BotCon '94 - Dave van Domelen

Well, BotCon was cool overall, and I bought lots of stuff (my Soundwave is standing next to the keyboard with Laserbeak or Buzzsaw on his shoulder). There was a Retrospective book which will probably end up all posted to the net eventually (possibly by Hex. }->. But the real news is the Hasbro Presentation.

First off, details on Dreadwing, to give spoilerspace to those who don't wish to know more. Yeah, right.

Dreadwing fires a LOT of stuff. First off, he has a gatling-style six shot missile launcher in combined mode (which stays with the tank half). In less than a second you can fire six missiles something like 30 feet. The moment the Hasbro guy fired that off, he had the audience in his pocket, man. Even if this is the last thing they make in the line, we thought, it's so unremittingly cool it'd be worth it. Anyway, the combined form splits into a small jet (named Smokescreen, oddly) who can fire two individual missiles and a tank body which has side-clips for all the missiles to be stored on. The transformation is much better than implied by the old picture in Hero. The toy is delayed a month or two because the missiles have a tendency to break off, allowing one to shoot 1/2" long projectiles, which is a Bad Thing. So once the missiles are redesigned and replaced, we'll see DW in stores, possibly as soon as August. Definitely before Christmas.

Okay, anyone who didn't want the spoilers is gone. Now to start:

<FX: Crowds jumping around like idiots on the news that there IS a 1995 line, author included>

Generation 2 is a thing of the past. The label has outlived its usefulness and will be removed from the 19 toys in the new line. The packaging has been redesigned to:

• Make it easier to find subgroups from the mass of un-sorted bubble cards on the rack
  
• Prevent the "Glue on the stat card" syndrome. A few of the subgroups will have a new trading-card sized removable piece that is placed over the front art (and has the same picture). This card opens up to show a pop-up picture of the Transformer! And behind that is an expanded statcard! No more clip and save, just take it off and keep it! Yay!

Because Hasbro is dedicated to making Transformers work, the following things are planned:

• A 1996 line, with even more toys (no details at this time)
  
• Seeking another publisher for the comic. Mention of Dark Horse elicited a 'knowing smirk' from the Hasbro guys, and mention of Image elicited a 'are you crazy?' look.
  
• An all-new cartoon if (and only if) the line really takes off again.

Now for the products themselves. We saw late-stage models of the toys, which look on the surface like the real thing but are more fragile (a guy from Toei broke one...oops). The main idea is to get prices down to where toy store buyers will buy them. So nothing is over $25 (note, Dreadwing is planned for $24.99) except MAYBE one toy. Price estimates included in individual entries. The colors we saw were mostly preliminary, but few were vomit-inducing. We may have convinced them to keep a couple of the better sample schemes. All toys are about as poseable as they could make them, including the really cheap ones. They shouldn't have the Laser Rod Hips problem, though.

SUPERSPEEDBOTS
Positioning at the bottom of the price range, but not the quality range, man. $2-3 each, these are the size and look of Hot Wheels cars, with through-axles so they run well. The transformations were shown, and are significanly more complicated than minibots were. I'd put them about at the level of the most subtle Micromasters or maybe a Dinobot. There will be six individually sold Superspeedbots, one of which is named Pothole (at least for now).

In addition, there's the Superspeedbot Racing Rig (no individual name yet). It's a tractor-trailer rig which I suppose can hold all 6 SSBots plus the one which comes with it (a clear plastic one where you can see the guts... this design *is* final). In addition, the trailer folds down into a ramp. And the really cool bit is that as soon as the ramp is fully down, that triggers the launcher, sending the included car about 10 feet! Kids will LOVE this. Parents will hate it. }-> 1995 is the Year Of Shooting Things Around for Transformers. The rig looks a bit boxy, like some of the largest Micro bases. But the cool features make up for this.

