SDCC 2023 Transformers News & Updates Discussion Topic

[BaCon]

Thanks to @Count MCUcollector24 who's on the ground at San Diego Comic Con 2023! Hasbro rolls out the new products display for Preview night. Just in are images from the day 1 booth display showing us all the latest greatest. Get a look at pretty much all the Legacy Evolution, Deathsaurus, G2 Toxitron series, and Rise Of The Beasts stuff we've seen this year. - Read the Full News Story

[BaCon]

SDCC 2023 news just out from the Hasbro Media Breakfast event this morning. We have the official reveal of the Transformers Legacy Evolution Powerlinx Hot Shot & Jolt figure set. The repaint of the Armada Universe Hot Shot release gets the Powerlinx deco and addition of his Minicon buddy, Jolt! We also have some looks at the Robosen Grimlock, Rise Of The Beasts Smash Changers Optimus Primal, and Studio Series Cheetor. - Read the Full News Story

[Grahf]

What's even going on with this set? Is that normal Jolt with Powerlinx Hot Shot? So are they going to release the weapons, blast effects and Powerlinx Jolt as a separate core class "upgrade" kit for this Powerlinx Hot Shot? Why wouldn't they just included Powerlinx jolt with this set and then release standard Jolt as the potential "upgrade" set later? This is literally just creating more problems.

But if they did make core class Minicons, what else would be in the boxes of the others? Swindle with a new sword or two and sword effects? Leader-1 with a shiv and some blast effects? Sparkplug and Over-Run as a two pack?

Again, this is just bringing up more problems than it solves. That Jolt looks amazing though. I just hope that at least this one is going to be able to stand on its own and that it's just lying down in the pictures due to it having to stand there for a long time while people shaking the table and whatnot and not that it can't stand on its own.

[BaCon]

Just going live is the SDCC 2023 Transformers Generations Panel! Thanks to @Matt Guzy who's sharing the updates from the panel now, read on to see the live report we are adding to as the news comes in. - Read the Full News Story

[BaCon]

Revealed at SDCC, new Transformers figures are coming your way with the Transformers Legacy Evolution Deadeye Duel 2-Pack featuring Senate Guard Autobot Javelin and Ascenticon Kaskade, Transformers Legacy Evolution Leader Class Nova Prime, Transformers Legacy Evolution Voyager Class Nacelle, and Transformers Studio Series Transformers Movie 1 15th Anniversary Decepticon Multipack featuring Voyager 54 Megatron, Voyager 06 Starscream, Deluxe 28 Barricade, and Leader 08 Decepticon Blackout! Available for pre-order tomorrow at 1:00pm ET exclusively at Amazon with limited quantities on Hasbro Pulse! Hasbro Pulse Premium members can pre-order with exclusive access at 1:00pm ET and all fans beginning at 2:00pm ET! Check out all the pre-orders at Amazon. - Read the Full News Story

[Grahf]

That Nova Prime sure looks good. Not as good as mine but still good. I was hoping for them to take out the cannons so that they could then do more with the wings making them bigger and have a few points of articulation though.

Nice to see that Javelin is not using the Velocitron Blurr mold like people had speculated and is instead using the vastly superior and highly awesome SSBB Arcee mold. However Kaskade is using the horrible Chromia mold. That mold sucks and they should've just kept using the PotP Moonracer mold entirely if they were going to keep things that similar. Not only does the Moonracer mold work better than Chromia, it can be used as a combiner piece. Chromia kept all the bad parts of the mold and somehow managed to make them worse while retaining none of the good parts and actually ended up hindered as a result. It's amazing that the designers managed to accomplish that. All they reused are the wheels, the hip joints and like a hinge or something. Those pieces alone shouldn't have hindered Chromia to the point that it just ended up being a neutered Moonracer. TR Scourge, Highbrow and Windblade show how to reuse a handful of parts without being hindered by anything while making three figures that look nothing alike. Besides, it just looks like Moonracer. If I still had my three extra Moonracers I would just swap the heads but I can't as I only have one Moonracer now as I sold all the extras I kept for customs less than a year ago. People were speculating that she would be using the Shadowstriker mold due to their heads being pretty much identical except for the placement of the monocle. That would've been so much better and we don't even have that mold yet to even see if it's actually good or not. I guess it could be worse though, they could be using SS86 Arcee. 

Nacelle using the Siege Seeker mold is perfect as he's part of the "Welcoming Committee" along with Hotlink. It's just a shame that Fun Pub merged Nacelle with the prototype Thrust when they made that first toy of him. These are NOT Nacelle's colors. He's supposed to be dark blue and not have bright white and red. These colors are based on an old toy advertisement which had the G1 Thundercracker toy body with red and white prototype Thrust wings. Skywarp had red Dirge wings and Starscream had red Ramjet wings. There was also a red Beachcomber, blue and red Seaspray as well as a grey and blue Powerglide and blue Cosmos which would later go on to be Bad Boy and Pathfinder in that E-Hobby GoBots set. Black and white Astrotrain was also in the picture.

The SS Decepticon are cool if you missed out on them I guess but I didn't. I missed out on some of the Autobots and still didn't pick that set up. 

[Quautobot]

I see you, Thrust.

[Grahf]

Okay.

Ratchet is Ratchet.
Frenzy is Frenzy.
Erial and Dion are Erial and Dion.
Primal is Primal.
Mirage is Mirage.

