Gobots and Machine Robo News & Discussion

I liked Carly well enough. No, she didn't have much to do, but that was par for the course for human sidekicks in shows like that back then.

That she was a MIT girl and clearly not just arm candy for Spike put her a cut above most of her contemporaries.

Anyway Go-Bots!
I think the most frustrating thing about modern Go-Bots is how they have to be tied to Transformers in some way.

The Tom Scioli Go-Bots comic from 2018 was frustrating because the entire run is dedicated to telling a completely original Go-Bots story, only to swerve and go "it was a Transformers prequel the whole time!" at the end. Between that and FunPub/AVP insisting that the Go-Bots were merely multiversal variants of the Transformers... it's just unfortunate.

I actually find this more frustrating than having Megatron kill Cy-Kill now and then in the comics. At least that's just an Easter egg.

Tuxedo Prime said:

(And since I'm in riff mode, I'm now wondering if a shrink ray was among the plots in Jim Sorenson's "Virtual Season 2".)

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There was an actual Gobots episode with a shrink ray, so I'm not sure he would have felt a need for a second one?
Cy-Kill's Shrinking Ray

KingSwoop said:

Matt Trakker > Matt Hunter, obv.

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Matt Finder

Andrusi said:

Matt Finder

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No no, her name is "Path Finder".

Sabrblade said:

No no, her name is "Path Finder".

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"Patthew Finder", ackshually.

I was going through some old toys a while ago and found some Go-Bots that have seen better days. It made me think about a few others I had as a kid, and I'd like to get replacements,but I can't remember their names. Any chance anyone can identify them from descriptions of old memories?

First, a red, blue, and silver spaceship. It mostly transformed by big red shells on the shoulders closing down around the torso.

A dark green or black A10 with big chrome weapon packs under the wings. The wings ended up on the sides of his legs in robot mode and the jet engines became his arms.

A white luxury car or limo. In robot mode he has a chrome head with a top hat.

A white and orange forklift. The forks become his shins.

A dark blue or black monster guy with jagged pincer claws for hands. Turned into a car (or a spacecraft with wheels) with big spikes folding out of his feet.

A bigger, dark green monster with a sort of amphibious look. Also turned into a car, mostly by folding his legs under like a Pretender inner robot.

Another bigger guy. This one was mostly gray and black with some blue and yellow parts. He had a chrome insectile head with big red bug eyes on the sides. He split in half for alt mode; the top half became a sort of bee while the legs became a flat carrier with clips for the top half to attach. I seem to remember this one having die cast inside the upper arms and shoulder joints, and being very articulated for the time.

The Mighty Mollusk said:

I was going through some old toys a while ago and found some Go-Bots that have seen better days. It made me think about a few others I had as a kid, and I'd like to get replacements,but I can't remember their names. Any chance anyone can identify them from descriptions of old memories?

First, a red, blue, and silver spaceship. It mostly transformed by big red shells on the shoulders closing down around the torso.

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Klaws

The Mighty Mollusk said:

A dark green or black A10 with big chrome weapon packs under the wings. The wings ended up on the sides of his legs in robot mode and the jet engines became his arms.

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Bad Boy

The Mighty Mollusk said:

A white luxury car or limo. In robot mode he has a chrome head with a top hat.

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Tux

The Mighty Mollusk said:

A white and orange forklift. The forks become his shins.

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Spoons

The Mighty Mollusk said:

A dark blue or black monster guy with jagged pincer claws for hands. Turned into a car (or a spacecraft with wheels) with big spikes folding out of his feet.

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Pincher

The Mighty Mollusk said:

A bigger, dark green monster with a sort of amphibious look. Also turned into a car, mostly by folding his legs under like a Pretender inner robot.

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Vamp

The Mighty Mollusk said:

Another bigger guy. This one was mostly gray and black with some blue and yellow parts. He had a chrome insectile head with big red bug eyes on the sides. He split in half for alt mode; the top half became a sort of bee while the legs became a flat carrier with clips for the top half to attach. I seem to remember this one having die cast inside the upper arms and shoulder joints, and being very articulated for the time.

