The Energon Pub

Nate and Evan were on-stream to present a number of known upcoming toys and a couple of sneak peeks of 2026 toys, focussing today on the Studio Series line. No exclusives today, just general release product. Pre-orders live today at 1pm EST.

SS86 Leader Megatron
First up, SS86 Leader Megatron. Evan confirmed that Megatron's altmode is based on the prototype M8 Armored Gun System light tank, aka Buford. Nate was carefully saying "blaster" rather than "gun" any time it was mentioned, but did reaffirm once more, just for the avoidance of doubt, that Gun Megs is a flat-out legal impossibility for modern releases.


They also made a point of showing Optimus and Megatron side by side for comparison - Megatron is slightly taller, "as everybody agrees he should be."


Megatron's casemate will be a re-release of the original SS86 Leader Grimlock.


WFC Thundercracker
Next up in the final SS Voyager wave for 2025, we have WFC Thundercracker. Evan noted that all the Seekers in this group have slightly different faces and expressions - the WFC game models all had different eye colours.


SS86 Mixmaster & Scavenger
Next, Mixmaster and Scavenger. Evan explained that the reason for Mixmaster being at the Voyager price point (and N&E briefly discussed how the classes are price points, not necessarily sizes) was to accommodate the engineering for the ratchet joint at his waist to provide an ankle tilt for Devastator.


They also brought out SS86 Optimus and Grimlock to show scale for the group.


One thing of note re Devastator: Nate confirmed there are no plans for a Devastator gift set in 2026 or 2027. Evan hinted at a possible G2 Devastator redeco at some point in the future.

TF One Elita-1 & Starscream
Evan joked that they could finally show off Elita's heels, since the previous demo had used a figure that had been modified for the stop-motion shorts, and lacked its heels so they struggled to make it stand! Elita also has the mining jetpack from the movie, which Evan noted can also be attached to any of the main cast.


Showing off Starscream, Evan lamented that the movie designers had made all the Seekers unique, so they couldn't just be redeco'd! But it did lead into an interesting tangent about how the figure was designed with partials in mind for future Seekers. (Which will be coming, just not yet.)


AoE Concept KSI Widow
N&E noted that Widow is a fully-licensed McLaren design, and talked a little about her history as a concept design for what eventually became Stinger in the movie.


Hearts of Steel Megatron / Bumblebee set
Showing off the full group. Some quantity of Megs / Bee will be available at SDCC. N&E talked about this continuing Timelines concept, where themed sets of Optimus / Starscream and Megatron / Bumblebee will be released from different universes / stories. The 2026 release was hinted at but they didn't name the theme.


TF One Airachnid (grey proto, 2026)
First proper sneak peek at TF One Airachnid in grey, who will be a Deluxe. Evan talked about the impressive engineering that went into getting her transformation - including rotating fan blades - work at the Deluxe point.


TF One Alpha Trion (proto, 2026)
Evan talked particularly about how they wanted to get sculpted damage on the Alpha Trion figure and to differentiate him from the 'clean' AotP version.


Wrap-up discussion
Responding to some viewer comments, Nate talked about requests for further combiners. In particular, fans apparently called for Defensor and Predaking (gee, you think ). No confirmations were forthcoming, but N&E strongly hinted that Defensor at least would be coming after Bruticus. Predaking "would be very fun to do", and "more combiners will be coming." Evan said that his favourite combiner as a child was Computron, so we can still hope (Nate made the point that "we don't ever like to leave a collection incomplete" but were limited by the amount of tooling available per year, and described the approach to figure selection as being "an inch deep and a mile wide" across continuities.)

On the topic of completing collections, N&E noted that there were no current plans to do Bayverse Mudflap & Skids. (Nate euphemistically noting that the problem with them was not a legal issue like Gun Megs, but "more of an emotional thing" ) Evan is sure that they'll do them eventually, but not for the foreseeable future.

Returning to combiners, Nate mentioned Monstructor - Evan gave a non-confirmation confirmation that Monstructor would (potentially!) be coming, "and I promise he won't be dinosaurs."

Finally, noting that SS86 is around 75% done with the Movie cast and that there are several characters who appeared in storyboards but were cut from the final film, Nate & Evan ended the stream on a question that has been raised here in the past:

Nate wrote:Do you want to see toys of characters from Season 1 and 2 of the G1 cartoon, that did not appear in the 86 movie, in the Studio Series 86 segment?

Please direct your responses to Pulse in the comments

Megs and the Constructicons are already showing as Sold Out on the US & UK Pulse sites...

Cross-linking Sabrblade's detailed transcription from the SS discussion thread.