The Energon Pub

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:The TM's in question are Scorponok who was under the decepticons and who's special power identified him as a die cast one. The other one is Refractor, who was under the Autobots, but we know nothing else about. This may or may not be for an Autobot, since they already had Blunderbuss and Overboard mixed up on the list.

"Refractor" derives from refracting light, put simply changing its angle as it passes from like air to liquid, or to translucent material like a lens. That leads me to suspect it's for the pretool of Perceptor, whoever that may be.

Yeah, that was my thought too. Makes the most sense for that mold, where Magnificus would be the most obvious re-use where only the colors and the faceplate need to be changed, heck, maybe even just a straight recolor.

One of the popular theories was that Refractor was meant to go with a Reflector made from the Perceptor mold. A refractor is part of a telescope, not a microscope, but they can be connected to a camera. Then again, sometimes Perceptor worked as a telescope himself so who knows?

william-james88 wrote:

One of the local Walmarts just restocked with this wave (the other remains empty of all TR figures). Still no sign of Wave 4 deluxes at Walmart.

I'll try to keep this short since I know people are getting tired of our conversation.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:And who would you propose to fill the four slots that would be left empty by not making the Targetmasters?

I already said in a previous reply, but I'll say it again: Grotusque and Repugnus to go with Twinferno, Blue Bacchus because we already have Sky (Black) Shadow twice over now, and then maybe another Action Master Rad or Axer which would have been better uses of the Chromedome mold I think.

Also, a "part of a box set" Carnivac wouldn't have been in anyone's place because boxsets don't count toward the regular retail cases.

I didn't say anything about the box sets counting towards regular retail, just that if he was really being proposed I think he would have been a better fit in Breakaway's place in wave 3, someone else (that isn't a Powermaster or Targetmaster) could have been in the box set.

Breakaway makes for great custom fodder if nothing else.

How is that a good argument? He's exactly the same mold as Chromedome in the wave before! If Breakaway is great custom fodder then so is Chromedome.

First off, buddy, I didn't say you said they should have scrapped Overlord.

Dude, it's just a phrase, calm down. I know exactly what your saying.

"it's very likely the (Thunderwing) parts already exist on the mold" Uh, why? No, seriously, why? Why is it likely for any other reason than "Emerje really wants a Leader-class Thunderwing"?

Let me get this right; The original Thunderwing figure is highly sought after by G1 collectors; He was a big part of the late Marvel comics run; He got an IDW comic focused on him and got to be a MacGuffin in Regeneration One; He got a Generations figure in 2010; and most recently he was in the Power of the Primes leader poll. And after all that you're going to tell me that Hasbro would somehow pass on a golden opportunity to stick some Thunderwing parts on there with Sky Shadow?

There hasn't been any sign of any of the other shoehorned pretool characters having additional parts for similar characters.

And why would they when they themselves are the additional parts? The difference between them and Sky Shadow is Sky Shadow's jet half isn't a pretool of Overlord's, it's 100% unique. You know Hasbro rarely molds something without working a second use into it, why would Sky Shadow's (or even Overlords for that matter, unless Takara already had their version worked into it) be any different?

"But Overlord's chest slots are perfect for sticking Prime Masters in", you say. Yeah, they are, and that's nice and all, but THAT. ISN'T. THE. GIMMICK. FOR. POWER. OF. THE. PRIMES. LEADER. CLASS. FIGURES. Pushing him back to PotP wouldn't work because He. Would. Not. Fit.

I honestly don't have a ton of confidence in Hasbro's ability to keep that gimmick going seeing as how the first three waves only has three unique molds in it, none of which are in wave 2 with its questionable Rodimus Prime redeco in Galvatron's colors and a second release of Optimus Prime. By comparison by wave 3 of Titans Return we had two unique molds (if you consider PM Prime unique) and two parts sharing figures. There were no straight redeco Leaders in Titans Return, but PotP appears to be giving us one in wave 2.

The Mega Pretenders are a good fit for the Evolution gimmick, and I don't see the inner robot's blandness as an obstacle to doing Thunderwing's classic design as a PotP Leader since the point would be to take the seemingly-unassuming Deluxe and dress it up with the more badass-looking shell.

But you said it yourself, Leaders are about evolution. Just sticking a smaller robot in a shell isn't evolution, that's why Rodimus and Optimus both integrate the Deluxe figure into the Leader (Hot Rod becomes part of the torso and arms, Optimus' Deluxe part becomes the torso). I imagine they'd want the Deluxe to still be interesting on its own. Hot Rod, whatever Optimus' Deluxe is, and Optimus Primal are all decidedly more interesting than anything they can do with Thunderwing's inner robot.

More likely they'd go with a Deluxe Thunderwing shell look with the inner robot's alt mode along with his Stormbringer armor which turns into something resembling his original shell's alt mode. This way they can do a dual reference to both versions of the character.

The other reason would be that he could be retooled as a proper Black Shadow (Notice which use of the Overlord mold hasn't been slated for a Legends release? Yeah.).

Now that seems unlikely. Takara Tomy takes Hasbro's lead on these and it isn't something Hasbro would do so I doubt the option would be there since they just made a Sky Shadow and the whole evolved figure probably wouldn't look that familiar to Japanese fans. Besides, Leader Black Shadow is hardly the first time Takara Tomy passed him over, they passed on the previous one as well before finally shoving him off into the Adventures line as filler.

I didn't say that modern engineering couldn't fix the issues, I just said the design process to do so would be annoying. With both of them you have to work out how to make it so that the jet mode's forward fuselage can tuck in more and have a less-protruding backpack. With Apeface you also have to work out how to either consolidate his robot limbs and gorilla limbs, or at least make the robot limbs fold away more neatly in gorilla mode.It would have been a nuisance to go to (especially if they kept the Horrorcon head gimmick instead of just having separate animal heads) for a couple of guys who might not have sold too well anyway.

Still doesn't sound any more "annoying" than what they've done with Triplechangers since Generations. Plus we've seen the design team pull out some new tricks lately like turning wings into robot legs (TR Mindwipe, TLK Voyager Megatron), they don't have to be a slave to the G1 figures here when they were a slave to the G1 figures of Octane and Blitzwing.

Your Sixshot comparison is way off the wall. Sixshot's wolf head is not a "beast mask". it's a full-on separate head for the beast mode. It just happens to have a slot in the neck behind it for a Titan Master in head mode because somebody thought it would be clever to have his robot head seeing through the beast head's eyes (that and his cockpit was there anyway, on the other side of the neck). And it's also not Revolver pulling double-duty as both beast and robot heads, which is what Spasma and Krunk did. THAT is what I am saying would have been added annoyance within the constraints of Titans Return (IF it was even pursued in the event of them being picked, which is a big if) since TR was designed around standardized Headmasters and Spasma and Krunk's double-duty nature makes them anything but standard.

You really seem to be having an awful hard time wrapping your head around this. Think TR Galvatron and how you open his chest and his crown pops out. Now picture a robot gorilla with Spasma connected to its shoulders, you open the chest and out pops an ape mask that covers the robot face creating a complete ape head. Likewise picture a robot dino/dragon/whatever with most of the head missing, slip Krunk into the empty space, covering the robot face, to complete the beast head. This way the Titan Master is still making a sizable portion of the head. If it's OK for the Leader class figure heads to be mostly helmets, sometimes covering the TMs completely (PM OP), or for Alpha Trion to have half his head be two separate pieces that pop up, why should the Horrorcon beast heads be any different?

OK, that wasn't kept short at all...

Emerje