The Energon Pub

Diem, this thread is hilarious! Truly great stuff.

Thanks guys! On with the list:

#23: Guns and Weaponry

As a teacher in Japan, I've learnt two vital pieces of lifestyle advice: never eat anything that you've only seen so far in zoos and never hand a child a weapon (toy or real) unless your end goal is a bloody nose and tears before bedtime. There's an dark, unleashable spirit inside even the politest of children. A spirit that loves saying "Pew Pew Pew".

Despite the faction symbol being based on Soundwave's face, if you say the word "Decepticon" to the average man in the street, one robot face will leap to mind:


"Buckethead. No wait, Megatron."

Yep, the almightly leader of the 'Cons turns into a Walther P-38. The bad guy turning into a gun is as plentiful a source of jokes as the age old "Daleks vs. Stairs" debate, but the truth is he's a pretty damn cool-looking gun.


"Silly Megatron, being a gun to a knife fight."

Unfortunately, though he had lots of play features his robot mode was rather lacking. Or should I say "not lacking at all, in a certain department"?


"It's time for the interactive portion! Roll a die now! If the number is 1 or 2, the joke is "Now that's what I call a fire crotch!" If the number is 3 or 4, the joke is "I have an itchy trigger, Prime!" If the number is 5 or 6, the joke is "Sorry, I went off accidentally!""

The next figure that'll never ever ever be reissued in Austrlia is Shockwave:


"Okay Hasbro, Simon says: Don't reissue Shockwave. Okay, Simon says......: Don't reissue Shockwave. Alright, well done. Okay....don't reissue Shockwave! Dammit Hasbro, you keep losing!!"

Shockwave was another figure introduced to Transformers despite not fitting in with the whole cars, robots and devices theme of year one. Someone, probably good ol' Uncle Bob decided that if Shockwave was going to be a futuristic raygun, he may as well be a huge, tanker-truck-sized raygun.


Pictured: the perfect disguise.

I don't have much to say about this figure, except that due to degradation of his rubber parts I advice that if you have this toy you may want to store him in a safe place, like the surface of the moon.

The real meat and bones of weapon bots would come a few years later with: THE TARGETMASTERS!


"Hello Optimus, this is Autobot R&D. We come up with a new idea: guns with minds of their own."
"Err....no."

The Targetmasters were an amazing idea: We all loved figures that turned into things, we all loved having guns for the figures, the only way we could love it more is if the guns transformed too, right? As it turned out, the idea was better than the execution. The figures had zero articulation (well, some of them could sort of sit down) and they had little to do in robot/Nebulan mode except just stand around. Except for Nightstick: The Return:


"Vector Prime's going as Cloud, so I said I'd go as Barrett."

The backstory of the Targetmasters is pretty interesting: in the cartoon they were guerilla fighters paired with the Autobots to lend both their combat experience and their sharpshooting skills, and in the comic, poor Budiansky was being overworked by Marvel until his brains started melting.

Next up were the ActionMasters (or however you want to parse it). Unable to transform themselves, they each came with a skateboard, animal, backpack or Cuisinart that could transform into a comedically oversized cannon.


"Hello Optimus, this is Autobot R&D. We come up with a new idea: Transormers that don't transform."
"I'm cutting your grant. You know that, right?"

There was no news on the whole gunformer thing for a while, possibly due to legal issues. But that won't stop the Japanese, oh no.

"You're probably wondering if my penguin pooped five times or six. In all the excitement I kinda lost count myself."

Yep, the Japanese-original Beast Wars figures often had some kind of third mode, many of which made awkward cannons, artillery weapons and handhand implements of death. If anyone asks why I love Japanese Beast Wars so much, I ask them where else one can see a giraffe dual-wielding a penguin and a rabbit.

The Unicron Trilogy went back to the Targetmaster idea years later with their Minicons, but expanded it to swords:


If anyone has a picture of Star Saber holding the Starsaber, please don't share. There's only so much awesomeness my brain can handle.

And they also used some regular Targetmasters too:

"Guess what! You're fired!"
"Yeah, it wasn't funny the first six times."

