HasLab Deathsaurus
- Thread starter Rhinox
- Start date
So I've had the first two volumes of the translated TF Manga for awhile but I only finally got the final volume that covers the Victory Manga for my birthday a couple days ago.
I think I might have vaguely heard of Solon before, but I probably would have blanked if asked and had no real concept of what his whole deal was. Now having read the Manga I can't help but think that Hasbro missed a HUGE trick by not including King Solon with this kickstarter.
I mean King Solon is a pretty cool existing Transformer design from the 80s that's never had a toy and combines with Deathsaurus (just like Victory Leo does Star Saber) to form the more powerful armored Kingsaurus. This should be talked about more. He should have fans and a toy!
Is he super obscure and only appear in one issue of Manga? Yeah. But like when would be better to do a guy like that than a collector aimed Kickstarter? It could have balanced him out with the Star Saber two pack a little more (would have been a LOT cooler than the throne IMO).
King Solon at least would have made an Awesome last stretch goal.
Ah well. I wish I believed that maybe Hasbro would slip it in the regular line or a 3rd party would take a shot at it.
-ZacWilliam, on a side note I think I really love the tone of the Victory Mangas weirdly light and friendly relationships between the Bots and Cons. It's almost more like they're rival Sports teams that are friendly off the field than anything else. Strange but fun to see a big bot/con fight and then Jan be like "See you at school, Solon! Don't forget the group project."
I think I might have vaguely heard of Solon before, but I probably would have blanked if asked and had no real concept of what his whole deal was. Now having read the Manga I can't help but think that Hasbro missed a HUGE trick by not including King Solon with this kickstarter.
I mean King Solon is a pretty cool existing Transformer design from the 80s that's never had a toy and combines with Deathsaurus (just like Victory Leo does Star Saber) to form the more powerful armored Kingsaurus. This should be talked about more. He should have fans and a toy!
Is he super obscure and only appear in one issue of Manga? Yeah. But like when would be better to do a guy like that than a collector aimed Kickstarter? It could have balanced him out with the Star Saber two pack a little more (would have been a LOT cooler than the throne IMO).
King Solon at least would have made an Awesome last stretch goal.
Ah well. I wish I believed that maybe Hasbro would slip it in the regular line or a 3rd party would take a shot at it.
-ZacWilliam, on a side note I think I really love the tone of the Victory Mangas weirdly light and friendly relationships between the Bots and Cons. It's almost more like they're rival Sports teams that are friendly off the field than anything else. Strange but fun to see a big bot/con fight and then Jan be like "See you at school, Solon! Don't forget the group project."
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I had to look that up. Pretty cool concept and I agree that it would have been a neat inclusion to the overall set. However, I'm not sure quite how they would have executed it and still kept the costs close to what they intended. It wouldn't have been impossible, but I suspect that if they knew about it at all, they might have surmised that it was such a niche, one-off kind of thing that the majority of fans either wouldn't know about it, or wouldn't care enough to justify the price.
For anyone unaware all the Japanese G1 manga are still available in English on Amazon.
Transformers + Headmasters
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 1 (1) https://a.co/d/gbgd7Hw
Masterforce
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 2 (2) https://a.co/d/co4zSpD
Victory + Zone + Battlestars + Operation Combination
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 3 (3) https://a.co/d/jjiyMvF
I agree he's pretty obscure and yeah he probably would have raised the asking price but I feel like if you dumped the throne and made him a stretch goal they maybe could have gotten away with it for a reasonable amount more.
I was just honestly surprised to read the story this morning and find out that Deathsaurus had a "Victory Leo" counterpart that I'd absolutely never heard about before.
For folks who havn't seen the manga:
King Solon, the "real Transformer body" Deathsaurus built for his cyborg son:
and Kingsaurus, their combined form:
-ZacWilliam, just gonna have to add King Solon to my list of toys that I'd like that seem unlikely to happen.
Transformers + Headmasters
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 1 (1) https://a.co/d/gbgd7Hw
Masterforce
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 2 (2) https://a.co/d/co4zSpD
Victory + Zone + Battlestars + Operation Combination
Transformers: The Manga, Vol. 3 (3) https://a.co/d/jjiyMvF
I agree he's pretty obscure and yeah he probably would have raised the asking price but I feel like if you dumped the throne and made him a stretch goal they maybe could have gotten away with it for a reasonable amount more.
I was just honestly surprised to read the story this morning and find out that Deathsaurus had a "Victory Leo" counterpart that I'd absolutely never heard about before.