CYBERJETS
Middle range, anywhere from $4 to $7, but I'd guess the low end. These three jets all have a new kind of non-spring, non-pneumatic missile launcher. They stand about 4 inches tall. The three jets are a Stealth Bomber (Fighter?) with the absolute BEST paint job I've seen (I hope they keep it), a tiger-striped F-18 named Hooligan and a white with blue crosshatch X-22 (similar to the GIJoe swept-wing fighter). Low on the whistles-and-bells end of the line's scale, but still cool.

POWERMASTERS
AKA Throttlebots: The Next Generation. Pull-back motors with a twist. Each toy has a weapon that acts as a key. When the motor is revved, nothing happens at first. But insert the key, the the car takes off. Even the super-heavy sample went fairly fast, and we're promised the real thing will be zooming at hundreds of scale miles per hour. Probably the weakest of the new line, but hundreds of times better than the original Throttles. The transformations are much better. The line is four vehicles: a Hummvee named Ironhide (related to the original? Doubt it), a Funnycar, a motorcycle and a Tractor-trailer named Staxx. No mention of price, but I'd guess $5 range.

MOTORCYCLES
Speaking of motorcycles. The design guys realized that TFs had never really had a convincing motorcycle toy. So they set out to rectify that with the Lazer Cycles! VERY realistic looking (even better than the Rotor deceps) motorcycles that resemble a Harley-Davidson and a Yamaha (who is named Cobaltt). The resemblance can't be too close since they didn't license the likenesses of the cycles. But you know it's there. In motorcycle form, the tailpipes glow. In robot form, the tailpipe becomes a weapon, a rifle I think. The Yamaha has an exceedingly cool and recognizable robot form. It's the spitting image of a Bubblegum Crisis Motoslave. I WANT THIS TOY. }-> They'll probably be Laser Rod pricerange.

AUTOROLLERS
Here's a new gimmick. The two vehicles in this line look like scaled up Scrapper and Long Haul (in green right now), about 5-6 inches long. If you hold down a special button in the back of the vehicle mode and roll it forward, it AUTOTRANSFORMS. The robot just unfolds like a flower! And roll it back while holding the button and the reverse happens. Don't hold the button, and it stays in current mode. Now, there seems to be a big chunk in back that doesn't transform and makes the robot mode look clunky, but hey. It's still amazing the first time you see it. This could (and should) be positioned as a Kid's First Transformer. You get the neatness of transformation without being frustrated by being unable to transform it. I consider this to be Jumpstarters TNG. }-> No mention of price, but by size I'd guess $9-10.

OPTIMUS PRIME OCTANE
Yes, another Prime (no new Megs planned for a few years, though). This one is so mindmanglingly full of features it seemed at first they'd never finish presenting it. And it'll be $25!

The toy is a convincing oil tanker slightly larger than the original Prime toy, using a longnose cab. The current color scheme of red and black is MUCH better than Sureshot (aka Hero Prime)'s McD's colors.

Robot: Laser Rod effect, headlights light up and he has a big sword which lights up. Headlights are on shoulders in robot form. Electrical contacts inside the fists to activated one of the other gimmicks.

Tanker: The top of it rotates around and fires 1.5" disks. Upend it and push a button, and it automatically transforms into a battlebase.

Battlebase: Here's where things get really cool. On the top of the middle tower is an LED gun which activates when you complete the circuit by putting Prime's fist in the handle. At the base of the tower is a Combat Hero cannon (which can use CH ammo) that has full traverse and was shown to fire 40 feet! There's a missile launcher on one side of the perimeter stuff, I think it uses the Cyberjet principle. And the diskshooter is on the other side. MAN, this is really cool. Fans were bursting into flames with excitement at this one.

Of the above, I think the Cyberjets, the Laser Cycles and Prime will have the special 3D techspec cards, but I can't recall for sure.

Dave Van Domelen, nearly got killed driving back from BotCon by someone who felt he didn't need to yield right of way at the intersection to the freeway over his back road...thank you video games for the reflexes to dodge him and Car Wars for making it seem reasonable to cut an S-curve while slamming the brakes.