THAT is the Roadbuster i've been looking for, hope they make the beefiest of Wreckers out of the manliest of Fembots....

 

As with most of their designs, they probably designed it to be multiple characters from day one.

 

Yep definitely think we're gonna see this fig turned in to Roadbuster

 

That would be so bought.

 

The Autobot thing is a fairly recent retcon and her appearance in Animated predates that. Her being a loyal general of Megatron in that show was more consistent with her role in Beast Machines whether or not she was intended to have been a Decepticon at any point before that.

I believe Obsidian and Strika were considered by the writers to be aligned with Cybertron rather than any faction, hence they were willing to serve Megatron because by that point in the story his will was basically indistinguishable from the will of Cybertron.

You realize that completely defeats the point of having Strika be female in the first place right? It just legitimizes the "sameface syndrome" of all female Transformers by making one of the only in-universe exceptions a canonical anomaly rather than just a rarity.

Creating fanon to excuse the indistinguishable nature of fembots makes it so the creators and writers of Transformers fiction will continue to feel no need to create original-looking female characters and there's no need for the fandom to alienate female Transformers fans (And women in general) any more than canon already has.

If male Transformers don't need any justification to be male then female Transformers don't need any justification to be female. Likewise Strika doesn't need any justification to be a bulky and female if equally bulky male cybertronians don't need any justification to be bulky and male.

 

That's all good and fine but none of that has any relevance to my preferred origin story for Strika. I love the theoretical idea that she started life as being a smaller weaker transformer and decided to say "screw this shit" and forcibly made herself more powerful in order to be something she was not naturally gifted with.

TO ME she is the same as Tarn, Minimus, Overlord and Megatron in that sense, four other characters who I love partially for the same reason, but I also like them all because of their distinct personality traits and how they have been characterized thusfar, which is another aspect of Strika that draws me to her. She is "special" to me because she isn't just another fembot and she is extra special to me because I believe her to be a character born of weakness who through their own work and motivation made themselves rid of that weakness. What is wrong with admiring a character for that?

That aspect of her character has nothing to do with her supposed "gender". Strikas self identification as being female is just another aspect of her character that makes her unique and makes me like her even more and you've turned it in to some falsely assumed slight I have against the mere idea of a fembot being what Strika is. That isn't what I think at all.

No other fembot like her exists yet, when one does awesome, but none do.

It just so happens with this specific character (who again simply HAPPENS TO BE self identified as female) my personal belief in what Strika is is that she was not naturally gifted with a large form but she sought one out and obtained it. This is not commentary on what fembots should be, nor am I saying no naturally large-form "female" tfs should exist, freakng hell man that's all I want for this franchise summed up; more creativity and unique character design. If 90% of new characters invented from now going forward were female and they all looked super different that'd be the best thing ever.

Maybe don't assume ultimate negativity towards someones personal fiction beliefs huh? I literally have a fembot combiner in my sig that I created myself and she's made up of five old fembot characters - three of which I gave far different designs to than they are typically drawn with - two very muscular, the third very bulky. You're literally dissing "guy who wants more fembots than anyone else" here.

 

Why do people on this board call Strika Russian? Did I miss this when I watched the show?

According to the people on the show, she was based on Ursa from Superman II, I thought. She's Kryptonian!



BTW - I'm noticing a pattern, we are getting repaints from many companies where the toy you'd think is the repaint comes out first. I wonder if this is a strategy to get people to NOT bitch about repaints. This mold is clearly based on IDW Roadbuster, but we are introduced in Titanica first. This has happened to other figures... KFC's Skybyte mold, MMC's Impactor mold... Is this a way to get people to cheer repaints instead of moan about them? Make the repaint better than the first release?

 

Hmmm, i may not be able to resist getting one after my retirement if they made a roadbuster version...

Nah, mmc will make it an "exclusive" again....  

 

Such a shame Strika kinda got shafted because they actually wanted a Roadbuster.

 

I've always favoured bulky robot designs, Transformers or otherwise. This unoffical Strika hits the right notes for me and the way that the base mold has potential for re-use makes me a very happy camper.

 

Yeah I think its pretty obvious now they deliberately designed the figure for a future roadbuster version, half way through coloring it I almost said "oh god damn it" realizing how much I could see it, especially after looking at roadbuster references and her shoulders especially being an exact match for idw RBs.

Would have been nice if they had at least engineered the wheels to form part of the feet and made the mold just ever so slightly "curvier" but oh well.

A new Strika that isn't just an over priced con exclusive repaint using an old crappy hasbro mold is still an awesome thing.

 

At least this MMC fembot looks like it actually has some kind of alt mode.

 

Damn fine looking figure

 

Well I can't speak for Beast Machines, but in Animated she has a Russian accent, so...

 

You can try too state your opinion in a more positive way all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that there's no canonical reason to assume she was ever small and weak except for the fact that she's a fembot. Aligning her with your preferred origin may make her more unique to you you, but Strika is a character who is already unique. Maybe someday when there are tons of bulky female generals running around in canon it'll be fine if you choose to pick one at random and start strapping arbitrary origin stories and headcanons onto them, but as long as Strika is the only character like that it is kind of screwed up to make those kinds of assumptions about her.

You're acting like a weak character becoming large and powerful is the only way for her story to be inspirational or noteworthy or whatever, but Strika is already a legendary Cybertronian military leader. She obviously didn't start her life as a legend or a general, so in sense she built herself up to greatness whether or not she's been strong and imposing her whole life. That's hardly insignificant, that's nothing to sneeze at. Best of all, it's canon. No assumption necessary.

So why even assume she was ever small or weak? You pretty much said that the reason why these assumptions work is because people believe that most fembots start out slender and Arcee-like, but why validate those assumptions at all? If Strika being different is a good thing, why change her? Why make it more difficult to create more diverse characters like her?

All I wanted to do here was point out the double standard at play with your assumptions because in most cases male characters with a similar body type to Strika don't need their existence justified. While it's true that there are plenty of male characters who grew strong despite their origins, it doesn't change the fact that many more male Transformers are just big because they're big and are strong just because they're strong. Why does Strika have to be different? That's all I'm asking here...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaBSb-nUh3M

Very little actual dialog (1 word) but doesn't sound Russian (I think, it could be I would need more but couldn't find another video). Does sort of show her transformation though. To fast for me to follow.

 

That reveal where it shows their heads in profile, is it just me or does Obsidian look a lot like a Xenomorph, and Strika a Predator???

 

She was only Russian in TFA.

 

To you guys who want to complete your Animated Decepticon, you could do worse then Titanica and Troll to be Strika and Blot.

 

Because that's what I want/like/prefer. No-one said you had to agree to or accept my canon for her. Geezus.