Any Marvel G1 (US and UK) fans feeling severely left out from toy collecting lately? Prime Wars had a pretty healthy mix of toy/comic colors and toon colors going on. Kup, Blurr, Scourge, SCROUNGE, and a few others all made for very comic faithful representations. As did most of the Headmasters. Lately the WFC shift into 'pure toon' has really been bumming me out. The cartoon was not the superior piece of G1 fiction. The Marvel G1 comic outclasses it in story, length, and oftentimes art. The comics, even the famously mediocre Jose Delbo, had a much more consistent visual quality than the Toei/AKOM mess the toon had going on. Plus you had several legitimately great artists on the book too. Only the movie and a small handful of toon episodes hold up visually today. The toon is also nothing but a loose adaptation of the comic anyhow. Very, very loose. Several aspects of Marvel characters have persisted into the present. Optimus Prime's heavy burden, Ratchet being the solid, skilled Autobot we all love to love, the Matrix, Shockwave's logic-driven power plays, Soundwave's commitment to 'the cause' over any one leader, Primus and Unicron, plus several other things are rooted in Marvel G1. So why can't we ever have a bone? Hasbro lost an easy $50 from me when they changed Earthrise Prime's eyes to blue. They have never released a slate gray and fuscia Soundwave. Not one. Black helmet Megatrons are phenomenally rare. There's never been a Generations, MP, or any Galvatron toy in comic-toy colors since 1986! UW Galvatronus doesn't really count all the way. Soundwave and Galvatron would need dedicated redecos. I think they'd sell though. Galvatron especially, Soundwave maybe not depending on what mold and the specifics of the deco. But most characters would only need an extra head with the toy.... An extra yellow eyes head on ER Prime, an extra black helmet head with any Megs, an extra...erm...blackfaced Starscream head with Starscream or any Seeker. A redheaded Ratchet would be stellar. Could have included one of those in the box with Walgreens Ratchet and I'd probably own one already. Why do Marvel fans get the shaft for cartoon crybabies? You people actually whined loud enough to get Hasbro to change the yellow-eyed bone they were finally throwing me to blue and now we have yet another blue eyed (on a blue face! It looks bad. It's why MP10s eyes were so dead) Optimus Prime coming out after Siege, Studio BB, Masterpiece. Shit. They gave Powermaster Optimus blue eyes! Has he ever had blue eyes in the full trailer-combined form? No. I'm 21. I'm not biased by nostalgia the way a lot of fans are. I've consumed G1 media freshly as a young adult and the fact is, it's Marvel all the way. Marvel G1 should be the direct basis for the movie series. Marvel G1 is usually the go-to characterisation for a lot of characters. But it's unique color choices can't even get an extra head? Heaven forbid a single Optimus Prime toy is faithful to the toy, and his first fictional appearance, even one time. /rant It wouldn't be hard to toss in some extra heads at all! Any other Marvel G1 fans feeling the blues?
Please don't take this the wrong way, but here is my interpretation of what I just read: "Waahhh! The eyes aren't the right color and I'm too lazy to learn how to pick up a paint brush. Wahh!" It's honestly ironic that you used the term "cartoon crybabies" then proceeded to cry about OP's eyes not being yellow or Megatron's helmet not being black. Those were literally your only complaints. Those are very easy things to modify if you just take the time to learn how. In the time I took you to write this post, you could have googled figure painting tutorials. Which one do you think would have been more productive and beneficial to you? And I don't think your age carries any relevance. Because I'm 28 and I'm loving all the G1 cartoon designs. I only ever saw the G1 cartoon a little over a year ago. And I also love IDW's run but I'm not crying about not getting any new toys with those designs.
I'll preface this to say that I gotta admit you're not doing yourself any favors by trying to namecall a group of fans. Having said that: A: I kinda feel like Captain Obvious here, but the Marvel Comics media isn't the most dominate or driving media force for [G1] Transformers. Like it or not, the cartoon is the largely the most influential, generally speaking, and us "crybabies" make up the majority of the marketplace buying figures. A "crybaby" in this conversation includes virtually anyone who has watched the original show and wants figures. That's not just a "geewuner"; that covers the most casual fan that may remember the show fondly and would want a random figure as an impulse buy to the most hardcore of G1 fans. Do I think Hasbro will make a few random figures that homage characters from the Marvel Comics at some point? Sure. Would I ever expect it to become more than that? Probably not. Honestly, expecting such is a bit shortsighted of the brand as whole.
I can't agree with you about the comics being better written than the toon. Let's just say they were equal amount crap and equal amount good times. But I agree Hasbro could throw Marvel fans a few more bones. A Marvel colors Soundwave would be really neat for starters.