With the Classics series, Megatron made his first return to gunness (not Guinness) in years. Unfortunately, safety laws led to the so-called Nerf Megatron:


"Adults are always telling us we can be anything we want to be. But that's bullcrap! There's hundreds of things I can't be, for example: An alligator, a tank, a jet-plane-Batmobile thing, a car, a dragon, another tank..."

And then Henkei did it better (that's a sentence you may be hearing a lot in this list):

Pictured: a totally convincing gun.

Although it has its enemies, I love the Classics/Henkei mold. It may be a shellformer, but it's nice and well proportioned, and the gun is charmingly chunky.

I'll finish this entry on a high:


I'll admit, two decades and a 100+ dollar toy is what it takes to stop me making crotch jokes. Take note, Hasbro.


"Well paint me orange and ship me to Australia!"

The Megatron MP figure is utterly awesome. Most people probably put him in his slightly spindly robot mode but to me, happiness is a wrm, distinctly oversized gun. Coming with Kremzeek helped.

Next time, I'll be covering another beast mode. And I'll give you a hint, it's not rats.

"Nyeeeeaaaah! BROOKLYN RAGE!"

Henkei Megs is great. Classics Megs is great to keep around to fiddle with. I think I gave away my Classics Megatron...

Totally loving the list Diem! Looking at great alt. modes is in a sense more fun than looking at great figures, cause there can be more than one in each category, and you can really compare and contrast.

Better late than never though, I LOVE Classics Grimlock. The T-Rex feet never bothered me, and I really enjoyed how they homaged the Pretender figure instead of the more well known G1 version. He also makes a good leader for my other "Classic" Dinobots: Animated Slag and Swoop.

Despite that though, he's not my favorite T-Rex, that honor goes to this guy:

A great homage, and I love the different but perfectly acceptable color scheme. Plus, an articulated neck, and very good articulation in beast mode too boot.

Now then, if it's not rats that's going to be up next, I'm guessing either bats or cats. But Rhino's should make it on the list somewhere, there's been a lot of them too.

Duke of Luns wrote:
Now then, if it's not rats that's going to be up next, I'm guessing either bats or cats. But Rhino's should make it on the list somewhere, there's been a lot of them too.

Thanks for the compliments. I honestly hadn't thought of Rhinos. I love Stranglehold, sans Pretender shell, but Headstrong is my least favourite Predacon, and Ramhorn and Rhinox are pretty meh as far as I'm concerned. Nothing against Rhinos, but as I mentioned to Gauntlet earlier, if you've only got 26 slots to choose from, they all get filled up pretty quickly.

Diem wrote:It's time for the interactive portion! Roll a die now! If the number is 1 or 2, the joke is "Now that's what I call a fire crotch!" If the number is 3 or 4, the joke is "I have an itchy trigger, Prime!" If the number is 5 or 6, the joke is "Sorry, I went off accidentally!""

Question: Will trigger-crotch jokes ever get old?

Answer: No. Not ever.

This is a great article you are writing. Keep up the good work.

I normally keep Henkei Megs in robot mode, and Classics Megs in gun mode. AND I have the Nerf gun that looks like him, too, so I'm considering repainting said Nerf gun in Henkei's colors.

Classics Grimlock had several flaws that made many people dislike it.

Loose Shoulder syndrome.

1. Come on they couldn't have built in some pegs or something that worked rather that those weird flaps that don't even align correctly.

2. Loose thigh ball joints that inhibited many poses
3. Weird gun/sword thing that can't be held as a sword.
4. Ridiculously stubby arms.


Yeah the Transmetal line should have been "Pimp My Transformer". With the chrome, the wheels, the weaponry. They just needs screens and TV's all over them to complete the look.

Anyway and moving on, Stingrays are Awesomesauce. Which is why I always loved Tracks and his jet mode. and love ROTF Sideswipe.

Sadly I was never able to find the Alternators Tracks. I really like the Corvette in any version.

And transforming weaponry. What can I say. I expect the Power Core Combiner Line to be crazy successful just because it promises to deliver transforming Weaponry in many awe-inspiring and glorious forms.


Keep at it Diem awesome list.

I think the T-Rex should be higher(but I'm T-Rex obsessed), I always hated how classics Grimlock looked, G1 version was awesome, I remember begging my mom to let me play with it...she never did let me...

