Flux Convoy wrote:ScottyP wrote:Flux Convoy wrote:** said some stuff **
** replied to some stuff that was said **
** more stuff was said **
I'm with ScottyP on this. I think you're being very forgiving Flux Convoy. We should have you on the show some time. It'd be nice to have someone give a more positive spin on the Club and BotCon offerings from the past 6 six years.
The 2009 through 2013 sets were pretty disappointing to me. For it to have been 6 or 7 years since there was a set that I liked, the Botcon exclusives become more and more frustrating to me as a collector who spends an absurd amount of money on Transformers toys every year.
2008 "Shattered Glass" - not for me, but a clever set regardless. I knew what the purpose of the set was and I think that's what frustrated me the most. They went the boring route possible in response to the huge backlash from the previous year over the Seekers. They did the one thing that Hasbro most likely will never do ... which is turn the Autobots evil and the Decepticons heroic. To me, I just saw it as a lame attempt to prevent the 2007 drama from happening again and create some really unimaginative repaints by reversing color schemes. We got a few cool things out of it though ... I love the Marvel head on Megatron and black Rodimus with a goatee wasn't too bad either. They wasted a head by doing a new head for Blurr, when Blurr already had a G1 head. Complete waste. Poor decision. The rest, along with Blurr, I could do without.
2009 "Wings of Honor" - Just a boring set. It was cool getting Kup, but that was a poor choice for him. Scourge was pretty cool at the time considering that we didn't have a Classics Scourge yet. I think Leozack was really the only thing that I was pretty happy with that year. He went nicely with 2005 Deszaras.
2010 "G2 Redux" - I think I would have bought into this set more had it been called "Generation 1.5". Calling it G2 and not doing some obvious figures like G2 Sideswipe, G2 Grimlock, G2 Ramjet, etc was just a really poor set and had very little to do with G2. It was also the first comic that I just thought was a waste. Double Punch is the lone figure that I think of every time I think of this set. He's pretty frikkin' cool. And so's G2 Breakdown, but outside of those two I could do without the rest. The BotCon comic should basically focus on the set and show exclusives. If it tries to have too many other characters in it, it just becomes a story with ADD issues and little is accomplished. Little cameos here and there are OK, but the comic should focus on that year's toys.
2011 "Animated" - Had the comic worked harder to tell the story about the Stunticons instead of focusing on Toxitron, I think I might have liked this set more. I had a big issue with the Optimus Prime body being used for Motormaster when I thought Wreck-Gar would have been a much better choice (and also provided a way for that mold to get used again, rather than re-using a mold that I own 8 times or something like that). The square head on the super hero looking Optimus Prime body just looks flat out awkward. I also had a big issue with Drag Strip being female. The Kill Bill spin on her design was kind of cool, but weird at the same time. Just reminds me of the Pulp Fiction references at BotCon 1996 which I wasn't too keen on at that time either. Hm ... interesting that there have been two Uma Thurman fictional references at BotCons now. I liked getting a US version of the Autobot drone warriors from Binaltech and I liked Sideswipe but would have preferred a G1 colored Sideswipe. The G2 colored Sideswipe just rubbed salt in the wound for not getting a G2 Sideswipe the prior year.
2012 "Shattered Glass Pt 2" ... reds and blues everywhere. Bad Overlord head/face. What the heck happened to Metalhawk? How'd Road Rag/SG Tracks get screwed up color wise? SG Soundwave using the abysmal Ironhide/Ratchet mold? Just reminded me why SG was most likely created in the first place and didn't like the idea getting double dipped so soon. SG Junkions are OK if you like Shattered Glass, but that's not what I was looking for. I'd rather have new heads to build out the Junkion army. Please do not revisit this concept for a long, long time. Not needed. Not wanted.
2013 "Machine Wars" ... some OK choices but it's tough to accept updates of figures that already had pretty cool toys. I love the Machine Wars "scout" class/basic toys. They're fantastic, fun, and simple. Hoist without being a tow truck is silly. Didn't care for an Electro without his sword (though I appreciate the effort to explain that in the fiction, but it just reminded me of the poor attempt to explain the absence of Nightbeat's antennas in his comic). It was too soon to get an update of Megaplex by not giving the Dreadwing/Skyquake mold a new head. It's just a gray Dreadwing too me. Also, what's the point of having Megaplex without an appropriately colored Megatron? Mirage was pretty cool, but they really missed the opportunity of not having Prowl. I'm assuming he'll be a subscription figure or a future BotCon figure at some point but it would have been better to have had it last year instead. G2 Redux and missed opportunities comes to mind with the 2013 Machine Wars set. I also could have cared less about Obsidian and Strika in a Machine Wars set. I think it would have been better to not have them in the box set and sold them as Generations Extended Universe or something like that as souvenir exclusives at the show. I did enjoy the comic more this year because it focused more on the toys and the fiction that should be behind these toys. Hopefully they will follow this trend with the 2014 set. Seekers are OK, but I really want a Generations/Classics Sunstorm. That was close but not Sunstorm. We just ended up with a yellow seeker with black parts instead of the white parts it should have.
Unfortunately, it just goes to show that you can't please everyone all the time. Here's hoping the rest of the 2014 set returns us to the level of the 2006 set which was pretty amazing.
