MagicDeath wrote:The reason we are to believe that there is a brawl-looking head for the rook mold is not simply because it appeared in fiction, but because we haven't seen what the actual official 'pretool' head is, correct?
In other words, it isn't just because we saw this head in a comic book that we assumed it exists, right?
I understand the reasoning behind believing a hoist head-mold to be in existence, as there is no other reasonable explanation for the SG autotroopers' heads to resemble Hoist's other than it being based on an actual mold, but this alternate rook headsculpt has no obvious re-use that I can see.
Additionally, what is with all the claims that the wiki has for this 'Ironclad' character appearing to be an early plan for a technobot? 'Mustard tan and grey' doesn't ring any bells.
Apologies for the wordy post, hopefully my point gets across.
The final "Of Masters and Mayhem" prose story, "Lively Pursuit", explained (or at least strongly alluded to without just coming out and straightforwardly saying*) what the Brawl-headed Rook pretool was going to be: A brand new Technobot named Ironclad whose deco would have been mustard tan and gray, and who would have replaced Afterburner as a limb like how Alpha Bravo, Offroad, and Rook did for Slingshot/Quickslinger, Wildrider/Brake-Neck, and Groove, respectively, with Afterburner still accounted for via a use of the Legends class Groove mold, which would have had him attach to Ironclad in arm mode to be Computron's sixth component a la Powerglide for Superion, Blackjack for Menasor, Legends class Groove for Defensor, Shockwave for Bruticus, etc.
I read the story before I even saw the Wiki's reflecting what the story said, so I knew what the story was talking about without the Wiki's help.
Why the plans for Ironclad were nixed we can only guess, but I strongly suspect that Takara's producing their Deluxe class version of Groove, and then its having been retooled into a Deluxe version version of Afterburner, had something to do with it. My theory is that Takara were the ones who created the Deluxe Afterburner retool, while Hasbro was originally going to go with using the Legends class Groove mold for CW "Afterbreaker". But then Hasbro saw Takara's Deluxe Afterburner, and decided to go with that instead of making Afterburner a Legends and replacing him with another newcomer. After all, with CW Computron being in a Collection Pack instead of in separate mass retail figures, Hasbro probably figured that the more hardcore adult G1 fans would be the more likely consumers for the set than the younger, less-G1-beholden fans, and deduced that a Computron whose limbs all consist of the classic members would be the more enticing option. But, as Hasbro was not to let Computron go without a sixth legends class member, a simple retooling of Cosmos w/ Payload into Scrounge w/ Cybaxx both fulfilled that quota and added an extra layer of 1980s G1 nerdiness to the set.
* -- Because the story expected that its readers would be savvy enough to recognize what it was alluding to without having to bluntly spell it out for the readers.
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