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Welcome to the latest episode of the Seibertron.com Twincast / Podcast! This episode features your host ScottyP, Megatronus, RodimusConvoy13, and Jon 3.0 - listen in as we discuss the latest news, toys, and more.

Episode #135 “The Road To Multiverse“ is available directly and in our RSS Feed, and should appear on iTunes and Stitcher Radio within 24 to 48 hours of when you see this news post.

We kick off 2016 with a couple intriguing listener questions. First, SillySpringer asks a very relevant toy-related query: Which four deluxes from Combiner Wars are the best? I want to maybe get Cyclonus and slap some random and good limbs on him.



SW’s SilverHammer blasts us with a comics question: Do you think there will be a point in the story continuity, where the transformers galactic civil war ends? I don't mean where we are now with insurgencies, but a point where there is finality in the war. Or alternatively, do you believe, or would you prefer, that the writers continue the Cybertronain civil war in perpetuity?



Next, the Twincast tackles the reintroduction of the Head, err, Titan-Masters gimmick in the Titan Returns line, notably on traditionally non-Headmaster characters. In the words of Rung: how does that make you feel?



We turn to the Robots in Disguise animated series. Season 2 looms in the distance, and the Twincast has some strong opinions on what direction certain characters, and the series as a whole, should take.



After the TFCC’s announcement of Shattered Glass Unicron in the Club comic, we thought it would be fun to ask: what do you think of the "multiverse" concept in Transformers? Chaos ensues.



We polish off this episode with some bragging rights. This week's theme: your most brag-worthy acquisition from the past month that is not a Generations or Masterpiece.




Don't forget, the show only gets better if you tell us how. Drop us a review on iTunes and be sure to tell us what you love, what you hate, and what you want to hear!

Not on the show to give your take? Probably not, so don't forget to keep the discussion going on the Seibertron.com Energon Pub Forums by simply replying to this post!

Got a question for the Twincast? We take all of them, we just don't take them all seriously! Leave a question in the Ask the Twincast thread and, if it makes the cut, it may get read and answered on the show.

Do they only answer questions on some episodes?

Haven't listened yet, but SG Unicron was only truly a thing after the concept of Multiversal Singularities was formally done away with and disposed of. So now there's no longer only one of Unicron, Primus, and each of the Thirteen, in the multiverse. Now any universe can have their own unique versions of any of those guys (or have none of them, even, like how the U.S. G1 cartoon doesn't a Primus of its own).

Sabrblade wrote:Haven't listened yet, but SG Unicron was only truly a thing after the concept of Multiversal Singularities was formally done away with and disposed of. So now there's no longer only one of Unicron, Primus, and each of the Thirteen, in the multiverse. Now any universe can have their own unique versions of any of those guys (or have none of them, even, like how the U.S. G1 cartoon doesn't a Primus of its own).

Oh neat. We didn't know they had done away with that rule. Can you point us to where that happened or was announced?

I would have loved to have been part of this discussion. I hate the "multiverse" concept. Absolutely hate it. Drives me crazy when comics, cartoons or other fiction telling media use it. Once in a great while is OK as a one-off story or a "what if" story, but it's such an overused concept now that it strikes me as extremely lazy and unoriginal storytelling at this point.

I watched Batman Under The Red Hood last night. Having not followed anything about Robin since I used to read comics back in the 90s, I decided to Wikipedia the character last night. What a travesty DC has done to their storylines over the years. I know Marvel's gone that route too, to an extent, but it's just an unnecessary mess that they destroyed their timelines so bad. Lazy writing, cop out storytelling, unimaginative writers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_(comics)

When I read the multiverse idea get introduced into the Transformers Regeneration comics, I clearly remember the words "Seriously?!?! What the #^c&!" being said aloud. It was one of the few places left in the world of Transformers fiction that had been left untouched by the multiverse.

Not everything needs to be connected. There's no need for it.

