So, I totally missed out on the creation of Windblade but I have to say, now that we have here she is rather interesting. of course, things were changed about her in order to get her to fit the story, but overall she's made a great addition to the canon.

So... should Hasbro try and capture lightning in a bottle twice?

 

Yeah, I think they should. One every milestone, like 40th anniversary and definitely for the 50th.

 

No
One windblade is enough

 

I wouldn't be opposed to another but it should be done sparingly. It should be kept as something special rather than annual or something.

And the fan reaction should definitely be more receptive to the new character. Windblade's reception by the fans was just vitriolic for no damn reason. Sometimes I just want to slap this fandom...

 

If Wingblade gets enough of a reception from her features and her toy sale... I guess they could consider it.

They could easily do a less-involved fan-built setup by using the various combiners... repaint a bunch to whatever fans think would be great... or something.

 

Personally, I like the idea but agree that it should be done sparingly. Every 5 to 10 years would make me happy.

I also think they need to avoid questions that would give the character personality... I'd rather we design the character's look and job and faction and then let IDW create a character around them. Windblade works as a character, in my opinion, because she is a fighter who is also out of her depth and a bit naive.

 

Sure, if they make it to where you can only vote once. I think the results would be enlightening...

 

People who can't tell their D's from G's annoy me

 

I don't see why not. Windblades' reception has been mostly positive and what bullshit there was brought a lot of ingrained misogyny and crap in the fandom to the surface to be examined, ridiculed and rejected. We're getting a beautiful toy out of it in addition to the extremely well received and solid selling comic so if the toy sells well (and no reason to assume it won't at this point I don't see why we shouldn't get another fan-built bot every couple of years or so. Don't want to overdo it and they wouldn't all need to get a comic series.

Plus if we got another fembot the meltdown amongst the sexist little shits will be funny to watch again.

 

Yes, and it may happen sooner rather than later. Don't forget that Hasbro is teaming up with Shapeways to let fans create their own works based on their IPs. This could lead the way for more directly involved fan-created figures. Possibly not as involved in the lore as Windblade, but there's always a possibility.

 

It'd be fun, but I can just imagine that "we" would pick the exact same choices again. "Oh, they want another 'female red sword-wielding jet Autobot', hrn..."

 

Don't care either way as long as it's a Decepticon.

 

Remember Drift? Fanmade characters can be a two edged sword. On one hand they can be a colorful and fun addition to the story. On the other it can be a grating mess. If the character is actually a character and has interests, weakness, strengths, and looks appealing then I think yeah. We need those. I just cant stand the Mary Sue, "badass", no weakness, used to be a Decepticon now Im an Autobot, mystic weapons set stuff that will inevitably come out of the fandom. I guess Im saying simply. As long as the character added to the canon is beneficial and makes sense I see no problem with it. When the character added has no discernible reason to be there or undermines the established canon then I see no reason for it to exist in the first place.

 

Why not. New characters are always nice.

 

instead of a new character per-say, what about a "reboot" of an existing character, possibly one that was used in the past, but hasn't seen much usage in any media recently.

 

Wow, so me not liking Windblade has everything to do with me being an ingrained misogynist? Mind-blowing. And here I thought it was because the toy was a disproportionate mess and that the character is almost a trope. I should really get some counseling.


Political rhetoric aside, I repeat what I said earlier, and vote that we should do it again, but with restrictions so that someone could only vote once.

 

I love the idea of it, and I wouldn't mind getting one as often as once per year, with a caveat: That they don't necessarily play any major role in the story. Just, y'know, "Oh hey here's this new G1 character, he's got a name and a personality, and he turns into a rock, because people like Rock Lords and they voted for this shit, so now it's a running joke that he's ACTUALLY got the most useless alt-mode ever, moving on". Though you'd then have people complaining that these new characters were filling spots that could go to existing super-obscure G1 characters.

 

Well said. Perhaps any future polls should simply focus on the look of the bot and let the writers decide his/her personality.

I'd like another poll, but I can't help feel that it was a masquerade for a bit of market research. Case in point, a lot of us have wanted more femmebots in the lineup, the poll came along and now we have three on the way. Not that I'm complaining, but now Hasbro have got their data I can't imagine we'll see another for a while. I'd like to be proven wrong!

 

I wouldn't. Of course, I admit to having voted for most of the options that went into Windblade, but if I was gonna do it again, I'd want a different character, since now we HAVE the character that we voted for the first time.   (Of course, this assumes that Hasbro would actually be dumb enough to put the exact same options that constituted Windblade back into the poll the next time around.)

I don't mind the fan-made polls, either...and I think limiting it to anniversary years is probably a good idea.