The Energon Pub

I was going to put this in the reply to another post but on reflection it seemed like a broad enough topic to warrant it's own post.

I wanted to shoot the breeze about size classes - what there is what there isn't what there should be.

For example What size classes do you miss from the past or do you think would be useful in the future.

I would suggest a size between Leader and Titan would be useful for example.

RAR wrote:
I would suggest a size between Leader and Titan would be useful for example.

Supreme would be that class. Supreme Cheetor, Cybertron Starscream, Unicron, Primus etc...

Generally speaking Hasbro has had several in-between classes they no longer use, but could be brought back.


Size classes more or less from smallest to largest, with some variation among them in different lines, ignoring minicons or other "master" partner sizes:


Scout/Basic/Legends/Legion

Deluxe
Voyager
Ultra
Leader
Supreme (Super Base in Armada Prime's case)
And Now Titan


Ultra was last seen in 2008's Universe line with things like Silverbolt and Powerglide.
Supreme was last used albeit altered with Movie Devastator as a Supreme Combiner class figure. The only one in that class.

Super Base was actually Armada's Leader Class, not Supreme which was called Chaos Bringer. Optimus Prime was the only mold for the former, and Unicron the only one for the latter. btw The current names for the Size Classes all came from Cybertron, Armada and Energon each had their own names

Speaking of different names for Class, Robots in Disguise 2015 has Warrior Class instead of Deluxe Class, right? Despite equal size, they're not the same: the simplified engineering compared to Generations results in a lower price point, necessitating a Class to accommodate that. I wonder if someone was pretty... I don't know, exact with that?

I kinda miss the Ultra Class as well, but I can see why it was seemed obsolete with the difference in size between maybe a bit too small to warrant its existence. Scout Class too, but the current Legends Class is a good substitute, even if they're slightly smaller.

And may I be honest? The sub-Deluxe Classes have been an absolute mess throughout the years when it comes to naming them:

- With the introduction of Cyberverse for DotM, Legends has been renamed Legion, while introducing the larger Commander Class, rendering Scout Class obsolete.
- After Cyberverse ended, Legion Class was kept as is, Commander got obsolete, the "Legends Class" name was redefined, twice for FoC and T30.
- Power Core Combiners, AFAIK, had no official names for its two Classes. "Commander" only referred to the main figure in the 2- or 5-packs, and not to the name of the Size Class it's in. Ugh.

To finish up, a history:

Beast Wars to Robots in Disguise
Basic
Deluxe
Mega
Ultra
Super
Supreme

Armada, Energon
Mini-Con / Energon Class
Super-Con / Combat Class
Max-Con / Mega Combat Class
Giga-Con / Command Class
Super Base / Leaders Class
Chaos Bringer / Supreme Class

Cybertron to 2010
Legends Class
Scout Class
Deluxe Class
Voyager Class
Ultra Class
Leader Class
Supreme Class

From there, it looks like each line got its own Size Classes with some overlap (Legion, Deluxe, Voyager) between them, which complicates things a bit...

Generations
Legends Class
Deluxe Class
Voyager Class
Leader Class
Titan Class

Dark of the Moon
Legion Class
Commander Class
Deluxe Class
Voyager Class
Leader Class

Prime
Legion Class
Commander Class
Deluxe Class
Voyager Class
Weaponizers / Battlemaster Class
Ultimate Class

And starting with AoE, all bets are off with the One-Steps, 3-Steps and the like. In non-Generation lines, only the Legion Class and to some extent the Deluxe Class seem to have survived.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Super Base was actually Armada's Leader Class

There's a problem there, I think Super Base Optimus Prime was too big to be leader. He may not have been big enough for supreme. but he was much bigger than Megatron.

And if that was leader class, then Megatron (Giga) would have been Ultra class, which seems odd.


I would say then that Prime is in a class of his own as Super Base.

Beyond that, yes the sub deluxe classes have been very messy over the years.

Other than that, It seems Ultra just crops up when they need a medium-sized figure with sound effects.


Deluxe seems to be the untouchable class across all lines. With Leader coming in second. Voyager comes and goes but has been relatively stable for the last few lines.

Overcracker wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Super Base was actually Armada's Leader Class

There's a problem there, I think Super Base Optimus Prime was too big to be leader. He may not have been big enough for supreme. but he was much bigger than Megatron.

And if that was leader class, then Megatron (Giga) would have been Ultra class, which seems odd.


I would say then that Prime is in a class of his own as Super Base.