For folks who havn't seen the manga:
King Solon, the "real Transformer body" Deathsaurus built for his cyborg son:
and Kingsaurus, their combined form:
-ZacWilliam, just gonna have to add King Solon to my list of toys that I'd like that seem unlikely to happen.
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Heh, I was asking for King Solon back when the campaign was active. But after a quick search through this thread, I guess I never mentioned it here. 
But yeah, it seems like even Takara has let all of the G1 manga pre-Zone go forgotten, since all they and anyone ever seem to reference are just their cartoon counterparts. It's a shame, too, since up until Masterforce and Victory, that manga was all written to serve as tie-ins to the cartoons, set in the same continuity and everything. The 1985 G1 manga even served as a prelude to the Scramble City OVA, with Trypticon being built by the Decepticons while Metroplex was still undergoing construction. Alas, though, Masterforce and Victory decided to do their own thing instead of tying into their respective cartoons, and ever since it seems like Takara has gone on to ignore all of the G1 manga that was released prior to Zone.
Though, interestingly enough, the pre-Scramble City manga chapter that first introduced Ultra Magnus also introduced a few other very specific things that would go on to serve as inspiration for some very similar things later seen in the Car Robots cartoon. In that chapter, it is revealed that the Autobots have a Japanese division with secret bases being built all around the world hidden beneath human-operated facilities like parking garages, and all of these bases are connected together by an underground highway called the Cybertron Road (or "Autobot Road" in the English translation).
The Japanese Autobot base hidden under a parking garage looks like this (the second and third pics are from an old fan translation):
That sure is a lot of humans working there with their own workstations and monitors everywhere.
Now, fast forward to the year 2000 when the Car Robots cartoon showed us its base for the Autobots/Cybertrons, which was also located in Japan beneath a parking garage:
Monitors everywhere and several human-sized workstations, despite no humans actually working there (Ai only ever used just one console throughout the entire series, with the rest of those workstations going unused). While not an exact match in artwork, the resemblance between the two both in concept and design aesthetic is remarkably uncanny. The cartoon version would merely be a simplification of the manga's more detailed artwork.
Now, I did mention the Cybertron Road earlier, and while Car Robots's Cybertron Net (renamed "Global Space Bridge" in the RID dub) is very similar in concept, those two I don't actually believe to be one and the same. The Cybertron Road is said to be only 2500 meters below the surface, which would place it within the Earth's crust. Meanwhile, the first episode of Car Robots states that the Cybertron Net runs through Earth's mantle. Since the Earth's crust is about 70 kilometers deep, the Cybertron Road being 2500 meters underground would only be 2.5 kilometers down. Whereas the Cybertron Net being inside the mantle would put it way down, far below where the Cybertron Road would be.
Plus, Episode 21 of Car Robots also has Build Boy ("Wedge" in the dub) confirm that he and the other Buildmasters ("Build Team" in the dub) are the ones who built the Cybertron Net in the first place, and they didn't come to Earth until 2000, when the manga is set during the late 1980s. Though, it is still possible that the Buildmasters could have used the Cybertron Road as a springboard for the Cybertron Net, and simply incorporated the former into the latter when they built the Cybertron Net.
Nevertheless, I do remain convinced that the Japanese base seen in this story would go on to become the same one used by Fire Convoy's team in Car Robots over a decade later. Or at the very least, served as the inspiration for the Car Robots base.
But yeah, it seems like even Takara has let all of the G1 manga pre-Zone go forgotten, since all they and anyone ever seem to reference are just their cartoon counterparts. It's a shame, too, since up until Masterforce and Victory, that manga was all written to serve as tie-ins to the cartoons, set in the same continuity and everything. The 1985 G1 manga even served as a prelude to the Scramble City OVA, with Trypticon being built by the Decepticons while Metroplex was still undergoing construction. Alas, though, Masterforce and Victory decided to do their own thing instead of tying into their respective cartoons, and ever since it seems like Takara has gone on to ignore all of the G1 manga that was released prior to Zone.
Though, interestingly enough, the pre-Scramble City manga chapter that first introduced Ultra Magnus also introduced a few other very specific things that would go on to serve as inspiration for some very similar things later seen in the Car Robots cartoon. In that chapter, it is revealed that the Autobots have a Japanese division with secret bases being built all around the world hidden beneath human-operated facilities like parking garages, and all of these bases are connected together by an underground highway called the Cybertron Road (or "Autobot Road" in the English translation).