BW Transmetals Megatron was pretty awesome though, probably my favorite T-Rex TransFormer(unless they make a War for Cybertron Trypticon). Especially since I have so many fond memories of it, like pretending a repaint of him was an armor for Gollum and then Gollum was defeated viciously by a lawnmower.....

If it's not rats then it's probably it's enemies, cats (or in some cases, Velociraptors).

Damn it, I made the hint too easy. Yep, here we go:

#22 Big Cats

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Actually, screw the bears. There's...what, two, three different bear molds, and neither Hasbro nor Takara ever thought to turn them into a panda? The easiest and most awesome repaint in the world? Seriously HasTak, make it happen.


It's like HasTak hates money...

Anyway, this is the category for the serious kitties: lions, irons, Zion, tigers, ligers, tions, jaguars, porsches, panthers, panzers, speed of the puma, leopards, cheetahs, snow tigers, lynx, manx, sphinx and spanx.

As It's Walky will happily remind you, the first character to speak in the first Transformers story was Ravage:

"Wavage! Wavage is wot bwings us togeder tooday."

In the early stories, Ravage was incredibly awesome, being part ninja, part Inspector Gadget (his claw has a mini-claw for grabbing keys!!!) and part mute. He was a vital part of the 'Con forces. In the comics he was more verbose and thoughtful. Then he fell down a well! Also at one point he blackmailed Wheeljack, and was confident he could take down an exact clone of Megatron. He was pretty damn tough.

His toy may have made him look more like a greyhound, but he was awesome.

(NB. For anyone who wants to suggest that Jaguar is not his Alt Mode but his main mode, my response is A) Why is it that the other TFs kept their robot modes and changed their car modes, and Lazerbeak and (presumably) Ravage kept their tape modes and changed their beast modes and B) Why are your mad nitpicking skills being wasted here when Wikipedia needs you so much more?)


"I...still...function! Despite...being...full...of...Arcee pr0n!"


"JESUS CHRIST IT'S A JAGUAR GET OUT OF THE CAR >:3"


"I shall call him...Mini-Me."

Even when it wasn't Ravage, big cats were still popular in G1:

Aslan had finally had too much.

Yep, two-fifths of Predaking (and two-thirds of the members of Predaking that were actual predators) was pure kitteh goodness.


"Yes, yes! You can has as many cheezburger as you want!"


"No energon and no TV make Rampage...something something..."

The Predacons are a great bunch of toys and these two are the cream of the crop. Gotta love these guys.


"A robot made of metal, covered in an outer shell, wearing a helmet. There's no way I'll be easily killed in the comics!"

Yep, Catilla was a robot who turned into a cat, who then got dressed up in a cat suit, and then put on a mechanical helmet. And people say the Pretender era was stupid!

After that...I don't remember any more big cats for a while. But I'm sure someone will remind me of what I missed (ie. Steeljaw) But then: the Beast Wars.


"Beast Wars...maybe there's gonna be some Beasts in this."

Time to get serious for a second. Back in the early nineties, when internet access wasn't half as common as it is now, Transformers was coming to a slow halt. Generation 2 had come and gone, and it seemed like Transformers was finished. Power Rangers had taken the Giant Robot crown from them.

At the time they had vanished with such a whimper rather than a bang that I barely even noticed. I realised there were a few figures I'd missed, but ultimately, life went on. For kids and teens nowadays who have never seen a Transformer-less year it must seem unimaginable, but it really felt like the whole shebang was over.

Then it came, hidden away in a catalogue that came with, perhaps a Batman toy. Some robots that turned into animals. My eyes must have passed them by first time but I looked again and realised. I remember clearly looking frantically at the scraps of information. Scorponok? Dinobot? Megatron? Optimus Primal? BEAST WARSTRANSFORMERS?!? YES!!!

It's easy to complain about any new series or change in dynamic or style the franchise takes (for example, it was incredibly easy to complain about Beast Machines) but I won't forget that time. That time when I was grateful just that the thing I'd devoted my childhood to wasn't over. I owned the original cast of 10 in short order and a ton of other figures besides.