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Traitor
(No, seriously, that's really his name.)

And Vamp is female, btw.

Dead on all around. Thanks!

The Mighty Mollusk said:

I was going through some old toys a while ago and found some Go-Bots that have seen better days. It made me think about a few others I had as a kid, and I'd like to get replacements,but I can't remember their names. Any chance anyone can identify them from descriptions of old memories?

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How good of condition replacements are you looking for? I may have some duplicates; I rarely pass up opportunities to pick up Gobots when I find them, but I'm also not super picky about what shape they are in, as I can always use spare parts to make one good figure out of 2 or 3 broken ones. I know I don't have the Super Vamp or Klaws or Traitor, but I may have an extra regular size Vamp (possibly missing an antenna, they seem to break easily?), and it's very possible I have extras of Pincher, Tux, Spoons, and Bad Boy in decent shape (possibly missing the rubber tires, as those degrade). I can check my extras some time this weekend, and also check my parts bins if I don't have any complete extras.

On a side note, it would be cool if Hasbro made a "legally distinct" Tux figure. A limousine Transformer would be neat, and a black hearse retool would be even neater!

NovaSaber said:

Spoons

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RotF Deadlift is an homage to Spoons.

LordGigaIce said:

Anyway Go-Bots!
I think the most frustrating thing about modern Go-Bots is how they have to be tied to Transformers in some way.

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For me it's a matter of degree.
Stretch/Tux having immigrated from the TF:Animated continuity (where he was given life by an Allspark shard) is an Easter egg that doesn't affect much if anything of Challenge continuity.

But then you get....

LordGigaIce said:

The Tom Scioli Go-Bots comic from 2018 was frustrating because the entire run is dedicated to telling a completely original Go-Bots story, only to swerve and go "it was a Transformers prequel the whole time!" at the end.

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It's not as though there needs to be a one-plot-twist limit on these sorts of stories, but following "GoBotron is future Earth" with "GoBotron will travel the multiverse making new machine worlds, including at least one Cybertron" seems a bit of a plot pileup.

And I wouldn't even mind the meta-text of GoBots predating Transformers (as I believe the former were released six months before the latter), but the way that reference was handled by Scioli... eh.

LordGigaIce said:

Between that and FunPub/AVP insisting that the Go-Bots were merely multiversal variants of the Transformers... it's just unfortunate.

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Again, I wouldn't mind reading an honest-to-goodness Reign of Zero comic (with Bay-esque redesigns, even). I even liked FunPub's repurposing of Movie toys Fracture and Deadlift as Unicronian reformats of Crasher and Spoons.

But, as always, that's just me. And I'm keenly aware that others with fond memories of the Challenge continuity may not feel the same way.

LordGigaIce said:

I actually find this more frustrating than having Megatron kill Cy-Kill now and then in the comics. At least that's just an Easter egg.

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Cy-Kill did at least have a better grasp of the value of branding, ironically. However legitimate your issues with the deceptions of the High Senate, naming your group the "UntrustworthyMechs" in response tends to give the wrong impression.

Going back to post-Shroudening multiverse, though, I find myself wondering: how many "Primes" might the GoBots have had? VecTor and The Evil One were confirmed, but would the other "usual lot" have analogues or might it be a whole new cast for the first generation?

Tuxedo Prime said:

Cy-Kill did at least have a better grasp of the value of branding, ironically. However legitimate your issues with the deceptions of the High Senate, naming your group the "UntrustworthyMechs" in response tends to give the wrong impression.

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And yet it's the Decepticon emblem and not the Renegade emblem people get tattoos of.

Tuxedo Prime said:

Going back to post-Shroudening multiverse, though, I find myself wondering: how many "Primes" might the GoBots have had? VecTor and The Evil One were confirmed, but would the other "usual lot" have analogues or might it be a whole new cast for the first generation?

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It just does nothing for me. I'm not even anti-Thirteen. I don't recoil at the concept like some do. Still, I don't think they need to be shoved into the Go-Bots franchise.

LordGigaIce said:

And yet it's the Decepticon emblem and not the Renegade emblem people get tattoos of.

