The Energon Pub

I got the impression from watching the original M.A.S.K. that the technology was a combination of input from Matt, Bruce, Buddy & Alex (and Miles).
It seemed like Matt had a lot to do with the MASK Computer, commissioning the Transport & the Mask ; Buddy and Bruce did a lot of the engineering and Alex did a lot of the Computing related work & the development of the headquarters some of the others also likely contributed in some areas too specific to their areas of expertise, with some of the nastier weapons coming from Miles before they fell out.

I would say those I mentioned with the addition of Dusty Hayes, Hondo Maclean & Brad Turner are the "core cast" with Gloria Baker added slightly later though Matt likely knew her personally before hand - she may have even been their Martial Arts trainer.
But it could be argued just as much for many of the other that they had a place in the organisation before they were made official agents and issued vehicles. Julio Lopez for example is reasonably old so he could easily have been Matt's Doctor before he even started M.A.S.K. up. Shame they felt the need to change things just for desire to shoehorn it all into a single Universe as M.A.S.K. quite possibly would have worked better as a period piece anyway. There does seem to be some hints that Matt is recruiting people he knows and trusts after Miles betrayed him, such as 'Chief' I don't know how the hell the teasing ironic way they affectionately call each other Chief and Cowboy would come across these days though.

Sabrblade wrote:

Burn wrote:Wait ... so ... Road Block who has a bitchin' goatee in the comics, ends up with side burns instead?

Oh that's harsh.

Is there a point to your post? Because that looks like a screencap from a cartoon and NOT from the IDW comic.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Because the head on the Roadblock figure is the unused Renegades Roadblock head.

The whole figure itself is the Renegades Roadblock figure that never got released.

Reportedly, the decision to include the Renegades Roadblock in this set was a personal choice made by Mark Weber. Since the figure was already tooled but wouldn't see release any other way, he wanted to give Joe fans a chance to get him and complete the Renagades team.

Cmdr. Trailblazer wrote:
That seems overly harsh. A simple 'I don't think this set looks like something I'd like' woulda sufficed. Which goes for a lot of the negativity. Jeez.

Actually I thought I was being kinda nice about this set. Mainly because the addition of Leoric makes me hopeful for a new Visionaries toyline (but please not an IDW comic unless maybe if completely seperate from all the other stuff... but obviously this box set seems to suggest it's all tied in, ugh...)

I only really object to the lazy Jetfire reissue (as I really am not a fan of that mould family at all) - I remember that it was one of the moulds that people started saying in all seriousness that Hasbro toys were starting to feel like KO's across the board. what with the terrible plastic quality small size and excessive hollowness and some design tetchiness in the Transformation.

Other than that the rest of the set i'm fine with - I just happen to feel it might have been nice to have the items sold in a slightly different way - such as Rom and his enemy on their own - and maybe the Micronauts minifigures in a multi-pack with (at least some) of the larger version - as a complement to the previous Micronauts set they did. Other than that I just liked the previous sets more as I felt they had duel appeal to Gi Joe & Transformers collectors - this set is mainly Gi Joe / Rom interest.

If Hasbro made "Collectable" toys more then Visionaries would be better sold like that. (sort of like what Mattel did with Ghostbusters classics) it's only really going to have a broader appeal if they put the holograms on the figures though - they are kinda essential.

Shame they do not seem inclined to do a Marvel related boxed set so we could get some Marvel Comics Transformers related Humans - I think that would have more appeal than something related to a relatively recent IDW comic "event" with a lower footprint and that fails on the nostalgia front by virtue of un-needed changes of the story format - or even by the very virtue of the shared Universe idea in the 1st place being a bit iffy.

Yeah, a Visionaries comic is coming. It's been hinted at for a while in the Hasbroverse; mostly in GI Joe -- Leoric being here is simply confirmation to heavy implication.

Question for those of you that are really bagging on the "lazyiness" of including Jetfire.

How is it that re-relasing Jetfire in a slightly better color scheme (i.e. no stupid chrome) is considered lazy and everyone is blasting Hasbro for it, but releasing mutton-chop Roadblock gets Hasbro some love because people can complete the renegades set since Walmart said no to Hasbro's original plans/design?

I mean the same effort went into including both toys in the set, they were both already designed, Jetfire was re-released while Roadburns was never released. Is that the difference? Lazyness is okay if we are getting something we never got before?

In any case, I have no interest in this set except for Jetfire, but I already have one (with the stupid chrome), so the set in general doesn't matter much to me.

I just found it curious the level of hatred Hasbro is getting for it.

Oh, it's quite simple. If you release the mold as the character it was intended to be that people are actually attached to a second time to give people who didn't get it before a second chance it's lazy, but if you release it in different colours with no molding changes as a character who appeared in the background of one story and didn't even get named until a few issues later, well, obviously that's a lot better.

