Transformers Studio Series Thundercracker and Mixmaster Found in Canada

The stream today both made me feel good and also made me just sigh in ambivalence.

KSI Widow looks so good, and I am so excited for her.

One Starscream is good looking, glad to get him as well.

I really hope we get Marvel Megatron from that mold, would be nice.

I continue to be disappointed that the CW Thundercracker was the oddball with my favorite blue, and all the others are just too bright for me to like.

Glad we got to see early samples of Airachnid and Trion, I am looking forward to both.

Mudflap and Skids are still on the table, I really hope to see them soon.

The idea of 84-85 bots that weren't in the 86 movie is absurd and I hate it so much. That is scraping rather than finally finishing a 2nd movie's cast. Would be nice if we could at least complete another couple of live action casts before we start doing this nonsense.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:The idea of 84-85 bots that weren't in the 86 movie is absurd and I hate it so much. That is scraping rather than finally finishing a 2nd movie's cast. Would be nice if we could at least complete another couple of live action casts before we start doing this nonsense.

I literally could not care any less about more Bayverse bots, and I would love to see more 84–85 bots in modern form. A proper Sunstreaker with spoiler, a Windcharger scaled with the other new minibots (who technically was in the film), a Seaspray also in scale, etc. In fact, it would be great to get a break from the Bayverse and Beast Wars bots for a few years.

There's a practical aspect to it too - the G1 cartoon is still their biggest draw, a bunch of popular (and very marketable) characters never made it into the movie, and there's nowhere else in the range for non-Masterpiece cartoon-styled figures to go. The ostensibly movie-specific SS line has already been expanded to cover games and concept art; it seems reasonable to include more characters from the exact same cartoon series even if they didn't make it into that series's between-seasons movie outing.

I'm quite sure they knew the poll was going to result in a whole lot of people jumping up and yelling "Yes! MOOOOORE!" or they wouldn't have asked.

Mixmaster and Scavenger look great very excited to complete Devastator as the other four should be on my way soon. Megatron's bot mode looks fantastic, but I find his tank mode to look a little generic. That being said I am still looking forward to him. I haven't gotten any of the TFOne figures, but Airachnid looks very good can't wait to see more of her.

Notes from today's stream:

Nate and Evan abstain from using the word "gun" in reference to SS86 Megatron, opting to use the word "blaster" instead.

The figure does have butterfly joint shoulder articulation.

The tank mold is based on a real-life tank prototype from the '80s that never got produced. It was called something like the "Armored Blaster System", which Evan felt was perfect for Megatron considering he used to be turn into a "blaster".

SS86 Grimlock is a straight rerelease of the same Leader class figure from 2021, giving people who missed out on him the first time a second chance to get him. He comes with the same accessories as before. Nothing else new about him.

Voyager WFC Thundercracker has yellowish eyes because in the WFC video game, all three Seekers actually have slightly different colored eyes from each other, compared to the promo art where all three just have red eyes, so they wanted to be faithful to the in-game eye colors.

SS86 Mixmaster is a Voyager instead of a Deluxe because he is one of Devastator's feet, so they had to build in ratchets into his robot mode waist so that he could have an ankle tilt for stability in order to support the weight of the combiner when he becomes Devastator's foot.

There are no plans for a Devastator giftset for either 2026 or 2027 right now. They encourage us to buy the Constructicons this year rather than later. They are already knee-deep in 2027 planning and are intentionally not planning a box set so that they can move on to other Combiners they have to get to.

SS TF One Elita One comes with the mining jetpack seen in the movie, which is also compatible with the other SS TF One Optimus, Megatron, and Bumblebee figures.

SS TF One Starscream is the first of more TF One Seekers to come. The will not just be doing pure redecos, they will make sure that the sculpts match what we see in the film.

KSI Widow is based on the McLaren MP4-12C that appears among the many KSI drones in Age of Extinction, but whose robot mode was never actually shown onscreen. They had concept art for something called "Widowmaker", whose altmode ended becoming Stinger's altmode in the film. But they really liked the Widowmaker concept art and wanted to bring it into the toyline, so they simply color-graded her red to orange to make her match the McLaren. And now she's KSI Widow.

They wanted to give more female Decepticon representation to the Bay movies (besides Alice). Though, Evan admits that she's more KSI than Decepticon since it was kind of a gray area in that movie.

First look at 2026 Studio Series product:

TF One Airachnid is a Deluxe, but very "significant", like a "Deluxe Plus". She has ball-joint articulated spider legs, and butterfly-jointed arms because of how she transforms. Lots of articulation.

TF One Alpha Trion is a Voyager. He does have the sculpted battle damage, the rust and grime that he has when they find him in the movie. That was one of the flourishes that they wanted to bring into this line, to separate it from the "kid line" version that was a clean Alpha Trion. They did use the movie CAD for this figure.