Anyway, back to the list:

Yep, it was time for the cats to come out in force. First up was Cheetor:

"DAMNIT HASTAK I SAID NO MORE BEARS! Oh wait, that's supposed to be a cheetah. Oh, never mind."

What could be a more potent metaphor for impetuous youth than a cheetah? And what could be a more ridiculous name than "Cheetor"? And what could be worse than people spelling "ridiculous" with an "e"? This figure was not so bad, though its beast mode lacked articulation and looking-like-a-cheetah-ness.


"Kid-appeal and black repaint? You know you love me!"


"Has Bayformer Bumblebee beaten my record yet?"

Yep, this guy sure had a lot of toys. Indeed, the first character to be introduced in the show outside of the original 10 was a repaint, specifically Tigatron. I don't own this mold but the Hasbro and Takara versions both look very pretty in very different ways.

Just then, all fanwank broke loose:


"I'm not sure if this accent is right, I borrowed it from a shop."

Yep, just to cement the fact that the writers had figured out that they wanted Beast Wars to be a continuation of the G1 cartoon (or the comics, or something...) Ravage made an oddly-accented return that made G1 fanboys wet their pants and made HasTak repaint every Cheetor they had black.

Blurrz already said everything that is to be said about the smashing Lio Convoy; and his own Mini-Me, Prowl, is pretty cool too.

A few years later, the next kitty entered the scene:

"When 800 repaints old you reach, look as good, you will not!"

I've managed to get this far without owning a single iteration of this mold so I couldn't possibly comment on it. But, and here's the important part, he hasn't been repainted as Ravage yet.


"Let's see, Ravage, Steeljaw, Lazerbeak, Ramhorn and...Horri-Bull? Do it, E-Hobby!"

Anyway, that's the end of this chapter. Sorry about the delay. And since my last hint wasn't opaque enough...

My first is in Mountain, but not in Sea
My second is around somewhere
My third is...oh, sod it.

Nice overlook of the big cats . Yet all this talk of Ravage, and no Battle Ravage? It's technically the only Ravage that has a cat alt. mode! But I do have a bit of a soft spot for the figure. He was one of my first figures I got when I "officially" started collecting, and I love all the Energon Terrorcons(and Omnibots).

Also, yes, there were a few "cats" that you missed:

-There was the Japanese exclusive Headmaster Lione:



-Leozak is definitely influenced by a lion, and has a lion partner:





-There was also Jaruga, which probably translates into Jaguar:





-Deathsaurus had some kind of winged feline Beast partner:



-There's also Treadshot's action master partner, Catgut:



Am I nitpicking/looking too much into things? Yeah, but hey, the more you know .

Duke of Luns wrote:Nice overlook of the big cats . Yet all this talk of Ravage, and no Battle Ravage? It's technically the only Ravage that has a cat alt. mode! But I do have a bit of a soft spot for the figure. He was one of my first figures I got when I "officially" started collecting, and I love all the Energon Terrorcons(and Omnibots).

Also, yes, there were a few "cats" that you missed:

Thanks for filling in the gaps! I was thinking of putting Battle Ravage but I was starting to get Ravage fatigue. That said, I do like him; he's one of the few Energon figures I own who's not a straight G1 homage.

Cats over Dinosaurs?
...................
...................
Oh well, Predaking IS pretty awesome.
Good list, can't wait to see the next one.

zenosaurus_x wrote:Cats over Dinosaurs?
...................
...................
Oh well, Predaking IS pretty awesome.
Good list, can't wait to see the next one.

I own a cat, and she's a wonderfull little furball. And the closest living relative to the T-Rex is the chicken, which isn't so awesome. Cats win.

Diem wrote:

Duke of Luns wrote:Nice overlook of the big cats . Yet all this talk of Ravage, and no Battle Ravage? It's technically the only Ravage that has a cat alt. mode! But I do have a bit of a soft spot for the figure. He was one of my first figures I got when I "officially" started collecting, and I love all the Energon Terrorcons(and Omnibots).

Also, yes, there were a few "cats" that you missed:

Thanks for filling in the gaps! I was thinking of putting Battle Ravage but I was starting to get Ravage fatigue. That said, I do like him; he's one of the few Energon figures I own who's not a straight G1 homage.

