The Energon Pub

Courtesy of a news tip from vic2293, stating the following:

I'm from Malaysia, recently got hold of Hasbro Transformers Prime Beat Hunters Guide Book.

Please refer link below fo rthe pictures:
http://s1207.beta.photobucket.com/user/ ... ide%20Book

There are some news regarding the Voyager Shockwave Toy, Cyberverse Soundwave toy, and some history on the creation of Predacon.

Some of the images have been hosted here for your ease of viewing. To see the full gallery, click the included link above.

Front cover:



Kreo combiners:



Optimus and Bumblebee role play masks: (Optimus doesn't have a face plate, seems his face *is* being redesigned.)



Cyberverse Prowl:



Deluxe Riplclaw:



Voyagers Predaking and Shockwave:



Shockwave:



Abominus line art:



Back cover:



So, now we have our first image of Shockwave, and much like Smokescreen, his "armor" is removable leaving you with a rather show accurate figure.

Tell us what you think, and keep your optics tuned to Seibertron.com for the latest news and updates!

Shockwave! What have they done to you?

my god thats horrible, makes DOTM shockwave look like a masterpiece.

Hmmm... I might be cancelling my Shockwave pre-order

Will wait for a better image, but what is shown doesn't look promising.

Shockwave actually looks OK to me, assuming all of the orange bits are the detachable armor (which I believe they are).

I noticed something interesting about Abominus. He seems to have proper feet that attach at the bottom of the leg limb-bots. That should improve the looks of him substantially.

The orange armor pieces on Shockwave ARE removable. The robot/tank you see underneath is what you're actually getting.

Can't quite tell if Shockwave is some kind of animal on all four's (slight resemblance to movie-verse Ravage) or a quad tank (similar to his TF Animated alt mode.)

At any rate, I'm sure all that orange kibble comes off, similar to Smokescreen's beast armor (or whatever its called)

Abominus... where are your hands and feet? Do we get nothing but dangling heads and limbs instead of actual appendages?

And why is Hun-Gurrr (yup, 3 r's) your foot? Come to think of it... no one is where they are supposed to be. Ah well - new continuity, new combination, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed you can 'scramble' all the limbs around.

Final thought - repaint/retool deluxe Smokescreen to match that cyberverse Prowl, please

Please tell me they are joking. Third parties are gonna slaughter Hasbro. Voyager Shockwave had so much riding on it and that is what they made. Don't worry, the recent 3rd Party Masterpiece Shockwave will be down scaled to voyager size next year. Why can't Hasbro do a combiner anymore? I hope to god the Dinobots don't end up like that, should they appear. The toy designs make me afraid for the show. I don't think I could continue watching the show if they look like this.

This, I admit, is not quite what I was expecting. I'll wait for clearer images (at Toy Fair, perhaps?) and reserve judgment. I'm not going to cancel my preorder, because it's still a voyager Shockwave, and having one of those overrides any complaints I might have about the mold itself, especially since that garish orange armor is removable.

I'm a bit disappointed, but I suspect I'll get over it when I have the figure in hand.

Well, Shockwave looks like he'll be a dead ringer for his show model once the orange bits are removed. I'll hold out for some better pictures, in the meantime.

As for the contents of the book itself, some interesting insights:

• The Predacons appear to all be cloned from VNA, basically a la Jurassic Park
• A couple new Predacons listed: Grim Wing, Skystalker (previously seen in the Battle Net Bumblebee Kreo set), and Scourge (shares Lazerback's body form, but their tail weapons are on opposite sides and he has a new beast head)
• Continuing the Jurassic Park concept, the Predacon clones seem by and large to have gone rogue, with most hating both 'bots and 'cons equally
• Varying capacities for intelligence
• Abominus is a mindless killing machine
• Two-headed beasts were an attempt at making them more intelligent
• Grim Wing has a mysterious partner called Blackbeak who is "cannot be trusted"

There's probably more information to be garnered but it's 5:30 AM as I'm typing this. I'll analyze more tomorrow, if nobody else has.

So Shockwave's transformation is really just him getting down on all fours. Disappointing.

I noticed something interesting about Abominus. He seems to have proper feet that attach at the bottom of the leg limb-bots. That should improve the looks of him substantially.

