THE GHOST OF PICS: MECHS PAST
And with THAT tortured pun, December's Patreon-backed @tfwiki picture batch is all stuff we've kinda needed forever, all stuff from the prior century, and all stuff from outside the US market!
We start with Takara's original DEATHSAURUS, Decepticon leader in 1989's Victory, who just had his Legacy Haslab toy start showing up on doorsteps. And of course, new separate pics for his Breast Animal partners EAGLEBREAST and TIGERBREAST (yes, get them giggles out, go ahead).
Let's jump back a year to 1988's Super-God Masterforce, and the Godmaster RANGER. This mold is the only one of the three Powermaster Autobot cars to get recolored for its Takara release. Sadly, the MIB copy I bought back in 1996 was missing its gun, thus my general reluctance to add a pic to the wiki. But lord, that tiny, crunchy book scan we were using suuuucked. Made Ranger look white when he's a very light stony blue. Still using the scan though, just now in an inset panel to show off the gun I don't have.
And now we bounce ahead to 1990's Zone, and the Micro Transformer base SKY HYPER, piloted by Deadwheeler. I took these pics forever ago at some BotCon, and have long lost the notes as to who owned this piece a few hard drives back. This sample was also missing the three ramps, thus both the length of time it took for me to get comfy going ahead and adding these to the wiki, and the new book-scan inset to show the missing ramps.
Let's shift over to the European market, with 1992's THUNDER CLASH, the leader of the Autobot Turbmasters. His gravity-feed missile launcher was, like all the Turbomaster and Predator launchers, very much not US choke-gate compliant.
Fun fact: Thunder actually did get a Japanese release! He and Skyquake were straight imported to Japanese stores in Hasbro packaging, with just some necessary legal info changed to Japanese on the boxes. This was the Operation: Combination year, where Takara released the small Turbomasters and Predators in 2-packs.
And now we're going much further back, and much further south. No, that's not Brawn, that's OUTBACK, the 1987 Mexican version by IGA. Apparently, IGA was unwilling or unable to pay for the new '86 Mini Vehicle molds, thus they made their own versions by simply recoloring the '84 originals and slapping them on new cards for the '86 characters. Sometimes with alternate decos to boot!
Sadly, I don't own this toy, and like Sky Hyper, this was a BotCon pic taken with original owner info lost to time. (I always try and credit the toy owner when they let me take pics.)
Now here's the ones I'm super-happy about. These are two of the three Eletrix, ESPORTE and PORSCHE, exclusive to Estrela's 1985 Brazilian Transformers line! These toys transform and walk/roll forward via remote control, attached by a wire over 4 feet long. I'm keeping an eye out for the third one, Jipe.
None of the '85 Brazilian toys have any faction markings, but the Autobot-style packaging leads one to assume "all good guys". As do the bios of many of the toys in the line... but the Eletrix lack bios, sadly. Which is weird, as Estrela made up new bios for some toys in the line, and just straight-translated others from their Hasbro bios.
These molds were released in the US, but as the "Pow-R-Bots" in Village Toys' TF-wannabe line Convert-A-Bots. Like Estrela, Village licensed them from Japan's Yonezawa Toys, where they were the Remote Change Robo Series. All of these releases use the same plastic colors, but give them new stickers for branding and language.
I bought these two MISB (cellophane still there!) earlier this year, but was a little gunshy about opening them, worried the electronics might have somehow rotted. Schrodinger's Electronics. But no, since they didn't come with batteries, no corrosion, and they work as well as a 1984-mold cheap electric gear-powered toy can (that is to say, loudly).
And of course, since I got the boxes, I took the opportunity to take 600dpi scans of the box art unique to Estrela's packaging!
Man, I love going through these older, not-US corners of TFdom, and hope you learned something new about the vast TF universe. And if you'd like to help make that just a little bit easier and get more pics out a month, consider joining my Patreon! "gregstfwikipics" there, every little bit helps, plus at higher pledge levels you can pick a theme for the month!
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hello vector prime I have a question what happened with the autobots X in transformer g1
Dear Mind Merger,
I think you may have already seen the end of the story of Autobot X, in the pages of Generations Selects. In order to humiliate and defeat the Quintessons, an aged and dying Spike Witwicky transferred his mind into a new body composed of multiple Neo Autobot City components: Neo Autobot X. But I suppose you wouldn’t know the chain of events that lead to this rebirth. I shall tell them to you now.
Sparkplug Witwicky had never feared death. While obviously an untimely death was something to be avoided, he was a practical man, and accepted that human beings got only one chance at living. Even as he and his son became embroiled in the Great War, he put his faith in the Autobots, many of whom he considered kindred spirits, like-minded tool and die men like Ratchet and Wheeljack. On one occasion, even knowing the associated risks, he trusted the Autobots with the very life of his son, Spike’s mind being transferred into the failed Autobot X prototype. After that terrifying episode ended, the prototype was stored away, and life went on.
Sparkplug grew old, and watched with pride as his son grew as well. The Autobots came to Spike and Carly’s wedding, Bumblebee bringing along the Peruvian villager Luisa and her brother’s convertible as his date. They came to the birth of Sparkplug’s grandson, Bumblebee in awe as a tiny hand pawed at his smallest finger.
Would they be there at Spike’s funeral as well?
The thought made Sparkplug shiver. Was his son’s time with his closest friends destined to be a mere blink in the eye for the Autobots? Why should Bumblebee be left behind as Spike moves on?
Thoughts raced in Sparkplug’s mind. The Autobots and the EDC had used data from the original mind transfer experiment on a number of projects over the decades. Binaltech, the Eldedroids, even the Kiss Players… Autobot X’s DNA lay in all of them. There had been other advances too, old technology rediscovered as heroic young men and women used the power of the Masterforce to transform, culminating in a borderline miraculous copy-pasting of personalities when their transtectors became true Transformer life-forms.
Using his connections and seniority among the Autobot’s human allies, Sparkplug began what became known as Project Neo: the development of inert Transformer bodies to be used as full-body prosthetics in the event of catastrophic harm or death. Unfortunately, Sparkplug wouldn’t live to see its completion, dying in 2040 shortly after the founding of the new Cybertron Alliance.
Only when humanity began its stellar adolescence as the age of Angolmois and the Selectors arose did the project bear fruit. Using the full processing power of the Mother Computer at Neo Autobot City allowed for a safe and secure mind transfer. Sparkplug had informed Spike of the project near his death, and to his credit never forced the idea upon him. In truth, I see the value in such a technology if used for good and the protection of life, and like any parent Sparkplug wanted to give his child every possible option. That said, only under the threat of death did Spike undergo the transfer. Perhaps as he grew older and reliant on the slavery of the Selectors did he begin to feel some disconnect from the Cybertronians around him… For shame.
As humanity and the Selectors spread out among the stars following the abandonment of Earth, the common adoption of Neo Autobot X technology was but the first step in the multitude of evolutionary branches that would bloom from the humans. If nothing else, it brought the humans and their Selector partners closer together.
I cannot help but see my brothers and sisters in this story. Such great change, all stemming from the love of a father for his son. As humans become Transformers and vice versa, I believe we find the truest glimpse of Primus’ dream.
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