The Energon Pub

I love G2. It was the first and main attempt to continue the Marvel G1 comics. I loved the toys as well. My first purchase on Ebay was a collection of 33 G2 toys. A present from my fiancee at the time by the way.

So looking at the Botcon G2 comic, which regrettably didn't tie in with the Marvel comics, I can't help but notice Machine Wars Skywarp or Thundercracker in the background of the history recap. I also see Skyjack in his Classics incarnation.

I also loved the Robotmasters series. Like G2, it was an expansion of G1 and in some ways, was unofficially the first Classics style line, with new updated versions of classic G1 and BW characters.

It does feature Megatron/Archforce in his G2 guise and a repaint of G2 Road Rocket, using the same name, leading us to believe he's the same character. There's a beautiful repaint of Machine Wars Mirage in G1 colours using a mold originally planned for release under the G2 banner. Prime and Starscream are also featured, both of whom featured prominently in G2. I am aware Starscream is in his G1 colours and Prime's G1 and G2 colours are practically the same, at least on the cab.

But I digress. My question is this. Can Machine Wars and Robotmasters be considered part of G2?

On a side note, the Botcon comic featured Jetstorm and his Euro Autobot repaint as individual characters. Not a stretch since they have sufficiently different colour schemes and different names. In Europe Hero Megatron and Prime were released as Archforce and Sureshot respectively. Again, they look significantly unique to pass as seperate characters. Do you think they should be? I'd prefer if they were, I always think it's a waste when a repaint of a mold is meant to be the same character.

Sureshot could suffer Prime Apotheosis and Archforce could be a failed attempt to clone Megatron before Machine Wars Megaplex.

Thanks for your patience.

the machine wars basic sized toys were rumored to be cancelled generation 2 toys.

Car robots & rid used a bunch of machine wars toys.

Takara's robotmasters toy line also used a bunch of machine wars toys.

I think the hasbro universe toy line MIGHT have used some machine wars toys.

I'm aware of the toy connections. It's the fiction that I'm wondering about. I realise that there are at least 2 versions of G2 now and as a fan of G2, RM and MW, I think it would be nice to see them linked. To my mind, there's certainly connections fictionally as I pointed out above. I'd just like to see something concrete rather than cameos and inferences and of course, get the opinions of other fans.

They have nothing to do with each other other than you liking them.

Windsweeper wrote:I'm aware of the toy connections. It's the fiction that I'm wondering about. I realise that there are at least 2 versions of G2 now and as a fan of G2, RM and MW, I think it would be nice to see them linked. To my mind, there's certainly connections fictionally as I pointed out above. I'd just like to see something concrete rather than cameos and inferences and of course, get the opinions of other fans.

Any previous TF toy mold that gets put in a another TF toy line. always has a different media universe.

Generation 2 is a direct sequel to Generation 1, look at the Marvel Comics for that. On the other end, Robot Masters is a Universe 2003-like crossover story, but it still takes place within a (variant)(Japanese) Generation 1 timeline.

Machine Wars is a bit more difficult place, since no official media was released of any kind, just some fan art. One artist did create a story line involving Starscream, possessing Skyquake's dead body and using it as his own, effectively placing the series right or slightly after the European G1 extended timeline when the G2 symbols were already in use.

Machines Wars and RobotMasters are their own unique franchises separate from Generation 2.

Fictionally, RobotMasters takes place at some point in 2004, after seasons 1 & 2 of the G1 cartoon's Japanese dub (Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers), and the 1986 G1 movie's Japanese dub.

Machine Wars, however, has had no real fiction of its own, aside from its toy bios. The toy bios do seem to indicate that ten of the twelve Machine Wars toys are their G1 characters in new bodies, with the other two being new characters of Megaplex (a clone of Megatron) and Hubcap (whose bio describes him quite differently from G1 Hubcap). A mention in Megatron's bio of him taking to the skies "again" references one of his unreleased G2 toys (a redeco of G2 Dreadwing) implies that these Machine Wars toys represent a post-G2 rendition of each character.

The Japanese seem to have tried to also work this toyline into some post-G2 placement at one point, having once created the flowchart seen below and placed it after their Japanese G2 fiction.


The bio for e-Hobby Black Starscream make mention of the Machine Wars in past tense, implying that that particular Starscream represents a post-Machine Wars body for Starscream.