The Japanese Autobot base hidden under a parking garage looks like this (the second and third pics are from an old fan translation):
That sure is a lot of humans working there with their own workstations and monitors everywhere.
Now, fast forward to the year 2000 when the Car Robots cartoon showed us its base for the Autobots/Cybertrons, which was also located in Japan beneath a parking garage:
Monitors everywhere and several human-sized workstations, despite no humans actually working there (Ai only ever used just one console throughout the entire series, with the rest of those workstations going unused). While not an exact match in artwork, the resemblance between the two both in concept and design aesthetic is remarkably uncanny. The cartoon version would merely be a simplification of the manga's more detailed artwork.
Now, I did mention the Cybertron Road earlier, and while Car Robots's Cybertron Net (renamed "Global Space Bridge" in the RID dub) is very similar in concept, those two I don't actually believe to be one and the same. The Cybertron Road is said to be only 2500 meters below the surface, which would place it within the Earth's crust. Meanwhile, the first episode of Car Robots states that the Cybertron Net runs through Earth's mantle. Since the Earth's crust is about 70 kilometers deep, the Cybertron Road being 2500 meters underground would only be 2.5 kilometers down. Whereas the Cybertron Net being inside the mantle would put it way down, far below where the Cybertron Road would be.
Plus, Episode 21 of Car Robots also has Build Boy ("Wedge" in the dub) confirm that he and the other Buildmasters ("Build Team" in the dub) are the ones who built the Cybertron Net in the first place, and they didn't come to Earth until 2000, when the manga is set during the late 1980s. Though, it is still possible that the Buildmasters could have used the Cybertron Road as a springboard for the Cybertron Net, and simply incorporated the former into the latter when they built the Cybertron Net.
Nevertheless, I do remain convinced that the Japanese base seen in this story would go on to become the same one used by Fire Convoy's team in Car Robots over a decade later. Or at the very least, served as the inspiration for the Car Robots base.
Thanks for the links. I've got the original Japanese versions but I'll have to check now if I ordered the English versions.
Another backer update:
hasbropulse.com
First Looks at HasLab Deathsaurus Early Sample
Greetings, HasLab Deathsaurus Backers! Our good friend and product designer, Evan, has been working tirelessly to ensure that your Emperor of Destruction, HasLab Deathsaurus, is coming along to be a perfect display piece in your Transformers collection! After all, the Emperor wants his figure...
hasbropulse.com
Looks like he coming along nicely!
"I told you that Emperor of Destruction was a chicken!"
He wears a disguise, like all Decepticon guys, he's not a man, he's Deathsaurus Boo...
Damn I'm so happy I backed this guy. He looks fantastic!
He did drop us a couple of hints about the next HasLab project. He said Japanese Universe character, alternating good and bad so we're back to good guy. What do you guys think? I was thinking they might try and do something like Big Convoy or maybe even Fire Convoy.
He did drop us a couple of hints about the next HasLab project. He said Japanese Universe character, alternating good and bad so we're back to good guy. What do you guys think? I was thinking they might try and do something like Big Convoy or maybe even Fire Convoy.
Sky Garry or Grandus from those hints. If it's either of those could we finish off some more Micromaster teams please Hasbro.
Hmm... I still feel like it's going to be something do celebrate the 40th anniversary. Japanese Hero character.
Could they go for a majorly bumped up Star Convoy? Or even the whole Battlestars team?
ZacWilliam, either that or a better Dai Atlus seem like the only big Japanese Hero options.
Could they go for a majorly bumped up Star Convoy? Or even the whole Battlestars team?
ZacWilliam, either that or a better Dai Atlus seem like the only big Japanese Hero options.
Star Convoy feels like a bit of a waste of a Haslab slot tbh. There's no way they won't do a Commander Star Convoy at some point.
Fort Max as a new mold instead of a half-assed Metroplex remold?
I had forgotten they said it wouldn't be an Optimus. So, I'm guessing that takes out Big Convoy and Fire Convoy.
Someone like Apache would probably be a waste of a HasLab spot, right? He seems to basic of a design to be a HasLab project. Plus, he doesn't do much to celebrate the 40th anniversary. Maybe Grandus isn't that far off of a idea.
Someone like Apache would probably be a waste of a HasLab spot, right? He seems to basic of a design to be a HasLab project. Plus, he doesn't do much to celebrate the 40th anniversary. Maybe Grandus isn't that far off of a idea.