Update: 20141004



Update: 20140918
Beelzeboss teased that they are planning on making a plane version of Slingshot for 2015's Superion. Here's the teaser. It was shown at SDCC a figure for Alpha Bravo, which was a helicopter.

 

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Glowing silhouettes guys!

 

Fantastic marketing - I mean, the fact they're playing into forum vocal need for a proper Slingshot.

 

Honestly they don't have the specs on the combiner port nor the exact size this guy has to be in limb mode so they can't actually be working on this yet. I mean sure its a nice idea and I am sure they are going to work on it but at the minute this got to be just place holder.

 

I'm sure they can make a 3d model that's roughly the right size, estimate the void needed for the combiner port and then just adjust what they've done when the combiner figures become available.

 

They could probably copy 80% of the engineerng from one of the other jet limbs once the toys get released anyways. Just just need to change the surface details and colors to make Slingshot.

 

Nice idea...nice little niche

Will grab one or two if ends up being produced well enough

 

I wonder if this will match the aesthetics and engineering of the official limb bots well. If not, it could stand out as an obvious 3rd party product that looks and functions better than the official limb bots. If that turns out to be the case, unless Superion turns out to be an outstanding combiner, who would want a mediocre Hasbro combiner(yet again) with a single superior(no pun intended) limb?

 

Something to keep an eye on.

Would be nice if it includes some extra add-on parts for the rest of the combiner a la Microblaze to fix those terrible terrible fists and feat on Gen Superion.

 

It was bound to happen.

 

Are you kidding? I figured we'd have 3 or 4 of them. Probably Beelzeboss knew that and released this concept art early trying to get other companies to go with other ideas instead of doing the same thing.

Honestly though, I'd like to see Decepticon Seeker jets that combine to this new combiner standard, oh, and Vehcions. Definitely Vehicons!

 

Anticipating our wants before we want them? I wanna see how this shakes out.

 

I would assume at least some people already started making noise since the initial reveal.

 

That's not any real Harrier variant AFAIK. Seems similar to TFC's in being a hybrid of two very different types. Is it really that hard to reference just a single type of Harrier and not mish-mash from different photos?

I mean if the goal is to deliver a more correct vehicle mode than Hasbro is offering, shouldn't you match either G1 or current real-life?

 

The goal of Beelzeboss may be twofold. The first is to have a more G1 inspired Slingshot. The second may also be to make their toy match the rest of the Superion toy team members as far as having an alt mode that is not entirely accurate to any specific real life vehicle design.

 

I just pray for once slingshot gets a toon accurate head.

 

There's a difference between "fictional plane" and "real plane, but Frankenstein mash of different variants of that plane".

If Hasbro wanted to avoid licensing the Harrier's form, they couldn't use a Harrier II's nose and a Sea Harrier's wings, and say "it's not really a Harrier!"----it's still all Harrier parts.

Hasbro has fake planes in their upcoming Superion. This is very clearly a Harrier made of all Harrier parts---just not any particular Harrier parts combination that really exists.

 

Clear to you and hardcore aircraft enthusiasts, perhaps. I doubt the majority of Superion fans are going to look at the silhouette of Hot Air and say "How dare they not make a purely fictitious OR an accurate real life alt mode?!?". They're just going to look at the finished toy and likely choose it based on whether or not it fits in with the rest of the team to their eyes.

 

And so it begins.