What other SG toys do want to see the club produce? Options

[Octavius Prime]

It seems that the club is still interested in putting out more SG stuff where it can, as evidenced by this year's Cyclonus, Wheeljack/Slicer, and Ravage exclusives. Since there are more characters that have toy designs (that aren't simply repurposed ones), which would you like the club to release?

I found myself wanting an SG Ratchet today. First, Ratchet (in general) has been getting a lot of promotion lately, being in all 3 movies, Animated, and now TF: Prime. He's based on a toy that's an ok mold, and would likely be improved with a new head to match the G1-style head the art depicts him with. Plus, he's apparently based on Energon Rodblock rather than inferno, giving him a fairly decent crane/missile launcher weapon. On top of all that, he'd be able to combine, making a somewhat easier to obtain SG autobot combiner available (I don't think that many people own Nightbeat/Thunderclash), since you could pair him with Wheeljack.

Runner-up goes to Galvatron.

Anyway, what would you want?

This post has been edited by Octavius Prime: Jan 3 2011, 05:13 PM

[Kira Kira]

Shattered Glass is a potentially interesting concept, and the original setting and cast (and their respective bios) always struck me as something cool. A lot of potential. I can't say I'm the most involved in SG but a lot of the later mirrorverse guys strike me as very shallow, single not, "LOL" for a moment type of characters.

"Soundwave is a bodacious rocker!? Bludgeon a cowboy!?
No way! Ha ha... awesome."
...
"...now what?"

I think the mistake in the characters like that (as cool as a rocking, headbanded SW is!) is that they aren't oppisite aligned versions of themselves, they're different characters. SG Optimus is an evil "regular" Optimus. You can almost see the moment when the route he took diverged from the normal G1 universe (the same with Megs).
That's interesting. What If's are fun!

I don't know what event would make Soundwave no longer monotone, or so talkative. And instead of Metalliko, Bludegeon learned to gunsling I guess? How vague.

ALSO: Gotta say all the repruposing is boring. Some of it was fun, more of it was okay, all of it was just... too much.
More SG Galvatrons were needed, less grabbing that Target movie scout and calling it "SG Blah blah blah"
(PS - SG Galvatron is a brilliant concept and looks pretty damn neat too!)

ON TOPIC: Toys I'd want to see? Shattered Glass Beast Wars!!! Or Beast Machines! (heroic Vehicons!? Yes please!)

[TrentTroop]

Shattered Glass is a potentially interesting concept, and the original setting and cast (and their respective bios) always struck me as something cool. A lot of potential. I can't say I'm the most involved in SG but a lot of the later mirrorverse guys strike me as very shallow, single not, "LOL" for a moment type of characters.

"Soundwave is a bodacious rocker!? Bludgeon a cowboy!?
No way! Ha ha... awesome."
...
"...now what?"

I think the mistake in the characters like that (as cool as a rocking, headbanded SW is!) is that they aren't oppisite aligned versions of themselves, they're different characters. SG Optimus is an evil "regular" Optimus. You can almost see the moment when the route he took diverged from the normal G1 universe (the same with Megs).
That's interesting. What If's are fun!

I don't know what event would make Soundwave no longer monotone, or so talkative. And instead of Metalliko, Bludegeon learned to gunsling I guess? How vague.

I can shed some light on this.

First, we saw a strong positive reaction to Shattered Expectations, and while your milage may vary, Greg and I were both really, really tired of grimdark TF stories. That territory was staked out by the comics, animated was doing its own thing, so we decided on a different direction. There's a lot of fun there, but there are serious events as well, and each story had its own theme. Blitzwing Bop is meant to be a SG Sunbow Episode, Do Over is more of a SG Marvel Comic-style story, Dungeons and Dinobots is a dungeon delving fantasy adventure, etc. Some stuff works, some doesn't. I'm personally proud of everything I've written for SG.

That said, I always liked Earth 3 more than I liked most mirror universes. If we could have gotten away with changing everyone's name, Earth-3 style, I would have. The idea was that the flip has made these people new characters. Molded by fate to resemble their counterparts in another universe, yes, but we wanted to avoid "Soundwave is a nice guy, still monotone though."

When conceptualizing the Earthforce stories, the idea was "what might Sunbow have done with these characters if the factions had been backwards." The cons got human sidekicks, a hidden base, etc. Soundwave, as a music player, naturally fit into the kid-appeal character role as a rocker. He's the Decepticons' Bumblebee, complete with 80s rocker persona. It also fit a flip of the Soundwave character concept: Evil, emotionless, monotone and secretive becomes heroic, emotional, flamboyant and loud. Rather than have Rodimus and Starscream reprise Megatron and Optimus Prime, we decided on a mob-boss approach for the badguy leader and a reluctant commander for the goodguys ("Acting Commander" Starscream)

The philosophy of reversal plays out from there: Serious surgeon Ratchet becomes gleeful mad doctor Ratchet, hippie peacenik Beachcomber becomes unhinged Manson-esq Beachcomber, cool-guy rhymemaster Blaster becomes overbearing classical music fascist Blaster, etc.

And if you want to understand Bludgeon: Bludgeon is to Yojimbo as SG Bludgeon is to a Fistful of Dollars.

That said, the SG universe wasn't flipped on a single event. It isn't an Age of Apocalypse-style "What if" universe. It works on fundamentally different rules. Their Vector Sigma analogue is insane, for one. They've never heard of Primus or Unicron and ember polarities are flipped from sparks. Part Earth-3, Part Bizarro World, Part Mirror-Mirror and part its own thing.

-Trent