Moving on to the new stuff that I haven't already commented on.

Frenzy and Ratchet are new but what else am I supposed to say?

Novakane is well, underwhelming. He has a battle damaged head but it otherwise looks exactly like Freezer. I thought he would at least be a different shade. It seems though that there's only supposed to be differences in the head between the two but they kept swapping the features in the movie. I don't know as I haven't seen the movie yet. It's weird though, I like to get three of figures I like to troopbuild but for some reason I stopped at two of Freezer. It seems I somehow knew there were actually two of them without having watched the movie. Now do I get two Novakane too or just leave it at the two Freezer. Nope, I'll probably get another Freezer and three Novakane lol.

A new Exo suit mold is pretty cool. I'll get three just like I have from the SS86 Exo Suit. This jet mode reminds me of the little drone/gun thing that RotF Stratosphere was supposed to come with. But they don't actually look alike though. 

Nightbird looks just as weird as Mirage. They both look good but at the same time those backpacks are off putting maybe I think I'm not sure. What's with these Terrorcons and their weird skinny 00 Gundam looking legs? Put some of that bulk down there to offset the backpack on Nightbird. 

The Stunticon set is a bit annoying. I still haven't managed to get a Wildrider yet but I don't want to get the whole set just for him. This has a different deco though and that Motormaster looks really good so I'll probably end up getting the set too. Not like I didn't have both CW and UW Menasor. I have since sold CW Menasor last year but still, I had both for a long time. In fact the only ones I didn't have both versions of were Devastator and Ultra Prime/Convoy Grand Prime. I never found Convoy Grand Prime for a price I was willing to pay as I stupidly never got it when it came out. CW Devastator wasn't worth getting if you had the UW version which I do. 

SG Hot Rod looks good of course but I don't really care much for that mold. It's good don't get me wrong, I just don't really like it. I might have a better opinion of the mold if Rodimus didn't come out around the same time.

SG Sideswipe looks good. Not amazing as it's still just the Siege Sideswipe mold but still good. The new weapons are cool as is the Minicon! Can't wait to get Armada Wheeljack now. I just wonder if they'll try to sell it as a voyager on his own. You'd think the Siege SS mold would be so cheap to use now that they can add a Minicon with it and still be deluxe priced. Just put it in a wave with a cheaper to make figure to offset the cost. 

And that brings us to Ultra Magnus. Wow. I'm not one of those people who care about scale. I couldn't care less if Magnus is supposed to be just a "head" taller than Optimus/Rodimus and be shorter than Grimlock. I never seen it that way as a kid and that view only got expanded the more I got figures that got huge when combined with their trailers starting with PMOP. So I always thought Magnus did the same thing and it overwrote my memories of the movie and season 3 and I watched that movie like everyday for years and still don't think he was barely taller than the two Primes. This is going to be the CW figure on steroids though. Which means expect a replacement for that cab that transforms at some point. Shame Perfect Effect isn't around as I don't trust DNA to do it.

Overall though he's clean looking and loaded with articulation. He's going to look on display. The only thing is that I would liked to have seen a little something else with him. I just don't see this having quite as much going on as Motormaster/Menasor, Armada Optimus, Skylynx or even Rodimus. Hell, I think Jetfire might have more going on with his weapons and armor bits. So I would want that little plane thing that could be made from the G1 toy's chest and helmet. Or better yet, a little Powered Buggy in Magnus colors to go with him. Done as a Weaponizer though. Yeah neither thing happened in the movie or even the cartoon but I don't care. There are things that appear in SS figures that didn't actually happen so why not? It's just that this doesn't have the smaller robot and has a fairly simplistic transformation so there's quite a bit of room for something else. Maybe that little bit of room goes to a ton of panels in the transformation to make it look so clean but we don't know yet.

Again, compared to the other commanders and what they do, this looks like there's not as much to it. Jetfire is the only comparable one in that regard. Jetfire is also very simple and doesn't have much going on. Sky Lynx is simple too but he's two rather large and dense/heavy figures. And has quite a bit going on with the six legs, three tails and two necks and heads. Rodimus' trailer has a surprising amount of stuff going on with it as well as he himself being loaded with little flaps and parts and hinges. Motormaster forms a whole ass combiner on his own with a bunch of flaps and springs for things and heavy ratchets and whatnot. Armada Optimus is so dense and doesn't have any hollow bits other than the toes while also having a few extras going on as well. Plus Motormaster and Optimus still have their standard smaller modes whereas Magnus doesn't.

[BaCon]

Following the SDCC 2023 Transformers Generations Panel News event yesterday, there are new images of toys in the Hasbro booth. Get some new looks at the Commander Ultra Magnus, Leader Nova Prime, Pre-War Cybertronians, Gamers, Crossovers, and more in the gallery that follows. - Read the Full News Story

[BaCon]

Transformers Generations Shattered Glass Collection Rodimus, Sideswipe, and Decepticon WhisperRetail Price: $54.99 USDRelease Date: September 1st 2023Discover a universe that shatters everything you know about the Transformers robots with the Shattered Glass Collection Voyager Class Rodimus, Deluxe Class Sideswipe, and min-con Decepticon Whisper toys! Welcome to Shattered Glass, an alternate universe where the heroic Decepticons battle the evil Autobots. - Read the Full News Story