The relaunch of the Star Trek film franchise was a very clever take on this concept where something happened thanks to black holes, exploding stars, singularities, etc, that sent Spock back in time which altered history and caused Vulcan to be destroyed instead of Romulus. This event or events caused a splinter in time which has caused the new alternate Star Trek timeline. Finding an actual point in the Next Generation stories that allowed this to happen was really clever. Now, if they relied on this regularly to reboot the timeline, this concept would also grow old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)

megatronus wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Haven't listened yet, but SG Unicron was only truly a thing after the concept of Multiversal Singularities was formally done away with and disposed of. So now there's no longer only one of Unicron, Primus, and each of the Thirteen, in the multiverse. Now any universe can have their own unique versions of any of those guys (or have none of them, even, like how the U.S. G1 cartoon doesn't a Primus of its own).

Oh neat. We didn't know they had done away with that rule. Can you point us to where that happened or was announced?

It happened last year in the October/November 2015 issue of the TCC magazine, in "Another Light, Part 5: Out of the One, Many".

All the Thirteen came together and Nexus Prime used the Star Saber and the Terminus Blade together to strengthen the walls between universes, thereby erasing the singularity nature of himself and his brethren, splitting everyone of them into their own unique, separate entities across the multiverse, manifesting in whichever universes would accept them.

As a side effect, though, because the universal membranes were thickened, this caused travel between universes to be closed off, with the TransTechs of Axiom Nexus losing all contact with the rest of the multiverse, in a phenomenon they have dubbed "the Shroud". This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Sabrblade wrote:This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Then it doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the Fan Club doesn't count, especially considering how low the readership for that content must be. I know you read that stuff, and like it, but it's basically just unofficial fan fiction released by the Club. I bet no one at Hasbro even reads that stuff to make sure it fits whatever criteria content must have to be considered "official".

On that note, I also don't consider the poorly written and mostly boring Transformers novels to be official either. Now if James Roberts or John Barber wrote an official in-cannon book that fit within the IDW continuity, that would be an entirely different story. But as long as they have people writing Transformers books that aren't that familiar with all of the intricacies of the Transformers, then it's not official in my book -- copyright and trademark symbols be damned!

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Then it doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the Fan Club doesn't count,

I'm sorry, Ryan, but who are you to make such a statement like this?

Seibertron wrote:especially considering how low the readership for that content must be.

TFWiki wrote:As of July 16, 2015, Ask Vector Prime had a total readership of 7,263 people.

Ask Vector Prime isn't cannon, either. Sorry.

Seibertron wrote:Now if James Roberts wrote an official in-cannon book that fit within the IDW continuity, that would be an entirely different story. But as long as they have people writing Transformers books that aren't that familiar with all of the intricacies of the Transformers, then it's not official in my book, copyright and trademark symbols be damned!

You just insulted Jim Sorenson, Jesse Wittenrich, and a host of other TF-savvy contributors (including James Roberts).

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Then it doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the Fan Club doesn't count,

I'm sorry, Ryan, but who are you to make such a statement like this?

It's my opinion. It doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the fan club is still just fan fiction.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Then it doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the Fan Club doesn't count,

I'm sorry, Ryan, but who are you to make such a statement like this?

It's my opinion. It doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the fan club is still just fan fiction.

Made edits to my post above.

Seibertron wrote:Now if James Roberts wrote an official in-cannon book that fit within the IDW continuity, that would be an entirely different story. But as long as they have people writing Transformers books that aren't that familiar with all of the intricacies of the Transformers, then it's not official in my book, copyright and trademark symbols be damned!

You just insulted Jim Sorenson, Jesse Wittenrich, and a host of other TF-savvy contributors (including James Roberts).

I gave one specific example. It wasn't a "catch-all" example, Miles.

For once, can you just accept a "I don't like something" answer as exactly that without having to prove you're right or having to explain how it all fits together. It doesn't work that way for a lot of us. I just don't like it and don't consider it official. If you want to do that, that's fine. But I don't care for the novels or the PDF files that have never been printed in book form. The latter is definitely fan fiction, especially considering that it's never been published in a book that you can buy at a book store.

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:This particular plot point was covered not in the magazine comic, but instead via the Facebook fiction pages for Rook, Andromeda, the Axiom Nexus News Editor, and Vector Prime.

Then it doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the Fan Club doesn't count,

I'm sorry, Ryan, but who are you to make such a statement like this?

