Thread of Thoughts, Questions (and Maybe Even Answers) That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

In a vacuum or in general I get it. The vehicles are supposed to be the moneymakers because they're generally large, empty chunks to produce, so pivoting to needing a lot of engineering and parts is not the move.

But it's such a no-brainer for a Collaborative line. Joe compatibility has to be part of it, so there'll always be a bit of compromise, but that's good to have. Done that way, like Missing Link it seems like a fun way to make some classic or vintage designs available again. I'm not a fan of having them be existing Transformers characters (I wonder what the rationale there is), as I rather like Collaborative bots being their own thing (more Ectrotron, less Sonic The Robot Hedgehog No Not That One).

The relative paucity of GI Joe/TF collabs is unfortunate, as they've gotten better and better and there's lots of designs they could play with. They could even alternate bigger offerings (a VAMP or uh something else not boring) with smaller single-passenger ones like the Silver Mirage cycle, the Trouble Bubble, the Despoiler, or Serpentor's Air Chariot (those last two could even share some tooling or engineering).

Even if they don't go for Joe compatibility, sometimes Transformers needs a scifi vehicle, and those designs are right there free to use. Why not use them? It's baffling.

I think part of that is just the dearth of Transformers that aren't remakes or expansions of existing concepts or designs. It's been a minute since we could randomly get something like Energon Snow Cat for the first time.

Idk why they don't do it for, say, Cyberworld, but I more fervently want to see some damn elbow and neck joints in there before a Skystriker or whatever.

Plus I can kind of see them preferring to "save" that sort of stuff for an actual Collaborative line or release now that that niche has been formalized... not that they'll necessarily actually go through with it.

If they didn't want to go whole-hog on the Joe compatibility, they could always come with some miniature figures. Megabloks Joe figures are nice and articulated and already scale nicely with most traditional TF's. I know that those are Mattel instead of Hasbro, so it doesn't have to be those exactly, but just a similar figure at that same scale.

I would actually not mind a separate subline or capsule that uses the Headmasters/Titans Return play pattern.

I'd like to see Joe crossovers continue on two fronts. For Collaborative, keep doing what they've been doing. Full-sized Joe-compatible vehicles that turn into well-known Transformers characters. Fits with what's already been done, and uses the popular characters that would be more appealing to the Joe fans who otherwise wouldn't care.

Separate from that, do more toys like Viper. New characters in normal TF scales, just using Joe vehicles. Snow Cat would be a great place to start, especially with Energon Scorponok and Tidal Wave on the horizon.

I'm in for that second one. Viper was pretty cool and I hope they make a new one along with Bad Boy. But for the former, I'd prefer new characters. For all the development they'd probably never get, it'll still be less annoying than the millionth "but why is the AWE Striker Bumblebee, he's not even green".

lastmaximal said:

I'm in for that second one. Viper was pretty cool and I hope they make a new one along with Bad Boy. But for the former, I'd prefer new characters. For all the development they'd probably never get, it'll still be less annoying than the millionth "but why is the AWE Striker Bumblebee, he's not even green".

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Pretty sure that Viper from the new Powerglide was in one of the recent leaks?

lastmaximal said:

I think part of that is just the dearth of Transformers that aren't remakes or expansions of existing concepts or designs.

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Roadbuster says hello. A Joe vehicle would fit the character perfectly, and nobody could complain that they didn't just remake his original vehicle mode because Hasbro doesn't own it.

Roadbuster would be a perfect candidate, but I don't see them taking that layup. These remakes seem to either be "I see what you were going for but it's heavily compromised because 2/3 of it is someone else", or "wow this was blessed with its own mold and can be crazy faithful". Maybe to someone's concept art, which will likely already be legally distinct enough.

The REALLY odd thing is they JUST tried something new with Legacy Bulkhead, which was even a take that was perfect for some GI Joe integration. But they seem to have walked that approach back pretty far because it didn't play well with Homages: The Other Other Toyline.

It's just such a far cry from the days when we could just get a whole-ass Snow Cat just showing up as a Decepticon without any commentary. Cyberworld is doing the most out-there stuff with Snow Jazz and Frying Dutchman Scourge, but even that is its own kind of playing with things.

They could always just have the itty bitty figurines, like what came with Unicron. I like the idea of bringing back a kind of Titans Return play pattern, only they don't become heads, they just interact with the figure overall. Keeps the working cockpits without needing the character to be both huge and/or hollow. This SHOULD be viable at deluxe, or even voyager scale. We could probably have a lot more of them per year if they were more that size, too.

I don't know where to start with specific characters, but size-wise, something like the Human Alliance figures look like they'd be an option. I didn't have any of these, but based on what I'm digging up, it looks like the people are roughly 2" figures - MASK sized? - and the cars were close to Alternators.

Stepwise said:

I don't know where to start with specific characters, but size-wise, something like the Human Alliance figures look like they'd be an option. I didn't have any of these, but based on what I'm digging up, it looks like the people are roughly 2" figures - MASK sized? - and the cars were close to Alternators.

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You are correct, the cars were Alternators sized (1:24 scale) and the human figures were 2" (1:36 scale) so they weren't actually very consistent. Actual M.A.S.K. figures were 3" tall, which puts them right at 1:24 scale, so they actually look good with Alternators and Human Alliance toys. The problem, of course, is that the cars don't actually have ROOM for a 3" figure since they also have to fit in all the robot bits and bobs, so a 2" figure is as big as you're gonna be able to fit in there.