Seems more like he's standing on a round platform. I doubt the figure set will come with that. Perhaps a cardboard insert.

Can't quite tell if Shockwave is some kind of animal on all four's (slight resemblance to movie-verse Ravage) or a quad tank (similar to his TF Animated alt mode.)

The text is hard to make out, but reads Cybertronian Tank. So indeed a H tank similar to Animated Shocky and DotM Thunderhead. The orange beast armor sure looks like a fanged cat's face though.

And why is Hun-Gurrr (yup, 3 r's) your foot? Come to think of it... no one is where they are supposed to be. Ah well - new continuity, new combination, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed you can 'scramble' all the limbs around.

He's not an arm, Twinstrike is. The parts are mislabeled. This drawing matches the lay-out as seen on the previous picture. Perhaps the limbs can be swapped for a G1 lay-out.

The Predacons appear to all be cloned from VNA, basically a la Jurassic Park

A very interesting potential for the series storyline. Can't wait to see this play out in the show.

Rushie wrote:

I noticed something interesting about Abominus. He seems to have proper feet that attach at the bottom of the leg limb-bots. That should improve the looks of him substantially.

Seems more like he's standing on a round platform. I doubt the figure set will come with that. Perhaps a cardboard insert.

Ah, right you are. I took a second (closer) look at it. Too bad, those bits would have made cool feet . Oh well, I'm still getting him/them.

That Bot wrote:Well, Shockwave looks like he'll be a dead ringer for his show model once the orange bits are removed. I'll hold out for some better pictures, in the meantime.

As for the contents of the book itself, some interesting insights:

• The Predacons appear to all be cloned from VNA, basically a la Jurassic Park
• A couple new Predacons listed: Grim Wing, Skystalker (previously seen in the Battle Net Bumblebee Kreo set), and Scourge (shares Lazerback's body form, but their tail weapons are on opposite sides and he has a new beast head)
• Continuing the Jurassic Park concept, the Predacon clones seem by and large to have gone rogue, with most hating both 'bots and 'cons equally
• Varying capacities for intelligence
• Abominus is a mindless killing machine
• Two-headed beasts were an attempt at making them more intelligent
• Grim Wing has a mysterious partner called Blackbeak who is "cannot be trusted"

There's probably more information to be garnered but it's 5:30 AM as I'm typing this. I'll analyze more tomorrow, if nobody else has.

Even money that we get a redeco of Lazerback as Scourge somewhere down the line.

I get the sense that with the exception of Predaking, Hasbro's hedging their bets by making redecos/retools of their Predacons in a rainbow of colors.

Henry921 wrote:Even money that we get a redeco of Lazerback as Scourge somewhere down the line.

Hopefully a retool/redeco, because that new head has a cool underbite going on, but yeah, it seems like a pretty safe bet. Redecoes are becoming more prominent. This suggests that development costs are going up, so they need to really capitalize on their existing molds as much as possible, and to facilitate that they're deliberately establishing multiple characters with the same body shape at the outset. This prevents more cases like what we got in 2012 where there were non-show redecoes and several show characters without toys.

I think Shockwave's a keeper. His orange bits are removable, and underneath he looks just as he did in the season two episode he appeared in. "Artillery mode" looks decent.

I just hope he's large enough to scale in with the rest of my MP Decepticons, because he's going to be my neo-G1 Shockwave.

Shocky's looking pretty boss. I'm happy the armor is removable. I can chunk it like I'm going to with Smokescreen.

horrible. but i feel better after seeing abominus. that thing looks awesome

Shockwave looks great! Can't wait to see more of his purple mono-eyed goodness!

I actually like Shockwave's beast armor. The orange goes well with the purple, and the way the armor gives the tank mode a "face" and "claws" is pretty neat.

Shock who??? I was more excited about seeing Abominus...

Cyber Bishop wrote:Shock who??? I was more excited about seeing Abominus...

Same here! I'll withhold judgement on Shocky until we see some better pictures, but at first glance it looks disappointing. But Abominus looks really cool.

You guys all remind me of the 外人四こま (gaijin 4-koma) meme, just in reverse.

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

The contents of this catalogue will crush 3rd parties for sure.

Shockwave looks good to me. but I will need that voyager quakewave now