Evan jokes that a new Rail Racer would have each of his three components be a Titan since they are "monstrous".

Evan and Nate explain that Skids and Mudflap are more of an eventuality, but right now not so much. The two are brought up every once in a while to see how everyone is feeling, and it's just like "No, not yet." They'll never say never on this, they think they'll get there eventually, just not right now. This is different from the discussion on Megatron's "blaster vs. tank" mode since that is a legal thing. There's no gray area there, they just can't do it. But with Skids and Mudflap it's more of an "emotional" thing. They know there are strong opinions about them, like "Just finish the collection!" and "No, not now!" But for now, there are no plans. That is not a "never", they are fully aware that those are two gaping holes in the collection, it's hopefully a potentiality but they'll see. Every year they try to gauge the interest across the design team, so it's an eventuality. It will happen, eventually. They hope.

Evan is very coy about the possibility of Monstructor.: "I think fans realize that the pieces are out there. We've used those molds a couple of times, but maybe he's coming and maybe I promise you he won't be dinosaurs." Stay tuned on Monstructor "potentially coming".

Fan poll question: "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?" They've had this conversation many times, as there are also different versions of the script and storyboards that show different characters in scenes that got cut. And it always turned out be "What is okay to show in Studio Series and label it 'Studio Series'?" So, what do the fans prefer? It's a simple "Yes" or "No".

People have quoted Evan being "slightly wrong" about "We'll be done with 86 in 2026." There will be more, there's always more. Evan can mine deeper, can go deeper. There is no bottom. "This one animation cel, this one interview from back in 1986 where someone said, 'I recorded lines but I got cut,' this one animation error, etc."

Images below are from the video above as well as Hasbro Pulse and Notrab

adamage1 wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:The idea of 84-85 bots that weren't in the 86 movie is absurd and I hate it so much. That is scraping rather than finally finishing a 2nd movie's cast. Would be nice if we could at least complete another couple of live action casts before we start doing this nonsense.

I literally could not care any less about more Bayverse bots, and I would love to see more 84–85 bots in modern form. A proper Sunstreaker with spoiler, a Windcharger scaled with the other new minibots (who technically was in the film), a Seaspray also in scale, etc. In fact, it would be great to get a break from the Bayverse and Beast Wars bots for a few years.

You could care less, some of us not so much. Some of us also could care less to see more 84-86 after WFC and SS86.

Also: This year, we are only getting 6 live action bots total, and only 4 are technically bayverse. 2 of the 6 got their first toy, and 2 their 2nd. In 2024, including core, we only got 10 live action bots; exactly ONE was bayverse and it was a core, and SEVEN were concept made up figures. And in 2023, it was RotB heavy, with again exactly 1 bayverse core.

So, please excuse me if im a bit starved for my favorites, in the line they started.

I mean come on, it's going to now be at least NINE CONTINUOUS YEARS of the line since the first live action Dinobot got released before a 2nd comes.

Wow. First Vortex, now Mixmaster? What's with Canada getting all this early access?

DeathReviews wrote:Wow. First Vortex, now Mixmaster? What's with Canada getting all this early access?

Unless something has changed, they still haven't gotten AOTP wave 01 yet. So there's a trade off.

What did Evan mean by the molds are out there?

As a primarily G1 collector I'm not exactly enthused about SS84 because I'm not much into reissues of stuff I already have, and that's totally what I expect them to be. Basically ER/WFC/Siege and Kingdom repacked into SS line. Oh sure they'll repaint them to look more G1 animation accurate such as Huffer which only cost $16 back then but now $25.. But I've got zero interest in that. I would have preferred an SS87 line where we could get a mix of old and new bots skewed more towards unmade characters. I especially want a new Octane, Astrotrain and a few interesting looking Cybertronians. That said, if they made new versions of Firestar, Flareup, Chromia and Moonracer from the Autobot resistance episode I'd buy them. Otherwise I cannot think of anyone that hasn't been made from Season 1 & 2. Though we do still need the minibots, but according to rumors and listings those are coming at some point

I get that these tend to perform well but oversaturation can be a thing and I don't think they do the line any favors by doing this, especially with so much other content to be mined it only builds tension among the fandom when you ignore a segment. it also feels very stale to see the same characters and designs over and over. Though TBH, I'm surprised that G1 still has such a strong hold on the collecting community as we are aging out or have almost everything already. Maybe Hasbro feels they only have another twenty years to keep going to that well before moving on? I'd be curious what the landscape would look like then when all us G1ers are gone, or most of them.
They also tackled Beat Wars pretty well the last few years.

