of origin. Depending on regional culture and political affiliation, the country is divided between granting citizenship and mass deportations. So any pun that pokes fun at the Latino community is very bad timing and easily perceived as racism by some people. Nobody has a bigger sense of humor than me. It’s all just bad timing.

yes, and "retard" is seriously offensive to a lot of people too. Spastic and retard are more akin to calling a black person the N word or a latino a wetback. It seems Hasbro has changed Slag's name as well, sadly, even though it is a fitting name in context of a fire-breather, and he's a male character. Although they can retcon that since the in-continuity use of the phrase "slag it!" as an expletive could be given as a reason he's changed it.

To lighten things up a little, but remain curiously on topic of the name - I hope someone makes a Wreck-Gar repaint called Master Faulty or something.

que?


edit: and I'm all for some Jolly Good Chap-ticons. I still want a Yorkshire transformer. Maybe one of Megatron's mates from when he was a miner? A bot with Shean Connery Schottish accent could be fun too.

Rated X wrote:On the use of the name Manuel, They only used it because “Robot Man” was exclusive to Argentina. So they decided to make it funny by adding “uel” to Man and giving him a Spanish name to match the geographic location the original figure was sold.

But this harmless pun comes at a time when there is a heated debate in US Congress on how to deal with millions of immigrants living in the US illegally. [...] So any pun that pokes fun at the Latino community is very bad timing and easily perceived as racism by some people. Nobody has a bigger sense of humor than me. It’s all just bad timing.

But compare the following:

Rated X wrote:

Simes wrote:They were officially licenced, but only available in Argentina.

So he wasn't allowed to cross the border ?

I don't think there was any intention at making fun of a minority at a bad time (and I personally had no idea right now was specifically a bad time for people of Latino descent - I thought the Muslim community was the current target for hatred in the US), and it was more a case of having 'Robot Man' already there, and as you said, making it into 'Manuel' makes the homage more explicit.

And, as the others have said, I think most British fans would love some AutoBrits.

if Stampede ever returns, it'll probably be because I've managed to get a job writing him (since no-one else loves his stupid obscure arse) I'd like to have him be from "up north". Lots of planets have a north, after all.