What is Longarm's alt mode, Im guessing a cybertronian tow-truck? It has a winch of some sort, but other than that seems to be a square block?

Also, what size class is his toy supposed to be? I'm guessing anything smaller than a Voyager and Shockwave would have to be a seperate toy, as the head transformation looks impossible to pull off on anything deluxe size?

Lastly, Animated Shockwave has an awesome voice.

 

It's always interesting to see how the spirit of the age finds itself reflected even in things as negligible as kids' cartoons.

We live in a time of great paranoia, dirty government secrets, and arrogant dismissals of personal rights in the name of maintaining "control". Doubt in leadership and the government order is high, so it's no surprise that these themes creep into our current pop culture.

zmog

 

True enough. One could probably do a study about this (heck, look back at old Disney & Warner Bros cartoons that aired during WWI & II). Dude, you just gave me a great idea... I actually might make that the thesis of my next English writing assignment... hmm...

 

Deceepticon-as-underground-guerilla too.

Having an Intel officer being a double agent from the other side is a cold ware thing tough. Best example is CIA's Aldricht Ames.

 

Rank designation.

 

Someone made a 3D animation that showed how easy it would be to pull off, anyone care to repost it? I can easily see longarm's gimmick being he turns into shockwave.

 

I hope we see the toy at Comic-Con

 

It's a rank, I am guessing roughly analogous to "Captain"

Best pic I could capture of the alt mode, I uploaded to the resources page for Longarm: http://www.tfw2005.com/resources/animated-autobots-190/longarm-1873/

No word on the size class. I am assuming a Voyager though I guess a Deluxe could be possible. The arms would be tricky to do but I have an idea how they might work. The shoulders swap over from one to the other, it seems, so I am guessing a mid-arm swivel somewhere, with the extending gimmick doubled up to get the shoulders / elbows in the right positions.

Vehicle is probably very easy, just have the crane turn into his tank gun and (if I remember the Botcon slide right) the tank treads fold down so they're flat in an "H" shape. I guess for crane mode they could do a full 180 for a more compact mode.

 

Cheers Sol, it was a bit tricky to see in the top of the screen in mid-transform.

 

Or British Intelligence's Kim Philby, also a pretty famous story, as he was one of the very topmost administrators in British Intelligence. So yeah... very cold war in that sense...

Interesting also that in this setting the Decepticons are the fringe group, the rebel outsiders who are opposing the Autobot society, rather than the more traditional setting where the Autobots are freedom fighters fighting out from under the steel boot of Con oppression.

Rugged freedom fighters are a common icon, especially in American culture (a country founded on rebellion), but in the current world climate, the USA is the rich, well-equipped, powerful society, and the enemies of state are generally the rag-tag bands of secret subversives... and lo, the role of the Decepticons has changed again to reflect our contemporary fears.

It's not the first time this kind of thing has been explored... 70's pop culture is full of reflections of the oil crisis.

But it's good to look and see how even kid stuff is relevant to our times.

zmog

 

that'd be me!

though now that the episode aired, the model is looking pretty dated. All I had to work off of before were grainy Dubai screenshots.

 

Which?

 

What? I think he means the Shockwave figure.

 

so then what will the toy of him be? will any part of it be shockwaveish? how will they do the stretchy arms? it will be interesting, very interesting.

also, i know the Longarm we've seen the entire time in the episodes was Shockwave. so was there ever a Longarm before Shockwave got to the academy?

 

Judging by the way Megs talks in Autobot Camp... no there wasn't.

 

The only thing I can't wait to see is how the toy gonna transform the arms and his spikes next to the neck.