Till-all-R1 wrote:I get that these tend to perform well but oversaturation can be a thing and I don't think they do the line any favors by doing this, especially with so much other content to be mined it only builds tension among the fandom when you ignore a segment. it also feels very stale to see the same characters and designs over and over. Though TBH, I'm surprised that G1 still has such a strong hold on the collecting community as we are aging out or have almost everything already. Maybe Hasbro feels they only have another twenty years to keep going to that well before moving on? I'd be curious what the landscape would look like then when all us G1ers are gone, or most of them.
They also tackled Beat Wars pretty well the last few years.

G1 is the primary reason there is a fandom. And it has taken Hasbro sometimes 35+ years to finally release figures that are (mostly) character model-accurate, in-scale, and fun to transform, e.g. SS86 Optimus, SS86 Megatron, SS86 Constructicons/Devastator, Legacy Gears, Earthrise Wheeljack, Kingdom Cyclonus, etc. Those characters had almost nothing but trash, figures that looked almost nothing like their models, or nothing at all as figures in the mainline for literally decades (I am not counting 80s figures as most of them had only a passing resemblance to the character models and very limited articulation). These last 10 years have been amazing for a longtime fan like me.

I would actually love to see a new Transformers show that ISN’T Beast Wars or doesn’t use the awful Animated/Cyberverse design style; perhaps a full series arc on old Cybertron—in the vein of Knights of the Old Republic—using a modernized G1 animation design with a whole new cast of characters that also touches on the future characters we come to know. Do it with love and care, with proper voice actors, unlike the awful Machinima series. And yes, I am aware that TF One is similar, but that is a one-off movie, and it relies more on CG renders than the hand-drawn animation style. Think more along the lines of what X-Men ’97 is doing.

adamage1 wrote:These last 10 years have been amazing for a longtime fan like me.

I agree, I actually just got back into TF recently(2020) because of the "improvements". I had watched it on and off though the iterations and never liked any of the toys until I saw the ER figures. I wasn't trying to poo poo on any of that, but just stating that it could lead to even more resentment from fans of the other content who feel it's unfairly balanced. I couldn't care less about anything made after G1 because try as I ight the shows just come off way to childish to cringe in a lot of cases. Some shows were better than others but not enough to endear me to care a about getting said characters. Not the G1 was highbrow/intellectual but it didn't come across like they were speaking down to you like kid kid shows do now.

adamage1 wrote:I would actually love to see a new Transformers show that ISN’T Beast Wars or doesn’t use the awful Animated/Cyberverse design style; perhaps a full series arc on old Cybertron—in the vein of Knights of the Old Republic—using a modernized G1 animation design with a whole new cast of characters that also touches on the future characters we come to know. Do it with love and care, with proper voice actors, unlike the awful Machinima series. And yes, I am aware that TF One is similar, but that is a one-off movie, and it relies more on CG renders than the hand-drawn animation style. Think more along the lines of what X-Men ’97 is doing.

Same here, I have never cared for most of the new age animation. Almost as if they're trying to mimic eastern anime but far worse. I'm not exactly a fan of that style either and can only tolerate specific Japanese animation style and tone. I actually thought TF One was okay on several aspects but lacked agency with character portrayals. Animation was fine but I'd have dialed it back a bit. It was far better than the live action movies as far as I'm concerned, but that's not exactly a high bar. Possibly on par with Bumblebee. As much as I'd like to see new characters I think it's written that Prime, Bee etc. have to be in any content made as name recognition. ha
I also wouldn't mind a quasi sequel to the 86 movie, I know that it was pretty much covered in the old show after the movie but they could probably come up with a story to get UM, Rodimus Kup etc on the big screen. Though ideally I'd love to see those character appear in live action.

Sabrblade wrote:

TK415 wrote:What did Evan mean by the molds are out there?

Is that what he meant because that would mean even further retooling to get them away from being dinosaurs. At which point I'd wonder why they didn't just make new molds.



I'm hoping he was talking about this:




A plan was made at some point to use these molds as Monstructor, but that would require replacing Grimlock. No telling just how far they got with this.

Emerje

A brand new mold of TWO characters that eould "superlink" into a Combiner Wars compatible torso would be super rad. Then, repaint/retool some previous PotP limb bots and we could have a killer Monstructor set.

-Kanrabat- wrote:A brand new mold of TWO characters that eould "superlink" into a Combiner Wars compatible torso would be super rad. Then, repaint/retool some previous PotP limb bots and we could have a killer Monstructor set.

Wildfly we already have... Blot into Icepick and Scowl, and Snarl/Sinnertwin into Bristleback?

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:Wow. First Vortex, now Mixmaster? What's with Canada getting all this early access?

Unless something has changed, they still haven't gotten AOTP wave 01 yet. So there's a trade off.