Not entirely sure when the fandom figured re-issues are a bad thing, but hey, here we are.

RAR wrote:Shame they do not seem inclined to do a Marvel related boxed set so we could get some Marvel Comics Transformers related Humans

I'm 90% certain they can't do that. Despite having the license to make Marvel toys, characters ambiguously shared by Hasbro and Marvel fall into a sort of property hell, with some belonging to Hasbro and some belonging to Marvel. Anything released could not mix-and-match Marvel and Hasbro characters, so, for example, you could not release G.B. Blackrock (Hasbro) and Circuit Breaker (Marvel) together. And if Hasbro gives G.B. Blackrock to IDW to use, Marvel is chill with that, but if Hasbro turns around and makes an action figure of him similar to the Marvel action figures they have license to make, that gets awkward. They could probably defend that latter decision in any court, especially if they used some GIJoe elements in the figure, but why even slightly offend Disney over a boxset of dated, relatively obscure characters?

I think that would have more appeal than something related to a relatively recent IDW comic "event" with a lower footprint and that fails on the nostalgia front by virtue of un-needed changes of the story format - or even by the very virtue of the shared Universe idea in the 1st place being a bit iffy.

Remember, this is San Diego Comic-Con, not a Toys R Us exclusive. The point of going to a convention and selling exclusives is to promote your product, and for living, evolving properties like Transformers and GIJoe, it doesn't make sense for Hasbro to expend their time and resources promoting the toys and comics from the 80s.

The goal of the SDCC exclusive isn't to make money off of the exclusive itself (I'm sure the thousands of boxsets they sell will be a drop in the bucket next to their general retail sales), it's to market the comics and specifically to promote the current, ongoing story-lines.

And regardless of who it might or might not appeal to, I don't think Hasbro has very much interest in going to a 2017 comic con with the publishing company they've been working with over a decade and promoting their relationship with a different publisher from about thirty years ago. That's kind of like going on a yearly romantic getaway with your spouse and spending the entire time on the phone waxing nostalgic with your ex.

Because Circuit Breaker is cool is the answer obviously.
The answer is to figure out who owns what and then split them up into smaller packs - but these kinda issues may be why Death's Head One (green outfit) is not getting any official figure love.

It would be kind of funny to see figures made of the Neo Knights simply as they are so hated the fuss making them would cause would be amusing.

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As for why jetfire is lazy - it's because it's a zero effort re-issue of a toy that eBay is practically swimming in (including the Takara non-chrome one) at sub-retail prices.

If he was in a gift set with Buster Witwicky or something like that - I'd be more considerate I guess - but I'm irked it wasn't someone else using that mould - or simply that mould but in a Gi Joe deco (and no I don't care if that is canon or not - as the previous boxed sets were more selling an idea than an event).

I actually like the rest of the set - I just personally shoved my Jetfire to the back of a shelf as I don't think he's up to much - and i'll likely be looking to get the new KO MP style Skyfire/Jetfire to superseed him.

The last Jetfire toy I liked was Powerlinx Armada. I'm vanilla to the Classics one and actively dismissive of the Generations one and it's KO feel - though I guess replacing something I'm accusing of feeling like a knock off with an actual Knock off is a pleasing irony.

Even the Generations one i'd likely have been fine with if it had a smooth Transformation (which it doesn't) and if it was a little bigger and a bit less gappy looking - but it just feels cheap and nasty in hand and that is why i'm dismissive of it in most contexts as a toy and a mould family. I've not even bought the CW Seekers yet for that reason - (I will get them but not until they are being given away dirt cheap). I'm, not paying retail for trash and especially not the daddy mould of the trash.

I'd happily consider this set if I saw it for a price that was justifiable for the non-jetfire elements alone -as the figures like Rom and leoric and even Action Man i'd all use. The Micronauts are a bit of fun to add to Titanmaster like scale ideas or to use with Micromasters/Minicons too.

I'd just personally preferred the key Transformer to be a 'not lazy' choice that is terrible value for money by virtue of how cheap and obtainable the originals are.

Something less obvious might have been to use one of the Cyberjet colourschemes for example (and yes I say Canon be dammed - except in Star Trek).
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Didn't IDW actually continue Marvel's continuity - that is excuse enough. I don't think Hasbro gives a great deal of thought to IDW since Thrilling 30 as they current team seems more interested in Original Transformers characters and only sometimes does that equate to some sort of perceived IDW related homage like with Overlord.

Warden's Crew likely picked him as he's a main villan in a TV show and not because he fought the wreckers.

They seem pretty disinterested in IDW - I don't think they even consider Nautica and Windblade an explicit homage to anything in a comic except by convenience and a possible desire to make figures of what ever females they can use the names for.