My tone in the OP could use some refinement, I'll confess. I'm not going to paint my figures though. I'd rather admire factory Sunbow paint, which has been admittedly tight, than risk wasting 20 or 30 bucks I prrrrobbbably shouldn't have bought a useless plastic chunk with anyway by making it look less refined. Truthfully, most heads are on balljoints and several, several Marvel and Star Wars figures come with an alternate head. It's a little perplexing alt comic heads aren't already a thing since the molds exist already by virtue of being included once already. I forgot him earnestly, not on purpose, but he's an exception, and a fan vote result. Clearly fans want things like that. They voted for it. I disagree wholeheartedly on the toon being equal to the comic in storytelling quality. Except for the hump at the end of Budiansky's run before Furman took over US side, the stories are tethered together tightly by lead character arcs and causality between events. The people of Earth, and their response to the Transformers being there, was much more grounded too. The cartoon could barely be bothered to refer to itself, had about a dozen writers with wildly varying degrees of 'give a shit', and never ever depicted the so called 'war' in any convincing way other than the movie. The cartoon nerfed Shockwave and Soundwave. The cartoon rushed through the 87 line in Rebirth while the comics had plenty of time to flesh out the new characters, and did with a few of them, after the Headmasters miniseries. Marvel Headmasters 4-part > The Rebirth 3-part all day long, but I'll admit HM 'frontloaded' also. Plus that's without mentioning the brilliant UK arcs like Target 2006 through time wars, and other more minor tales, fitting in fairly tightly to the US story (until Earthforce of course) and having a consistently high art standard. Plus UK time travel shenanigans make the movie, the best Sunbow fiction, 'canon' to the comics as a possible future averted in the main timeline by Galvatron's alterations. Then there was the post movie business with Death's Head, Unicron, and also Shockwave leading against Rodimus Prime in a stalemate war. The scope and emotional impact of the comics just tops Sunbow in almost every quantifiable way. It's not a masterpiece, no. It's just that the cartoon is just that bad. The cartoon shares most of its problems with the Bayverse, sans Murder Prime and masturbation jokes. No one on staff really gave a shit, it didn't connect in a linear fashion, and it gave more than one irreconcilable origin to several characters and concepts. Then they hamfisted in the Matrix that they probably should have remembered to include from the get-go. The Matrix retcon, and actual consequential warfare, make the movie actually fit better with the comics than the toon it was meant to tie into.
How about some original original G1 too first? Then Beast Era before anything else. A limited number of Armada toys, and any other breakout/cult character that hasn't had a good toy, RID15 Strongarm and Steeljaw, Windblade still for some reason, Signal Lancer.
I grew up with Marvel before the cartoon. Loved them both, but I will always be a Marvel guy. The artwork was admittedly quite often painful, with the odd colorings being a result of foreground or background placement of the character. The UK stuff was even worse with horrible proportions and scales. Even though I live the Marvel run, I can still see past the nostalgia to see the flaws. As for Marvel-inspired figures, I would personally never buy a magenta/gray Soundwave, as to me it would look more like an error than a unique take. We got Impactor, the Jumpstarters, Skyfire and a number of other figures that could be considered comic-centric. For modern times, the cartoon is very much more accessible and well known. It sells, so this is where the focus will be. They may release from other lines and continuities, but it will always be cartoon-centered.
Yeah, no. Non-G1 hasn't gotten anything substantial for years now. Beast Era, Armada, RID '01, Animated (especially), the list goes on. Can we for goodness sake actually move on and not be permanently stuck in 1984?
Animated doesn't NEED any updates. Maybe a few odds and ends, characters without toys yet. Beast Wars and Beast Machines absolutely demand those updates. Airrazor, Terrorsaur, Jetstorm, a better Cheetor, a better Dinobot, an affordable not overdesigned and overpriced purple trex Megatron, Beast Machines Maximals ALL need updates. What animated needs is a reissue line with animation accurate decos sometime around its 25th
Great topic for a thread(I think)... terrible first post. The comic was as patchy as the cartoon both in art and story but I did grow up with it as opposed to the toon and looking back at it my very subjective opinion I got the better deal, especially being in the UK where we got much more comic book content than most. Objectively I think a strong case can be made for the comics being at leas narratively better put together and more 'mature' for the most part....but we can argue back and forth what was better. The long and the short of it is I preferred it then and prefer it now and it influences how I perceive most G1 characters and how I'd like them too look much more than the cartoon. So yeah I'd like to be thrown a bone more often than we are in terms of character choice, design, sculpt and deco...probably not gonna happen though cos... I'm in a minority. Instead I've taken to repainting things where I know the chances of Hastak doing so are slim to zero...or going to 3rd parties who are catering for my needs. My Magic Square Prime has yellow eyes now, as does the IDW style Flame toys figure I'm working in. I also repainted my MP Megatron and Ratchet. The thing is Hastak don't owe us anything. They put out what they know will sell and make the most money. Right now that's mostly sunbow/G1 toy nostalgia. It wont always be the case I'm sure but for now it is what it is.
You might wanna Google Image search Ginrai/Super Ginrai and look at the colour of his eyes. Not the same character obviously but the same mould. As for calling ppl 'cry babies'? Look up irony whilst you're looking at Super Ginrai pics
Why shouldn't Animated toys get updated to reflect modern engineering like the rest? Most of the figures don't have 5mm holes to hold accessories beyond their character-specific tools. Lugnut as a specific example is wildly out of scale as he was a Voyager-class, not Leader class.
What are some other good Marvel only characters to be made into toys? I still love the old Straxus figure, though Id be down for a bigger one. Siege actually wouldve been a good line for him i think. Classics didnt receive widespread fiction, but Botcon/TFCC adopted it into their own continuation of the Marvel universe. If you want to get nitpicky, Classics and Universe 2.0 *could* be considered Marvel universe toys.
