And that's my biggest issue with getting pretender updates at all aside from the bludgeon-style real transformers. Every one of the proposals for faithful shell-and-core pretenders that I've seen would take small characters and bump them up one or two classes into the precious few Voyager and Leader slots we get per year in order to basically include a second version of the same character in the box. This year is the first time they've released figures of characters I actually give half a shit about, and in order for them to have a chance of doing more of that moving forward they need to be smart about their choices for characters in each price class. I'm fine with Hot Rod and Override being bumped up a class when it's justified, but when the justification for pretenders is faithfulness to a divisive gimmick I'm a lot less sympathetic

 

What are they gonna do, pretend to kill me?

 

That's a really good point. I am personally really liking how they handled iguanicus. It feels faithful, but also unique and fun.

 

Pretend not to hear your screams.

 

I'm getting flashbacks to Revenge of the Fallen

 

Maybe so, but I will say this. The Action Master line is what made me lose interest in transformers as a kid.
Once I had all the Micromasters that were available, I found I had no new toys to look forward to.
So by the time G2 happened, I had moved on to other interests.

 

I am so excited for Pointblank, and i really hope we also get a sureshot down the line.

 

Even if Action Masters weren't a thing, then there still would've been a two year gap of no product before G2 where you would've likely moved on, unless you lived in Japan or a market that got G1.5.

 

This must be a canon insult towards Pretenders. It has to be. It's going to be. Whatever it takes.

 

Same reason I didn't like them in the 80s. The robot is a standard-sized transformer, let's say the same size as Prowl. It then disguises itself with an outer shell that turns it into a gigantic human, let's say the same size as Ironhide.

The idea is incoherent.

The Japanese version relies on magic (not mass shifting, flat-out magic, which was woven through a lot of Japanese TF media), but it, whilst silly, is at least coherent to some extent.

But, as with all things, I'm not required to buy them if I don't like them, so let's see what Hasbro can come up with - I'm sure they've applied a lot more thought and effort to the problem than we have in this thread  

 

Hasbro usually gives a few Transformers exclusives to IGN just before SDCC starts, usually renders of one figure from each size class before the event begins to whet the appetite. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see a few pictures this evening.

 

It'd be great to have the full trio of "new character" Autobot Targetmasters to face off against Triggerhappy, Slugslinger, & Misfire - plus a big chance for an Alt.head re-use Joyride to boot!

 

Possible but those sneak preview reveals are typically for Waves 1 and 2, not the later waves. Like you said, during Kingdom IGN showed off a few of a few of the figures a day or two before the big reveals but only Waves 1 & 2. The only figures we saw beforehand from Kingdom Wave 3-5 were from leaks. Wave 3 they put on a big presentation for and kept everything secret until them. This would line up with SDCC this Thursday as their big presentation so I expect them to try to keep a lid on things until then (even though they already failed with Armada Starscream and BW Inferno).

 

This is very true, but with Covid and Kingdom getting an extra Wave things aren’t what they were. Usually the new line would start in the first quarter of a year, but this year and next it’s starting in the second quarter, everything has been pushed back three-four months.

I don’t think it’s an exact science or guarantee, but with Hasbro not being at SDCC or Toyfair this past two years it wouldn’t surprise me if they sent something to IGN. Only time will tell!

 

IGN also continued to get those early reveals during the last 2 years despite Hasbro not being at SDCC or Toyfair if I recall correctly

 

What? No.

...no.

 

They just don't at all fit into my idea of what Transformers are, and I'd be incredibly disappointed if instead of finally getting awesome, properly scaled updates to Bludgeon and Thunderwing, we got that, and that's all we'd see of those characters for another few years at least.

 

I agree. And in addition, I expect that In Demand store will probably leak something soon too - unless they've had their knuckles rapped by Hasbro UK.

 

They did, for Kingdom wave 3 (I remember at least Scorponok and the Ark being revealed through them).

 

EDIT: (Well for some reason the Kingdom Wave 3 reveal on IGN did not show up in their search engine but I found a link to it on TFW so they need a better search engine). I double checked and the figures they have revealed on the site ahead of time were TR Trypticon, Kingdom Wave 1 (Rattrap, Cheetor, Cyclonus, Beast Megatron), Kingdom Wave 2 (Airrazor, Dinobot, Earth-mode Ultra Magnus), Kingdom Wave 3 (Scorponok, Galvatron, and the Ark) Legacy Wave 1 (Skids and Bulkhead), R.E.D. Wave 4 (reformatting Megatron and Optimus Primal), and Vintage BW Wave 1. The rest of their Transformers articles were coverage after Hasbro revealed them at conventions.