Canadian here. Had my Megatronus, Solus & Prima Prime delivered mid-Apr, May 2 (they all had Release Date of May 1/2 when PO opened on Amazon/GameStop/Walmart Canada).

cloudballoon wrote:

chuckdawg1999 wrote:

DeathReviews wrote:Wow. First Vortex, now Mixmaster? What's with Canada getting all this early access?

Unless something has changed, they still haven't gotten AOTP wave 01 yet. So there's a trade off.

Canadian here. Had my Megatronus, Solus & Prima Prime delivered mid-Apr, May 2 (they all had Release Date of May 1/2 when PO opened on Amazon/GameStop/Walmart Canada).

Was that before or after Vortex and Alchemist Prime were found in stores?

For anyone who missed out on the Target exclusive redeco of Blaster for SS86, Pulse has him up for pre-order right now.

https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/tra ... ansformers

TF-fan kev777 wrote:For anyone who missed out on the Target exclusive redeco of Blaster for SS86, Pulse has him up for pre-order right now.

https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/tra ... ansformers

Was there high demand for this re-release?

I mean, wasn't there a color variant not long ago???

megatran wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:For anyone who missed out on the Target exclusive redeco of Blaster for SS86, Pulse has him up for pre-order right now.

https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/tra ... ansformers

Was there high demand for this re-release?

I mean, wasn't there a color variant not long ago???

This is the color variant. The SS86 version of Blaster was a hard-to-find Target exclusive. The Kingdom and Legacy versions were mass retail.

Sabrblade wrote:

megatran wrote:

TF-fan kev777 wrote:For anyone who missed out on the Target exclusive redeco of Blaster for SS86, Pulse has him up for pre-order right now.

https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/tra ... ansformers

Was there high demand for this re-release?

I mean, wasn't there a color variant not long ago???

This is the color variant. The SS86 version of Blaster was a hard-to-find Target exclusive. The Kingdom and Legacy versions were mass retail.

Only Toys R Us had it in Canada. And like all of their Transformers, it was 15% more expensive than the normal price.
So, nope.

Meanwhile still waiting for a Thrust reissue...
I get it that maybe this was more difficult to find than regular Blaster, but it wasn't as bad as Cosmos was. SS86 Blaster also had a limited amount of preorders on Pulse did they not? I didn't have quite the issue getting Target Blaser that I did others. Plus, wasn't it just last year? I don't understand how one item will have an immediate turnaround like this one while others were a much longer wait. But whatever, as long as people who missed it can now get it much easer.

Till-all-R1 wrote:Meanwhile still waiting for a Thrust reissue...
I get it that maybe this was more difficult to find than regular Blaster, but it wasn't as bad as Cosmos was. SS86 Blaster also had a limited amount of preorders on Pulse did they not? I didn't have quite the issue getting Target Blaser that I did others. Plus, wasn't it just last year? I don't understand how one item will have an immediate turnaround like this one while others were a much longer wait. But whatever, as long as people who missed it can now get it much easer.

Ditto, in Australia.
Thrust was very limited & sporadic. Same with chonky boy Cosmos.
Blaster was not an exclusive to Target, thank goodness.

Good luck everyone.

I just transformed the SS Leader AoE Optimus. The bot looks good, but the kibble management is still cancerous. The transformation, however, is very interesting and appart some panels massage at the end, it was easy enough to figure out.

Still, like Bee Concept Megatron, ROTB Primal/Apelink, he does not feel like a leader. It is more like an "Ultra" class, when there was something between Voyager and Leader.

Still, TBH, the old leaders from 2007, ROTF and DOTM could count as Commanders nowadays.

The Asshole Club:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The Asshole Club:

1000005943.jpg

Also known as a "Jerk Convoy".

Sabrblade wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:The Asshole Club:

1000005943.jpg

Also known as a "Jerk Convoy".

Thanks to the fact that it was 25% off from Prime Day at Amazon.ca, I finally got myself the Devastation Optimus Prime. He's big enough for a deluxe and the bot look pretty nice... from the front.

This deluxe have the ugliest weapon I've ever seen. I find his butt-scrap kibble to be an eyesore and the truck's look is ruines due to those ugly side panels. Also, what's up with that giant-ass trailer hitch? I bet there's something planned for it in the future.

Anyway, compared to the top deluxe Optimus contender, the Earthspark one, the Devastation is a failure. At around 10$CAN more expensive than the ES, the Devastation fails to be better.

The ES have a more original bot mode, and he's a bit more fun to transform. The truck looks amazing from all angles and even his hunchback-bacppack loos more streamline that whatever torture device Mr Devastation carries on his butt.

Overall, D. Optimus isn't horrible, but there's better deluxe Optimusses out there. Like the G1 Universe one.