Personally I don't think IDW comics figures should get any significant number of figures until every significant character with dialogue in the cartoon has been made... as even if it is 30+ years old it is still got a larger foot print than the comic does. especially since they no longer pack them with the toys - likely as they realised it was getting a trifle confusing when their own media had essentially nothing to do with the comics at all. (especially Combiner Wars)

These Pocket Universes are just a cause of retail confusion as well as leading to key characters being missed out due to marketing issues - such as CW Sideswipe or TR Steeljaw not existing.

The comic can sometimes be a useful excuse if it pushed Rewind into getting more figures. (though I'm now wondering which out of the long list of obvious CW & TR toys (repaints/remoulds) that never got made was actually a featured character in said comics).

The list is well known so I won't repeat it here.

RAR wrote:As for why jetfire is lazy - it's because it's a zero effort re-issue of a toy that eBay is practically swimming in (including the Takara non-chrome one) at sub-retail prices.

The whole set is intended to reflect the current comics, regardless of what Transformer is selected, it's going to be a re-issue.

Of course if it's intended to reflect the current comics, then Roadblock would have a goatee and not side burns, but apparently G.I. Joe fans are more precious than TF fans.

The 3.75" seems a fair reflection - what about this question then - Is Jetfire actually the best choice ?

If not him then who ?

I'd say Jetfire's the best choice, yeah. As pointed out by a lot of people, a Leader class sizing would be needed to give the illusion of being much bigger than the human characters -- and for the same reason one with a Titan Master wouldn't be best. Which kind of leaves you with Jetfire, Megatron, Magnus and the Seekers -- all of which are fair representations of their counterparts in IDW (though Jetfire and Magnus much more so than the others) but of which Jetfire, Skywarp and Thundercracker are the only ones on Earth where all the expanded Hasbro universe stuff takes place. So it was really down to them.

RAR wrote:Because Circuit Breaker is cool is the answer obviously.
The answer is to figure out who owns what and then split them up into smaller packs - but these kinda issues may be why Death's Head One (green outfit) is not getting any official figure love.

I think even if you put them in physically separate boxes it would cause a commotion.

And Death's Head one got a figure... he's not wearing green but I don't understand the distinction. It's the same character isn't it?

It's a very significant difference the green one spent most of his existence as a 35 foot plus robot he was then shrunk by the 7th Doctor (in a comic) and soon after heavily damaged an rebuilt into his other outfit.


So the green outfit is one that is one of interest to Transformers fans and Doctor Who fans. The darker blue and yellow outfit is of interest to marvel comics fans due to his connection to the 2099 Universe era and to his dealings with the Fantastic Four after that it's all Marvel comics main universe related stuff for the other versions.

So yeah I really appreciate the Death's Head II 3.75" figure* for play with (what there is in the way of Fantastic Four toys - finding them is a chore in itself) but the green one if produced in 6" size (Or bigger) would be ideal for Hunting Galvatron or shooting Shockwave. The 3.75" scale for a green one would be great for Doctor Who play.. or just for fans of the DH Character.

He's a pretty important character in his own small way and not just some obscure throw away character and even those who are might still be interesting to own - or at least as interesting as some of the contents of a Gi Joe giftset have been in the past.

Buster Witwicky for example... Actually while I think of it perhaps I'm blowing the wrong trumpet here perhaps this sort of stuff needs to be made by 3rd parties instead.


* [edit] I mean his 2nd body is the 3.75" toy there is also a 6" Death's Head II though as well - but he has nothing to do with Transformers - so he's less interesting to me.

I thought Death's Head II was the one that looked like a funky Yaut'ja? Is that #3 then?

Yeah, that's not Death's Head II, that's just Death's Head I wearing blue instead of green. Death's Head II was way more different that merely changing the green outfit to blue.

Sorry I was in a hurry and wrote Death's Head II and I meant the 2nd outfit/body - (technically it isn't his 2nd body when he'd Death's Head II though as he'd already died and been recreated by then) I have no idea about Deaths Head 3 as I've not read anything to do with that other than some Marvel wiki years ago.

so why the visionary without the hologram stickers why jetfire

Ultra Markus wrote:so why the visionary without the hologram stickers why jetfire

Jetfire is a figure big enough to give some kind of impression of scale with the other figures in the set, being a giant robot packaged with a bunch of human and human-sized figures. He also lacks a Titan Master gimmick, as that feature would have thrown the illusion of said scale by having the otherwise normal human-sized Titan Master being much smaller than all the human-sized figures in the set.

chuckdawg1999 wrote:Do we have an idea when Hasbro Toy Shop is putting the exclusives up?

According to this link https://www.hasbro.com/en-us/product/ha ... FEBB7094EE it will be available August 14.