It's my opinion. It doesn't count. Fan fiction published by the fan club is still just fan fiction.

Made edits to my post above.

Oops! I think I put your post back to how it was. Sorry, didn't mean to click "edit" instead of "quote". That would explain why I had to put in the extra quote bbcode!

I for one LOVE the multiversal concept. It allows a franchise to have a multitude of different takes on a concept without them having to be one off things. And really, the concept of a multiverse has been a part of transformers since it's inception.

Microraptor wrote:I for one LOVE the multiversal concept. It allows a franchise to have a multitude of different takes on a concept without them having to be one off things. And really, the concept of a multiverse has been a part of transformers since it's inception.

Just for the record, I'm OK with having multiple continuities to an extent. I don't like it, but if that's what it takes for Transformers to keep going, that's fine. If people need to call it a multiverse to acknowledge what's come before and after, whatever makes them happy. The aspect I strongly dislike is when it's used as a tool to allow characters from different universes to occupy the same space. Car Robots Fire Convoy and Beast Wars Optimus Primal don't ever need to exist together in the same story from those universes in my opinion. Case in point: Robot Masters was a storyline that didn't need to ever happen, same with the extremely screwed up Binaltech/KISS Players storyline.

Saying "I don't like something" is fine.

What got me was the sweeping declaration that a certain medium of fiction is somehow less than official compared to other mediums when they all come from the same source of writers working from the same license as the likes of IDW and Hasbro Studios. I get it was meant as an opinion, but it came off as sounding like a factual statement.

Fun Pub has just taken to broadening its horizons beyond mere comic books, producing multimedia fiction across physical comics, digital comics, physical prose, digital prose, digital videos, and more.

It's fine if one prefers one medium over another. I myself prefer physical comics over digital ones, but find digital videos easier to access than physical videos.

A multiverse is generally fine by me but all those Hot Rod's together in Regeneration One really did take me right out of the nostalgic feeling I was getting reading that series, seeing all those versions from Transformers lines that came from after I had grown into an adult (and some I really dislike). I could have done without that. It kinda soured the entire run for me.


By the way I'm really liking that how DotM Megatron figure is posed there. Looks awesome.

Sabrblade wrote:What got me was the sweeping declaration that a certain medium of fiction is somehow less than official compared to other mediums when they all come from the same source of writers working from the same license as the likes of IDW and Hasbro Studios. I get it was meant as an opinion, but it came off as sounding like a factual statement.

It's my opinion, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the fandom probably agrees! Though I could be wrong. Curious to hear what the rest of you think.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:What got me was the sweeping declaration that a certain medium of fiction is somehow less than official compared to other mediums when they all come from the same source of writers working from the same license as the likes of IDW and Hasbro Studios. I get it was meant as an opinion, but it came off as sounding like a factual statement.

It's my opinion, but I have a suspicion that a lot of the fandom probably agrees!

It's fine if people don't like something. That's perfectly fine. But not liking something isn't the same as that something being objectively bad.

For instance, there are a lot of really well made horror films out there that have received plenty of critical acclaim and fan appraisal. But I have no interest in horror films, and simply do not care for them. Doesn't mean they're awful, though. I just don't like horror films.

Based on this conversation, the same seems to apply for you with digital prose fiction for Transformers. The medium isn't bad, but you don't care for it and prefer other mediums, which is ok.


On a different note, though, James Roberts's Eugenesis novel has been called a wonderful piece of fiction written by a master of a writer. But as he wrote it as a fan and had it published without permission from Hasbro, it's fan fiction. Remarkably well written fan fiction from what those who've read it have said (I have not yet read it, FWIW), but fan fiction nonetheless.

Sabrblade wrote:Based on this conversation, the same seems to apply for you with digital prose fiction for Transformers. The medium isn't bad, but you don't care for it and prefer other mediums, which is ok.

Basically, but I also lumped in the poorly written novels which have been written by people like Alex Irvine and Alan Dean Foster, both excellent sci-fi writers but poor Transformers fiction writers who don't strike me as actually caring about Transformers and are just collecting a paycheck, whereas there are people like Roberts, Barber, and Sorenson (and others) who are very passionate about Transformers. Would love to see some novelists come out of the woodwork who are passionate Transformers fans as well as having to adhere to a thought out road map like the writers at IDW.