No prob . For some reason ther's an area of my brain that keeps track of weird things like that.

But I dropped the ball, for I forgot a MAJOR cat!



Victory Leo! To think I could forget him after three breastmasters. Takara, Hasbro, get on with the reissue of him and Star Saber! I only have the Robotmasters KO's of those two(and a SCF of Victory Leo), but I love those KO's, and the real original magilla would be amazing.

There's also a Mini-con cat, but I don't have it, and it's only real claim to fame is that it was repainted into Shattered Glass Razorclaw.

For the following entry, I'm going to have to encourage all participants to both git theh modors runnin and geddout on the haahway!

#21 Motorbikes
To be a Transformers fan is to have a blind spot for scale a mile wide (or maybe a kilometer wide, it's hard to tell 'cos the scale's wrong). The original cartoons had jets squaring off against cars, and so on. But it was the second generation of Scramble City combiners that really blew some minds. The Combaticons featured a Jeep the same size as a Space Shuttle (please consult Jane's What The Hell Sizes Military Vehicles Are Supposed To Be for further reference) and less extremely, Groove, the first motorbike to enter the Transformers line was the exact same size as a rescue helicopter.


I can honestly say that the unreleased G2 Protectobots' scale is exactly as awesome as their colour scheme.

Sadly, Groove was not exactly a pioneer for motorbike bots. His motorcycle mode is fine, so long as you keep him safely away from almost every other reasonably-scaled transformer that might reveal the fact that he's supposed to be ridden by the Jolly Green Giant, but his robot mode was pretty awful with its chrome bingo wings and its little slippers.


"Come on Groove, don't be blue. And please, PLEASE don't be tangerine with turquoise parts."

Compared to Groove (who I do quite like, really) the next figure on the list is a slice of fried gold. Introducing Wreck Gar and the Junkions:

"(insert lyrics from Dare To Be Stupid here)"

These guys were great. In the show they were Chaotic-Good wackballs who talked like Eric Idle, and could ride each other (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more). The toy wasn't too bad, and included the earliest ball-joints in TF history. Sadly, it couldn't replicate the "riding each other" thing.


"On the one hand, applying marker to a vintage G1 figure probably isn't such a great idea. On the other hand HE NEEDS HIS BEARD!"

Next up is a sadly picture-less return to Scramble City town. Afterburner of the Technobots is a personal favourite of mine. Rather than being an open-topped motorbike he actually has the sci-fi style total body cover, a little like the lightcycles in Tron. Not only does this subvert the scale issue a little, but it gives him a wicked streamlined look that fits in with his futuristic teammates.

Even if there's no picture, I'm stil gonna do the caption: "GRIMLOCK BUILT THIS IN UNICRON'S HEAD OUT OF A BOX OF SCRAPS!"

As an aside note, if you put Afterburner's weapons on him, he looks like the bike from Blast Corps. And that's awesome.


"Sure my aim is lousy, but you should see my acceleration!"

The Triggerbots were a fun little trio of cheap-pricepoint guys with about four points of articulation between them. Gotta love those spring-loaded guns. In the comics, Override got easily ripped apart after partaking in both the Matrix Quest and the effort to retrieve Starscream's Underbase-infused corpse. FURMAAAAAANN!

I'm gonna jump ahead a little and skip Vroom and a few others. There's a very important guy that needs to be mentioned here:


"I want to ride my BI-si-kul, I want to ride my bike..."
He may not have had the best articulation in the world, but he made up for it in so many amazing ways. He had his own rider, made of two minicons who were also Headmasters, who changed his faction! Sorry, but that's even better than your secret fan-project to create a triple-changing-headmaster-powermaster-Prime.


"What?!? How dare you insult Twelveshot Primimus!"

Yep, Sideways was awesome. He wasn't a Decepticon or an Autobot, but like Doubledealer back in the day worked towards his own ends. So cool.

And then the world broke:

"A commercially available, transforming Arcee? Hmmm, what to do with my other two wishes..."

Arcee was finally available as part of homagewank series Energon. Fans everywhere rejoiced just to see the figure, but getting a tight-looking bike (who, as a scout wasn't hideously over-sized compared to her deluxe-car brethren) that turned into a fairly feminine-looking figure with a huge bow was enough to satisfy the fans.