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Wait, GoBots had emblems?

*Googles*

Huh. I guess they did. Sorta. I might have even seen them before. I think the fact that I can't remember if I have seen them before or not says something about how memorable they are, though. I have a feeling I might have this revelation again in a few years...

Exatron said:

Wait, GoBots had emblems?

*Googles*

Huh. I guess they did. Sorta. I might have even seen them before. I think the fact that I can't remember if I have seen them before or not says something about how memorable they are, though. I have a feeling I might have this revelation again in a few years...

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Transformers succeeded where Go-Bots failed for a lot of reasons, but I do believe the worldbuilding through marketing helped Transformers a great deal. The Autobots and Decepticons had these cool emblems that were emblazoned on each character, and it helped make two eclectic mixes of colourful robots feel like two "uniformed" factions.

Go-Bots kind of had this, but they were rarely pushed.

Tuxedo Prime said:

Going back to post-Shroudening multiverse, though, I find myself wondering: how many "Primes" might the GoBots have had? VecTor and The Evil One were confirmed, but would the other "usual lot" have analogues or might it be a whole new cast for the first generation?

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I don't think they should need them because the multivesal singularity thing was the only reason "every universe has the Thirteen" ever had any business being true even of Transformers universes.

LordGigaIce said:

And yet it's the Decepticon emblem and not the Renegade emblem people get tattoos of.

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I've never gotten a tattoo because I've never felt so strongly about anything that I needed to permanently etch it into my hide, but now you've given me a goal...

Personally, I feel like the best way to do GoBots within Transformers is to portray the characters as the original cyborg GoBots disguised as Transformers. That way, they can have whatever body they need to 'blend in', without 'replacing' the original versions.

For what it's worth, in my own headcanon, the G2 character Gobots is actually a living dimensional bridge between the Transformers' and GoBots' universes, allowing the Guardians and Renegades to secretly infiltrate the ranks of the Autobots and Decepticons with plenty of repurposed 'disguises' on both sides.

LordGigaIce said:

It just does nothing for me. I'm not even anti-Thirteen. I don't recoil at the concept like some do. Still, I don't think they need to be shoved into the Go-Bots franchise.

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NovaSaber said:

I don't think they should need them because the multivesal singularity thing was the only reason "every universe has the Thirteen" ever had any business being true even of Transformers universes.

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Aside from the philosophical question, there are the following points to consider:
1) Some analogues from the Classic Thirteen simply wouldn't be needed (Micronus, for example).
2) Some of GoBots' Deep Lore beings fulfill multiple roles (The Master Renegade, for example, has elements of the Liege Maximo but his creating Monster GoBots invokes both Onyx and Quintus).

But, VecTor + The Evil One (The Fallen) + The Master Renegade + The Engineer (Solus+Adaptus+Autonomous Maximus?) + one other would make five, which seems "primey" enough (mathematically and thematically) without being a simple cut-and-paste of the no-longer-singular Multiversal Thirteen.

Haywire said:

Personally, I feel like the best way to do GoBots within Transformers is to portray the characters as the original cyborg GoBots disguised as Transformers. That way, they can have whatever body they need to 'blend in', without 'replacing' the original versions.

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Well, that's how Takara did it:

- https://tfwiki.net/wiki/G1_GoBots

Haywire said:

Personally, I feel like the best way to do GoBots within Transformers is to portray the characters as the original cyborg GoBots disguised as Transformers. That way, they can have whatever body they need to 'blend in', without 'replacing' the original versions.

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If I were going to incorporate GoBots into a Transformers universe, I'd just make it a separate planet with the same origins as cyborgs and the disaster and all that stuff.

If I wanted to tie their origin in with Transformers themselves more directly, I would make Gobotron a long forgotten Cybertronian colony. But unlike most of them, where they seem to settle uninhabited worlds, I'd have them basically form a friendship with the humans there, and then when the disaster strikes, they use their tech to help convert the people of that world into the cyborgs we know as GoBots, who more or less become the predominant species there. Maybe there are still some "pure" Cybertronians among them, but they wouldn't necessarily stand out in any grand way.