Seibertron wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Based on this conversation, the same seems to apply for you with digital prose fiction for Transformers. The medium isn't bad, but you don't care for it and prefer other mediums, which is ok.

Basically, but I also lumped in the poorly written novels which have been written by people like Alex Irvine and Alan Dean Foster, both excellent writers but poor Transformers fiction writers who don't strike me as actually caring about Transformers and are just collecting a paycheck.

I'd kill for a Jim Sorenson-written or a James Roberts-written TF novel, though.

Anyway, I think we've reached a point where we can finally put this behind us. Good talking, good sir.

Sidenote: We need a handshaking smiley.

Sabrblade wrote:Anyway, I think we've reached a point where we can finally put this behind us. Good talking, good sir.

Sidenote: We need a handshaking smiley.

I'd love to see a Eugenesis style book that is official. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. I would be all onboard with some novels that fit into IDW continuity.

Also, can we burn those books written back in the early 2000s that were supposed to fit within the Dreamwave continuity?

Seibertron wrote:

Microraptor wrote:I for one LOVE the multiversal concept. It allows a franchise to have a multitude of different takes on a concept without them having to be one off things. And really, the concept of a multiverse has been a part of transformers since it's inception.

Just for the record, I'm OK with having multiple continuities to an extent. I don't like it, but if that's what it takes for Transformers to keep going, that's fine. If people need to call it a multiverse to acknowledge what's come before and after, whatever makes them happy. The aspect I strongly dislike is when it's used as a tool to allow characters from different universes to occupy the same space. Car Robots Fire Convoy and Beast Wars Optimus Primal don't ever need to exist together in the same story from those universes in my opinion. Case in point: Robot Masters was a storyline that didn't need to ever happen, same with the extremely screwed up Binaltech/KISS Players storyline.

Here's the thing with the first example: Due to Japan's odd insistence on making everything G1, Car Robots and Beast wars actually exist in the same dimensional stream. So, bad example mate.

Microraptor wrote:Here's the thing with the first example: Due to Japan's odd insistence on making everything G1, Car Robots and Beast wars actually exist in the same dimensional stream. So, bad example mate.

Actually, that's the exact type of thing I'm talking about. There was no need for them to do that. Car Robots is a fine stand alone thing. It doesn't need to be tied into anything else and can exist on its own.

Microraptor wrote:

Seibertron wrote:

Microraptor wrote:I for one LOVE the multiversal concept. It allows a franchise to have a multitude of different takes on a concept without them having to be one off things. And really, the concept of a multiverse has been a part of transformers since it's inception.

Just for the record, I'm OK with having multiple continuities to an extent. I don't like it, but if that's what it takes for Transformers to keep going, that's fine. If people need to call it a multiverse to acknowledge what's come before and after, whatever makes them happy. The aspect I strongly dislike is when it's used as a tool to allow characters from different universes to occupy the same space. Car Robots Fire Convoy and Beast Wars Optimus Primal don't ever need to exist together in the same story from those universes in my opinion. Case in point: Robot Masters was a storyline that didn't need to ever happen, same with the extremely screwed up Binaltech/KISS Players storyline.

Here's the thing with the first example: Due to Japan's odd insistence on making everything G1, Car Robots and Beast wars actually exist in the same dimensional stream. So, bad example mate.

Ah, but his uses of the names "Fire Convoy" and "Optimus Primal" make it a valid example since "Optimus Primal" exists in English continuities while "Fire Convoy" is from a Japanese one.

Seibertron wrote:

Microraptor wrote:Here's the thing with the first example: Due to Japan's odd insistence on making everything G1, Car Robots and Beast wars actually exist in the same dimensional stream. So, bad example mate.

Actually, that's the exact type of thing I'm talking about. There was no need for them to do that. Car Robots is a fine stand alone thing. It doesn't need to be tied into anything else and can exist on its own.

Oh. Well now I feel dumb.