Transformers Legacy toyline

[lastmaximal]

I am very hazy on what little lore we have from the time. Why WERE they called Titan Masters? Were "bulks"/main Autobot/Decepticon partners the titans being mastered by becoming their heads? Or were the heads themselves titans and masters? Or something.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

The TFwiki has a page for them that assembled some summaries of the marketing material.

Titan Master - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

 

[lastmaximal]

Ah, okay, they did essentially crew the Titans, thanks! Interesting, that, and does nominally leave room for other types of Masters. Just have them also be crew in-story and happen to lend power in different ways

(But yeah, better to have "Masterforce" as a cluster with subtypes, rather than them all being Titan Masters), ; if nothing else,
Tlthe toy-lore matching might be a bit tricky because then you'd have, say, 3 engine bots and 3 bulks who aren't Headmasters but conveniently do have cavities for engines.

 

[LordGigaIce]

The Titanmasters were all Headmasters in practice. The marketing material, comics, and (ugh) show all made vague allusions to various Titan-related powers (as well as giving contradictory takes about whether they were going with American or Japanese-style Headmasters), but every Titanmaster shown was a Headmaster of some kind.

PotP gave us Primemasters, which was also kinda confusing. The marketing material made it out to be that these were mini versions of the Thirteen Primes themselves but they were functionally Powermasters being little blocks you could insert into the body (or body armour) of a larger figure.

Thing is the Primemasters used the same infrastructure as Titanmasters, being the same size and using the same base shape and ports. So if "Titanmasters" was meant to be a new catch-all term then they gave up on the idea after one line. Don't get me wrong, I think standardizing Headmasters and Powermasters around the same compatible play pattern is smart. It leads to fun interconnectivity.
I just don't think the naming has been very consistent.

 

[lastmaximal]

I've honestly lost sight of what I was originally saying, but I don't think I disagree with any of that.

 

[Sciflyer]

I just like the idea of lil' dudes interacting with bigger dudes. Call 'em what you will, but the concept is cool and the play patterns are fun.

 

[LordGigaIce]

I just like the idea of lil' dudes interacting with bigger dudes. Call 'em what you will, but the concept is cool and the play patterns are fun.

Cosigned

I've honestly lost sight of what I was originally saying, but I don't think I disagree with any of that.

I'm just saying I don't think "Titanmasters" was ever meant to be a catch-all for the various "Master" type robots, since they only ever used the term for what were Headmasters. Powermasters got rebranded "Primemasters" even though they were reworked to be compatible with Titanmasters.

Targetmasters are still vibin'

 

[wonko the sane?]

I just like the idea of lil' dudes interacting with bigger dudes. Call 'em what you will, but the concept is cool and the play patterns are fun.

It's part of the reason why the gijoe collaborative is so attractive to me right despite the price points. I don't even collect g.i.joe, and haven't since I was kid in the 90's.

 

[Sabrblade]

Targetmasters are still vibin'

Under the new name of "Battle Masters".

 

[lastmaximal]

I just like the idea of lil' dudes interacting with bigger dudes. Call 'em what you will, but the concept is cool and the play patterns are fun.

Hell yeah. Bring back Mini-Cons.

And Botbots.

 

[Superomegaprime]

I am very hazy on what little lore we have from the time. Why WERE they called Titan Masters? Were "bulks"/main Autobot/Decepticon partners the titans being mastered by becoming their heads? Or were the heads themselves titans and masters? Or something.

There is no real differences between Headmasters & Titan Masters as they are pretty much the same thing at the end of the day, robots that transform into heads and combine with larger bodies, with Fort Max & Scorponok being bots who pretty much double up on the basic idea to become even larger bots, so any confusion you have, is just down to the marketing and the gap of some twenty plus years between them!

 

[LordGigaIce]

There is no real differences between Headmasters & Titan Masters

To be fair there kinda is.
IDW established that each of the Thirteen had a Titanmaster in their "court" who could control Titans. And Hasbro's own marketing material made reference to Titanmasters maintaining and/or powering Titans in some way. I'm sure the Machinema show had something in it but I didn't watch it on account of the Combiner Wars show being trash.

Both toy marketing material and fiction seemed to alternate on whether or not they were American style (main body and head being separate characters) or Japanese style (head is the character body is a lifeless mech) Headmasters but there was at least a token effort to work in some connection to Titans.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Plus the whole cityspeaker concept.

 

[Sabrblade]

I'm sure the Machinema show had something in it but I didn't watch it on account of the Combiner Wars show being trash.

Just Emissary. No others.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Just Emissary. No others.

He was voiced by Jason David Frank?!?!?!

 

[Sabrblade]

He was voiced by Jason David Frank?!?!?!

Fort Max was Michael Dorn, Perceptor was Wil Wheaton, the voice cast was weird.

 

[LordGigaIce]

Fort Max was Michael Dorn, Perceptor was Wil Wheaton, the voice cast was weird.

What a weird but awesome voice cast to waste on a Machinema series

 

[Sabrblade]

What a weird but awesome voice cast to waste on a Machinema series

You have no idea.

P.S., "Machinima"

 

[Fullstrength Motleypuss]

You have no idea.

P.S., "Machinima"

More like Mach-enema, amirite?!?!

 

[Exatron]

I just like the idea of lil' dudes interacting with bigger dudes. Call 'em what you will, but the concept is cool and the play patterns are fun.

It was great when Soundwave and his cassette army did it, and it's never gotten old since.