...

I am of course joking, because A) She didn't turn into a car and B) the fans will be totally satisfied only when Satan rides a flying pig to work. Because of all the snow in hell, you see.


"Was I in the movie? I must have blinked and missed me."

Somehow, Arcee ended up with three movieverse figures, all of which were motorbikes. And then just to be more confusing there were three of her, but only one of them was her? Or something? And maybe she was the same one as the 2007 toy?

RIP Movieverse Arcee, Barricade and Michael Bay's ability to flesh out characters!

Despite all the awesomeness of the above figures, this list was leading up to one special figure. A figure so good, it made Japan prick up its ears and say "Wait, when did America start doing this right?" I am of course referring to:


BULLETBIKE!

No, but you should've seen your face. I'm instead talking about:


"A ninja must move like water and sell figures like hot cakes"

Somehow, a miracle occured. A figure was released that combined posability, fun, show-accuracy and unbearable amounts of win in one, sexy, "If Niles Crane were a transforming ninja robot motorcycle-cop motorcycle it'd be the best thing ever" package. Symmetrical robot mode? Incredibly sexy motorcycle mode? Shuriken? There was no way this figure could get better.


"Well, there goes my second wish. Now, naked Megan Fox, or Fort Max reissue? I wish I didn't have to decide right now...GODDAMN IT!"

Yep, Prowl got reissued in a new, sexier motorbike form, now with a sidecar that turned into awesome armour. Well played Hasbro. Well played.

Now the next entry on this list is gonna have the same name as one of the members of this forum. Who could it be?

This list is stunning! Really liking the selections so far...

So who's going to make the Top 27 Busty Babes of all time? Whoops wrong forum.

Blurrz wrote:This list is stunning! Really liking the selections so far...

So who's going to make the Top 27 Busty Babes of all time? Whoops wrong forum.

Haha that would be Top 27 FemBots of all time. Wait the transformers universe do not even have that much to begin with. Or am I wrong?

Fembots, 27 is easily possible, it we hit most of the continuities

in no order,

Arcee
Airazor
Chromia
Elita-one
Moonracer
Firestar
Crasher/Fracture
Blackarachnia
Strika
Override
Thunderblast
Twirl
Redline
Falcia
Botanica
Nightbird (I guess)
Slipstream
Red Alert
Sari (I guess)
Miverna
Pathfinder
Small Foot
Lyzack
Esmeral
Rosanna
Flip Sides
Glyph

and there are still more out there.

I second that TF cycles are awesome when executed correctly... but I woulda given honourable mention to a few more cycles: Thrust and the Cycle drones from Beast Machines, and my two favourite (besides Animated Prowl, who is pure gold) motorcycle bots:


Lugnutz/Roadstorm

Say, that's a nice bike.

Why so it is, thanks for noticing!



And Ransack/Gasket... who's vehicle mode is admittedly better when you put his back wheel on right.

- Sam

Don't forget possibly the most badd-A** motorcycle mode of all time...



Oil Slick!

And his robot mode is pretty darn excellent as well:

Valandar wrote:Don't forget possibly the most badd-A** motorcycle mode of all time...



Oil Slick!

And his robot mode is pretty darn excellent as well:

Where have I seen those before?

Oh yeah!





I keed, Oil Slick's pretty cool(but then, so are Lobo and Freeze).

Oil Slick and Prowl are probably the two best motorcycle transformers.

Midnight_Fox wrote:

Valandar wrote:Don't forget possibly the most badd-A** motorcycle mode of all time...

http://www.seibertron.com/images/toys/f ... ick024.jpg

Oil Slick!

And his robot mode is pretty darn excellent as well:

http://www.seibertron.com/images/toys/f ... ick067.jpg

Where have I seen those before?

Oh yeah!

http://www.oafe.net/yo/art/dcdlobo5.jpg

http://www.comics101.com/comics101//new ... freeze.jpg

I keed, Oil Slick's pretty cool(but then, so are Lobo and Freeze).

Just as an FYI, the sites you linked to don't seem to like hotlinking.