Well friends, due to the shorter than usual nomination period for the Transformers Hall of Fame and our love for watching you all vote on a final shortlist of characters, we are closing our nominations for the TFW Transformers Hall of Fame nominees tomorrow at 16:00 EST. Then on Sunday look forward to seeing the final shortlist of nominees, drawn from the most popular nominations, to decide TFW’s final five candidates to submit to Hasbro!
What are you waiting for? Drop in on the Official TFW Transformers Hall of Fame Nomination Thread and have your say!
Also be sure to check out our TFWe e-zine section for a short little editorial by yours truly with some thoughts on the kinds of characters that are perhaps deserving of a little recognition in the Transformers Hall of Fame.
Sol Fury
Okay, thanks all for taking part! We'll kick off with the vote counting now, and be back in the very near future with a poll so you can vote on the final five TFW nominees!
Wingnut
Wheeljack
Aernaroth
The Magnificent Masterforce Maven
Who called glor'ious Nippon a haven
She would rescue your ass,
And still do it with class
So Minerva's induction, we're cravin!
UltraAlanMagnus
Tryppy better be on the hall.
Sockie
Sky-Byte's mold looks sweet
Whereas poor Wheeljack is stuck
With elephant ears
(BTW, I do like Wheeljack. But duty calls. =P)
Timelord Megs
BEAST WARS MEGATRON
By far the most successful, cunning, and charming of all the Megatrons; he alone stands out as not just a another random reimagining of the G1 guy. Indeed, he was so successful and influential to the brand, that Hasbro wanted to recreate the magic of that character again by hiring David Kaye to provide the same voice for Megatron in three more series, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron; even though it was a new continuity and that that Megatron was meant to be a different character. That's how influential and important was. Absolutely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
BEAST WARS BLACKARACHNIA
The first truly successful female character, that lead to fembots being a regular thing in this franchise. Since eveyone is going to jump on me and say "But Arcee!", "But Minerva!", I shall explain why she's more important and deserving of fame than either of them. She's never been first in any category, but she's the one that counted.
G1 Arcee was almost a dead end. She may have been in the movie and was the first to be in more than one episode, but she never had much of any character beyond being the girl, and even then she was barely even in season 3 at all, to say nothing of still to this day not getting a real G1 style transforming toy. She didn't pioneer anything in a boys toys brand, as there were female characters in Thundercats, He Man, and GI Joe, who all had a lot more screen time, and for most of them; toys too. But not Arcee; Arcee was a failure through and though. The only reason Arcee gets all the fame and attention is because she was in G1, specifically the movie. G1 still counts for more that anything with this fandom, so anyone from G1 is almost automatically granted a cult classic status whether they deserve it or not. And guess what, until Prime, Arcee didn't do much since G1 either. She was still defined mostly be her gender with still very little screen time. It wasn't until Prime that she finally got a good role and a good character, and that incarnation is probably the best female character to date. But it's a little too soon to induct her in on that alone, not when there are better candidates. Though to be fair she probably needs to be inducted in another year or two.
Minerva fares a lot better, being an actual character and being enough of one to actually get a toy. But there's two issues with her as well. First of all, she spent most of her time in the series as a teenage girl, piloting a transformer body. It wasn't until the very end of the series did her transector gain a spirit of it's own through her. So her character is rather a different situation than most of this franchise, even though she still seems to officially be considered a transformer. This is something I've never been comfortable with though, and I don't really feel it deserves celebration. Not all things this franchise does are good ideas… Second, she's still rather an isolated incident. She was in Masterforce, and a little of Victory, but that's it, and outside of the fandom (that is so acutely aware of the history of the brand in Japan), she's kind of a non-entity. And it would be several years before a female character would appear again…
Which brings us to Blackarachnia. She was the first to really be a major character in a Transformers cartoon, and to have a presence on the toy shelves, both of which left an enduring legacy. Other than Arcee, she's the only female character to consistently get multiple toys over the life of this brand, she was a major character with plot threads of her own, not just in Beast Wars, but Beast Machines, and then years later in Animated too. Hell, a Big chunk of season 3 of BW is about her even. And even today, Airachnid in Prime was clearly inspired by her. And female characters have bee relatively common ever since BA, but not before. She deserves to honored in the Hall of Fame all the way!
Transfan2
My choice is: Beast Wars Megatron and here's a poster that I made up supporting him. (note, I mainly did this..just for the fun. ):
-TF2
Ironhide1706
My votes are for:
Wheeljack
Sentinel Prime
Lockdown (priority vote)
SoundBlaster7
Can't wait to see the final 5
Keith Prime
4 PM EST, iirc. So you have another 1/2 hour or so.
Matty
Nominations close today right? Or was that yesterday?
kaijuguy19
Still voting for Arcee,Rattrap,Bw Megatron and Optimus Primal
Don't care that Swindle and Minerva are in the lead I'm not gonna change my vote! Terra frima baby!
Jarodimus
Swindle
GrimZata
So my final votes go towards:
Hotshot
Bob
Cosmos
RID Scourge
RID Sky-Byte
netkid
You dare to be.
Sky-byte is a joke
His reason for existence
Pay off an old mold
Sockie
Well, I feel stupid. =B
Autobot Spike
Wheel's one syllable, dude. It's not Whee-ull.
-A.S.
Pauly T
Only in the G1 cartoon…
There's more to TFs than G1, and there's more to G1 than the cartoon.
Sockie
Sky-Byte fears no one
Especially such a klutz
'Jack, stick to dinos