The "Super" size class was still rather new at the time, made to accommodate the largest figures at the time, as such it would fluctuate between lines. I think Energon was the line where it was standardized for future lines, along with the Supreme Class. Giga-Con is indeed the Ultra size Class, at least that's how I consider it. Tidal Wave was re-released as a Command Class figure in Energon, an Ultra Class analog as it comes before Leaders Class.

I wouldn't mind an Ultra Class back again. I know there's some specific guys I would put in there but I can't quite remember off the top of my head... Broadside, maybe? Grimlock?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:
The "Super" size class was still rather new at the time, made to accommodate the largest figures at the time, as such it would fluctuate between lines. I think Energon was the line where it was standardized for future lines, along with the Supreme Class. Giga-Con is indeed the Ultra size Class, at least that's how I consider it. Tidal Wave was re-released as a Command Class figure in Energon, an Ultra Class analog as it comes before Leaders Class.

You made me go look and I'd never noticed before that Tidal Wave has nothing about his size class on the side front or back of his box - how peculiar.

If anyone spots a size class on his box let me know i'm fascinated as to why it's missing. (or hard to see) or on the other ones of the same size I guess.

He doesn't seem to be marked as Command, Giga-Con or Ultra anywhere I could see - which means the command description much be a solicitation data only thing... I wonder why they left it off (or made it hard to find) It's been on most western Transformers packaging since the 1990's

RAR wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:
The "Super" size class was still rather new at the time, made to accommodate the largest figures at the time, as such it would fluctuate between lines. I think Energon was the line where it was standardized for future lines, along with the Supreme Class. Giga-Con is indeed the Ultra size Class, at least that's how I consider it. Tidal Wave was re-released as a Command Class figure in Energon, an Ultra Class analog as it comes before Leaders Class.

You made me go look and I'd never noticed before that Tidal Wave has nothing about his size class on the side front or back of his box - how peculiar.

If anyone spots a size class on his box let me know i'm fascinated as to why it's missing. (or hard to see) or on the other ones of the same size I guess.

He doesn't seem to be marked as Command, Giga-Con or Ultra anywhere I could see - which means the command description much be a solicitation data only thing... I wonder why they left it off (or made it hard to find) It's been on most western Transformers packaging since the 1990's

Back then we still had toy catalogs, with the names of the Class and the figures in it. I believe they were fully phased out in 2011 when Dark of the Moon hit. The Beast Era had the names of the figure's Class on the packaging, with fancy logos to boot, but that took a back seat with RiD 2001 and on, only to return with Cybertron.

For a Classics Display, I do feel a Voyager Prime works best, since it works with the deluxes, like sideswipe, hound and the rest. So Megatron should be a voyager too to scale with prime. However, for a display about the comics, would a leader class Megatron work better? He seems to tower everyone in that comic.

william-james88 wrote:For a Classics Display, I do feel a Voyager Prime works best, since it works with the deluxes, like sideswipe, hound and the rest. So Megatron should be a voyager too to scale with prime. However, for a display about the comics, would a leader class Megatron work better? He seems to tower everyone in that comic.

If we're talking about MTMTE, I did figure that out for myself recently.

Leader: Ultra Magnus, Fortress Maximus, Ten, Thunderclash
Voyager: Whirl, Megatron
Deluxe: Everyone else
Legends: Rewind, Tailgate, Swerve, Ravage, Pipes

Spoiler tags in case someone hasn't read the comics yet and doesn't know about later characters and blah blah blah

Megatron could stand to use his Leader toy though and it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

I dont think Ravage is a spoiler if he came with megatron

but anyways, yeah I agree with those. I did use the voyager brainstorm though. He usually looks tall and lanky in the comics and thta gen toy is just too IDW not to use. Cyclonus is also a voyager toy I use, as with MP Hot Rodimus. And we have a voyager megatron coming up so it should be good

william-james88 wrote:I dont think Ravage is a spoiler if he came with megatron

but anyways, yeah I agree with those. I did use the voyager brainstorm though. He usually looks tall and lanky in the comics and thta gen toy is just too IDW not to use. Cyclonus is also a voyager toy I use, as with MP Hot Rodimus. And we have a voyager megatron coming up so it should be good

True, true. It all comes down to personal preference of course and how willing you are to sort of ignore size classes depending on how well the toy works; but whatever works for you is good especially when it can sometimes be a bit hard to tell in the comics
Plus a lot of the time most of the characters are portrayed as the same size - that's where the whole 'everyone else deluxe' thing comes from, but it also makes it easier to justify things like making Megs and Magnus the same size for instance.

yeah I agree, you look at a pic like the one below and "everyone deluxe" is the first thing I think of:

william-james88 wrote:yeah I agree, you look at a pic like the one below and "everyone deluxe" is the first thing I think of:

Not to mention official prints.